Cargo cult
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- This article is about cargo cults as a religious phenomenon. For the musician see Cargo Cult (music).
Cargo cult is a term for a group of religious movements that occurred in Melanesia. These Cargo Cults believed that manufactured western goods ('cargo') were created by ancestral spirits and intended for Melanesian people. White people, however, had unfairly gained control of these objects. Cargo cults thus focused on purifying their communities of what they perceived as 'white' influences by conducting rituals similar to the white behavior they had observed, presuming that this activity would make cargo come. The most famous examples of this behavior are airstrips, airports, and radios made out of coconuts, straw, and other jungle materials that were built in the belief that transport planes full of cargo would land on them if they were built. Today, most historians and anthropologists argue that the term 'Cargo Cult' is a misnomer that describes a variety of phenomena. However, the idea has captured the imagination of many people in the First World, and the term continues to be used today.
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History
Discussions of cargo cults usually begin with a series of movements that occurred in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The earliest cargo cult is the 'Tuka Movement' that began in Fiji in 1885. Other early movements occur mostly in Papua New Guinea, including the Taro Cult in Northern Papua, and the Vailala Madness documented by F.E. Williams, one of the first anthropologists to conduct fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.
The classic period of cargo cult activity, however, was the years during and after World War II. The vast amounts of war materiel that were air-dropped into these islands during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of these islanders as manufactured clothing, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers—and also the islanders who were their guides and hosts. When the war moved on, and ultimately when it ended, the airbases were abandoned and no new "cargo" was then being dropped.
In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders adopted a shallow version of the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses. The cultists thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to spill such riches. By mimicking the foreigners, they hoped to bypass them.
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size mockups of airplanes out of straw, and created new military style landing strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. The cultural impact of these practices was not to bring about the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war, but to eradicate religious practices that had existed prior to the war.
Eventually, the Pacific cultists gave up. But, from time to time, the term "Cargo cult" is invoked as an English language idiom, to mean any group of people making obeisance to something that it is obvious they do not comprehend.
They are perhaps best known because of a speech by physicist Richard Feynman at a Caltech commencement, which became a chapter in the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". In the speech, Feynman pointed out that cargo cultists create all the appearance of an airport—right down to headsets with bamboo "antennas"—yet the airplanes don't come. Feynman argued that scientists often produce studies with all the trappings of real science, but which are nonetheless pseudoscience and unworthy of either respect or support.
Other Instances of Cargo Cults
A similar cult, the dance of the spirits, arose from contact between American Indians and the American civilization in late 19th century. The Paiute prophet Wovoka preached that by dancing in a certain fashion, the ancestors would come back on railways and a new earth would cover the white people.
Some Amazonian Indians have carved wood mockups of cassette players (gabarora from Portuguese gravadora or Spanish grabadora) that they use to communicate with spirits.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris has linked the social mechanisms that produce cargo cults to those of Messianism.
Analogues in Modern Culture
The cargo cult has been used as an analogy to describe certain phenomena in the First World, particularly in the area of business. For example, during the 1990s, many companies began introducing computers en masse, inspired by the apparent connection between technology and success (e.g. Microsoft). Holding a nebulous belief that computers would "bring" profitability, just as the airstrips and control towers had "brought" cargo, a large number of businesses (and, soon afterward, schools and government agencies) bought into the hype. The inability of many workers to keep up with technology upgrades may represent a side-effect of this process.
Sources and further reading
- Jebens, Holger (ed.). Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004.
- Kaplan, Martha. Neither cargo nor cult : ritual politics and the colonial imagination in Fiji. Durham : Duke University Press, 1995.
- Lawrence, Peter. Road belong cargo : a study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea. Manchester University Press, 1964
- Lindstrom, Lamont. Cargo cult : strange stories of desire from Melanesia and beyond. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, 1993.
- Worsley, Peter. The trumpet shall sound : a study of "cargo" cults in Melanesia. London : MacGibbon & Kee, 1957.
See also
Similar analogies have been made to other shallow emulation practices:
External links
- A presentation on Cargo Cults (http://anth.ucalgary.ca/DHatt/Anth473/Cargo.htm)
- Information on the Jon Frum Cargo Cult (still active) (http://enzo.gen.nz/jonfrum/index.htm)de:Cargo-Kult
fr:Culte du cargo pl:kult cargo fi:Lastikultti
Categories: Magic | Cults