Cargo cult

Cargo cults have been recorded since the 19th century, but they became especially widespread after the Second World War . Members of a cult usually do not fully understand the significance of production or commerce . Their concepts of modern society, religion and economics can be fragmented.

In the most famous cults of cargo from coconut palms and straw are built "exact copies" of the runways , airports and radio towers . Followers of the cult build them, believing that these buildings will attract transport aircraft (which are considered messengers of spirits), filled with cargo. Believers regularly conduct drill exercises (“drill”) and a kind of military marches, using branches instead of rifles and drawing on the body of the order and the inscription “USA” ^[1] .

Researchers Zacharia Sitchin and Alan Elford point to the cargo cult as an argument in favor of their theory that many mythological texts describe real events, that is, they are a form of historical evidence.

The first cults of cargo were recorded in the late XIX and early XX centuries. The earliest is the Tuk movement , which originated in Fiji in 1885. Other early cults arose mainly in Papua New Guinea - the Tarot cult in the north and the insanity of Vailal .

Classic cargo cults were common during and after World War II. A huge amount of cargo was landed on the islands during the Pacific campaign against the Japanese Empire , which made fundamental changes in the life of the islanders. Industrial-produced clothing , canned goods , tents , weapons and other useful things in large quantities appeared on the islands in order to provide the army, as well as the islanders, who were the guides of the military and hospitable owners. At the end of the war, the air bases were abandoned, and the cargo (cargo) no longer arrived.

To get goods and see falling parachutes , arriving airplanes or arriving ships, the islanders imitated the actions of soldiers , sailors and pilots . They made headphones from coconut halves and applied them to their ears while in control towers constructed of wood. They depicted landing signals while on a runway built of wood. They lit torches to illuminate these lanes and lighthouses . Adherents of the cult believed that foreigners had a special connection with their ancestors, who were the only creatures who could produce such wealth.

The islanders built life-size wood aircraft, runways to attract aircraft. In the end, since this did not lead to the return of the “divine” planes with an amazing load, they completely abandoned their previous religious beliefs that existed before the war, and began to more carefully worship the airfields and aircraft.

Over the past 75 years, most cargo cults have disappeared. However, the cult of John Froom is still alive on the island of Tanna ( Vanuatu ) ^[2] . On the same island in the village of Yaohnanen lives the tribe of the same name, which professes the cult of worship of Prince Philip ^[3] .

The term was widely known in part due to a speech by the physicist Richard Feynman , delivered at the California Institute of Technology and entitled " Science of Aircraft Fans " ^[4] , which later became part of the book "You, of course, joke, Mr. Feynman." In his speech, Feynman noted that aircraft fans recreate the appearance of the airfield, down to headphones with “antennas” from bamboo sticks, but the planes do not land. Feynman compared with the fans of some scientists (in particular, psychologists ), who, in his opinion, often conduct research that has all the external attributes of a real science, but in reality constitutes a pseudoscience that is neither worthy of support nor respect.

Political scientist Yekaterina Shulman introduces the concept of “reverse cargo cult” - it is used in relation to public institutions whose structure is copied from other countries, but which are arranged as surface imitations and work much worse than the original. Moreover, officials responsible for their work often make a logical substitution of concepts - the principles of work of advanced public institutions are declared false because their imitation works poorly ^[5] .

One well-known cult on the island of Tanna of the New Hebrides Archipelago (since 1980, called Vanuatu ) still exists. The central figure of the cult is the messiah named John Froom . The first mention of John Froom in official documents dates back to 1940, however, despite the youth of this myth, no one knows if John Frum actually existed. One of the legends describes him as a short man in a coat with shiny buttons and a thin voice and whitish hair. He made strange prophecies and made every effort to turn the population against missionaries. In the end, he “returned to his ancestors”, promising his triumphant second coming, accompanied by an abundance of “cargo”. In his vision of the end of the world, there was a “great cataclysm”: mountains will fall and valleys will fall asleep (which is similar to the Book of Isaiah (40: 4): “Every valley should be filled, and every mountain and hill should be lowered ...” Explanation of this similarity is not necessary to search in the fundamental properties of the human psyche or in the collective unconscious of Jung - the islands have been teeming with missionaries for decades.), old people will regain youth, diseases will disappear, white people will be forever banished from the island, and “cargo” will arrive in such quantities that everyone can em take as much as he wants.

One of John Frum's prophecies was that during the second coming he would bring new money with a picture of a coconut. In this regard, everyone should get rid of the white man’s currency. In 1941, this led to a massive waste of money among the population; everyone quit working, and the island's economy suffered serious damage. The colony administration arrested the instigators, but no action could eradicate the cult of John Frum.

A little later, a new doctrine spread that John Frum was the king of America. The appearance in the American army of black people only reinforced the beliefs of the local population.

Further, the myth changed and from "the low king of the United States," Froom turned into a "high resident of South America."

It is believed that John Froom will return on February 15, but the year of his return is unknown. Every year on February 15, believers gather for a religious ceremony to greet him. The return has not yet taken place, but they are not discouraged.

The high priest of the cult was a man named Nambas. Nambas in a friendly manner called his messiah simply “John” and claimed that he regularly spoke to him on the “radio”. It happened like this: a certain old woman with wires wrapped around her waist fell into a trance and began to utter a random set of words, which Nambas then interpreted as allegedly the words of John Frum. Nambas said that he knew about the arrival of operators studying his cult in advance, because John Frum "warned" him "on the radio." The naturalist Attenborough asked for permission to look at the “radio”, but for obvious reasons he was refused. ^[6]

A similar cult, the dance of spirits , originated from the contact of Indians and Anglo-Americans at the end of the 19th century. The prophet Vovok of the people, preaching, preached that if you dance in a certain way, the ancestors would return by rail , and the new land would cover white people.

During the Vietnam War, part of the Hmong people believed in the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ , who would come dressed in camouflage at the wheel of a military jeep to take them to the promised land.

Throughout the history of the uprisings of Mashon and Matabele in 1896-1897, messianic beliefs resembling a cargo cult arose against English colonization in Southern Rhodesia. One of the leaders of the uprising, priest Mkvati and his associates firmly adhered to the principle that their warriors should kill Europeans, but should not take their things ^[7] .

Some Amazon Indians carved models of cassette audio players from wood that they used to talk to perfumes.

• John Froom is a prophet in one of the cults of cargo.

in Russian

• Eliade M. Cosmic Renewal and Eschatology.
• Crisis cults // Berezkin Yu. E. Inca. The historical experience of the empire. - L .: Nauka , 1991 .-- 232 p.
• Tutorsky A.V. The category of the “future” and the study of the movements of Yali and John Froom in foreign historiography // Historical Studies . 2018.Vol. 11. C. 105-121.

in other languages

• Harris, Marvin . Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture . New York: Random House, 1974.
• Inglis, Judy. "Cargo Cults: The Problem of Explanation", Oceania vol. xxvii no. 4, 1957.
• Jebens, Holger (ed.). Cargo, Cult , and Culture Critique . Honolulu: University of Hawaii 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.
• Read, KE A Cargo Situation in the Markham Valley, New Guinea . Southwestern Journal of Anthropology , vol. 14 no. 3, 1958.
• Tabani, Marc. Une pirogue pour le paradis: le culte de John Frum à Tanna . Paris: Editions de la MSH, 2008.
• Tabani, Marc & Abong, Marcelin. Kago, Kastom, Kalja: the study of indigenous movements in Melanesia today . Marseilles: Pacific-Credo Publications, 2013.
• Trenkenschuh, F. Cargo cult in Asmat: Examples and prospects , in: F. Trenkenschuh (ed.), An Asmat Sketchbook , vol. 2, Hastings, NE: Crosier Missions, 1974.
• Wagner, Roy. The invention of culture . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
• Worsley, Peter. The trumpet shall sound: a study of "cargo" cults in Melanesia , London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1957.

• Cargo cult movie
• Religious scholar Ivar Maksutov about the origin of the term, worship of aircraft and the fragility of the cult // PostNauka , 04/03/2013