Cargo cults are unorthodox religious movements, mainly in New Guinea and the islands of Melanesia, that

essentially maintain that manufactured western goods (“cargo”) have been created by divine spirits and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that white people have unfairly gained control of these objects. Cargo cults thus focus on overcoming what they perceive as undue ‘white’ influences by conducting rituals similar to the white behavior they have observed, presuming that the ancestors will at last recognize their own and send them cargo.

One of the most enduring cargo cults is that of John Frum. John Frum is a godlike figure, a mythic American GI, sometimes depicted as a black man, whose return from the sacred volcano will bring the cargo of wealth and prosperity to his followers.

More on cargo cults from the BBC’s h2g2.

1260 days ago