# "Cargo cults"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2000, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136 "2000-12-12T03:41:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Peculiar\_Pixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@Peculiar\_Pixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peculiar_Pixie)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/1 "2000-12-12T03:41:54Z")
My stepfather insists upon the existence of “Cargo cults”, groups of poor, backwards natives who believe that supplies delivered to them via airplane are “gifts from the gods”, in a very literal sense. This smacks of colonialist “ha, ha, those crazy koo-koo heathen” braying to me. Is there any evidence that these “cults” actually exist? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/2 "2000-12-12T03:56:23Z")
I saw a bit on The Discovery Channel. Click here: [http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozgeography/p/409900.html](http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozgeography/p/409900.html) You’ll have to scroll down a bit, though. ---
**Author:** ![peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/3 "2000-12-12T04:05:10Z")
Many, many years ago I saw an Italian documentary showing these cultists prey to the incoming plane. I do not recall the exact scene now, but I remember half naked people below the roaring plane. I remember English subtutles. They had the word “cargo”. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/4 "2000-12-12T04:05:33Z")
Christopher Moore talked about cargo cults in Island of the Sequined Love Nun. So it must be true. 😉 Nobody makes that shit up. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/5 "2000-12-12T04:09:22Z")
My anthropologist’s sensibilities are offended by your judgment of “poor, backwards natives,” but the short answer is “Yes” cargo cults exist. Long answer: In New Guinea and other Polynesian regions, there exist tribes who wait for phantom ships or planes to bring their dead ancestors or cargo (matches, rifles, tobacco, cars, etc.). The “cargo” itself is irrelevant, as the point was that cargo cults belive the planes or ships will usher in a new era of reunion with the dead and liberation from white subjugation. Before you go feeling sorry for the poor saps waiting around for planes and ships that never arrive, think for a minute our own traditions of salvation and immortality. Basically, natives still await their fair share of the riches (i.e., cargo) that colonizers kept from them. Check out Marvin Harris’ _Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches_, which provides a concise history and analysis: “Without the cheapness of native labor and the expropriation of native lands, the colonial powers would never have gotten so rich. In one sense, therefore, the natives were entitled to the products of the industrialized nations even though they couldn’t pay for them. Cargo was their way of saying this.” ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/6 "2000-12-12T04:19:59Z")
Maybe I’ll go search in a bit, but from memory what I’ve heard and read is that these cults date back to WW II and originated with the islanders’ appreciation of the wondrous stuff that Allied military transports delivered to their locales (Spam, etc.) and their “shrines” take the form of approximations of landing strips and control towers. Hmm…, maybe I’ll go search. ---
**Author:** ![peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/7 "2000-12-12T04:26:46Z")
[http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057318](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057318) This is the link to the documentary I mentioned. As it turns out, there are several sequences, i.e. Mondo Cane2, etc. The one I saw starts with Rudolpho Valentino. ---
**Author:** ![Peculiar\_Pixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@Peculiar\_Pixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peculiar_Pixie)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/8 "2000-12-12T04:32:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by peepthis \* > **My anthropologist’s sensibilities are offended by your judgment of "poor, backwards natives,"** I should know better than to use sarcsam via the printed word. I’m on your side, peepthis. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/9 "2000-12-12T04:35:48Z")
[A copyrighted site that mentions cargo cults](http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low/articles/c/c004000768f.html). (Hoping I snipped this enough to pass fair use…) > [@](#): > > CARGO CULTS, religious movements arising from the impact of modern technology and mercantilism on developing cultures… World War II brought further cultural disruptions to the area, and new cults arose. After the war and the withdrawal of military personnel, some cults built landing strips, believing that planes would continue to arrive bringing cargo. > Typically, cult members do not associate the awaited cargo with the Western economic system that produces it and cannot understand why the goods do not arrive. Eventually, the leaders are discredited by the failure of their prophecies, and the groups disband. > > Cargo cults have been explained in various ways. One explanation is that they are social movements that help people cope with the problem of culture contact and change. [Another copyrighted source](http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/02308.html). From [Ghost Dance of the White Guys](http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/nar/spring95/ghost.html): > [@](#): > > Some Pacific Island cultures reacted interestingly to a sudden and extraordinary influx of wealth during WWII, when the Great Industrial Nations arrived, bringing with them the appurtenances of their Great Industrial War. Not completely content with the trickling down of that wealth (although even GI trash was something strange and wonderful), and especially disappointed when the soldiers left and the trickle stopped, some of the people sought to explain why the gods had failed to send more of that wealth directly to them. They also suggested a way to correct the problem. Thus the Cargo Cults were born. > > For some of the Cults, the airstrip was a key concept. After all, the GI’s built airstrips and then huge airplanes full of goods came. Clearly, the soldiers’ airstrips had decoyed the airplanes that carried the gods’ gifts. The folk had only to build their own to rectify the situation. Yes, if you build it, they will come. I may never forget this image, seen in a PBS documentary years ago: a model-like airstrip, maybe forty feet long and ten feet wide, built of wood, and set up so that it juts over a cliff-edge high on a mountain. There is a man there holding a spear. He gazes at the sky. Apparently they date back further than WW II, but that event was a shot in the arm. ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/10 "2000-12-12T05:09:53Z")
In Melanesia (New Guinea and various islands out toward Fiji), goods like food are acquired in a twofold process. One is plain old labor - planting, weaving, harvesting, etc. The other is magical - prayers to spirits, appropriate rituals, etc. It is expected that success in labor is not possible without magical help, and the magic alone will not produce the desired goods. Enter the foreigners, circa 1940. They, whether Japanese or, more often, Allies, do precious little obvious work and have tons of food, clothes, and luxuries. Obviously, they have some kind of fantastically effective magic to turn their meagre work into such wealth. Cargo cults form as different Melanesians attempt to discover the exact magic necessary to gain this wealth, usually by imitating the foreigners. This may range from building “airstrips” where the Melanesians’ cargo will arrive to modifying foreign religions (usually, but not always, Christianity) to local beliefs. Want a book? _Road Bilong Kago_, by Peter Lawrence, tells you much of what you need to know. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/11 "2000-12-12T05:59:04Z")
The idea was that around WWII times, fighter craft and bombers were shot down over the islands, and the natives considered it to be gifts from the gods above when they found the cargo on board. Cargo cults, they were called, I believe. [http://www.channel1.com/mpr/Articles/63-frum.html](http://www.channel1.com/mpr/Articles/63-frum.html) has some interesting bits on cargo cults in the South Pacific: > [@](#): > > In the Melanesian moral system riches were exclusively the result of labor. When the foreigners came the moral compass of their world lost its fix and swung wild and useless. It was necessary to redress the situation. It seemed that the whites had fooled the gods with their superior magic, so that all this wealth-cargo-was > misdirected. > > The Melanesians had to call the gods’ attention to the situation, and it appeared that white rituals were the key. So they devised something like the Jon Frum ceremonials, which arose during World War II in response to the sudden appearance of a US military supply base. They would dress in an approximation of US Army uniform and conduct drills. They set up a miniature air base with a control tower and radio antenna (a vine strung between poles). During the ritual the chiefs “utter ‘magic’ phrases, such as ‘Roger…over and out…you have landing clearance…come in’.” [1] The Red Cross, apparently borrowed from American military hospitals where islanders could get free medical attention during World War II, is also an important symbol for the cult. ``` http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm also has this to say, in way of example of "cargo cult science" which is somewhat relevant, though not really tracable: ``` > [@](#): > > In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/12 "2000-12-12T06:26:21Z")
How bout the people on New Guinea who have incorporated cricket matches into their tribal rituals? I once saw a BBC documentary on this. ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/13 "2000-12-12T13:26:36Z")
Edwino - I think what you saw was cricket matches between villages in the Trobriand Islands, part of Papua New Guinea. It’s a part of the festivities when one village hosts a feast for another. This cricket is highly ritualized and the home team always wins. Same locale, but not part of a cargo cult ritual. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/14 "2000-12-12T13:57:39Z")
I saw a great documentary called _Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video_ that showed a Pacific tribe that actually worshipped _Lava Lamps_! They also received Hula Hoops and other things we would consider “fads” from their gods. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/15 "2000-12-12T14:04:23Z")
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned _The Gods Must Be Crazy_ yet. Despite it being fictional, it’s about a cargo cult. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cargo-cults/45136/16 "2000-12-12T14:15:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I can’t believe no one’s mentioned _The Gods Must Be Crazy_ yet. Despite it being fictional, it’s about a cargo cult. I don’t think it’s really about a cargo cult. The bushmen weren’t worshipping effigies of aircraft. Rather, they only received one item from the gods, and wanted to give it back because of the trouble it caused.