Previous / Next image (1 of 1) {image 11} This piece was made for Form class. The assignment was to create a cabinet of curiosity to house a collection of hybrid objects that were created using the software Maya. They were then made into cardboard models using Pepakura and then skinned with different materials. The collection of objects were inspired by Cargo Cults that exists in the South Pacific. Rather than copying ritual objects, I created these hybrid objects through a series of exercises in class to create narrative and association to each object and create new meaning. The term cargo cult is used to describe the religious movements of New Guinea and Melanesia which resulted after the encounter between tribal societies and Western civilization. In this context, “cargo" refers to Western manufactured goods, which, from the perspective of the indigenous people, seem to be constructed, ordered, and delivered via various magical processes. The believers of cargo cults sometimes maintain that these articles have been created by divine spirits and are intended for them, but that Westerners have unfairly gained control of these objects. In other instances, such as the John Frumm movement on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members actively worship the Americans who first brought the cargo. In both cases, many of the beliefs and practices particular to these cults focus on the ritualistic performance of “white behaviors,” with the assumption that they will cause the gods or ancestors to at last recognize their own and send them cargo. In this way, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, bless the believers with material which will then bring a time of harmony and prosperity where the indigenous people will appropriate westerners “power” and material goods —a standpoint that gives them a profoundly millenarian flavor. The most prolific period of cargo cult activity occurred during the Second World War and many years after it. The increased practice can be tied to two main causes: first, the Pacific campaign airdropped vast amounts of equipment; second, the deployment of American and Japanese troops. These contact experiences led to drastic changes in the lifestyles of the islanders, many of whom had never seen either foreigners or manufactured goods. Over the course of the war, the islanders often came to rely on mass-produced clothing, medicine, food, and weapons, which arrived to equip soldiers but was often given to native islanders who acted as their guides and hosts. At the same time, errant pallets of supplies became treasure troves for scavengers. This newfound source of material prosperity came to an abrupt end in 1945, when the end of the war allowed the soldiers to return home, the airbases to close down, and the “cargo” to cease being shipped. In the years following the war, the Oceanian islanders, through an amalgamation of traditional and innovative religious practices, sought to develop new religio-cultural systems that would account for the realities of their post-contact lives. As the arrival of Western commodities was one of these formative events, many cultic beliefs arose to explore the significance of “cargo.” Thus, in an attempt to encourage the delivery of cargo, many groups of islanders ritualistically imitated the practices of foreign soldiers, sailors and airmen. For instance, some islanders cleared valuable arable land in order to construct makeshift airstrips, built elaborate wooden control towers, airplanes and carved headphones from wood. Devotees then manned these religious structures, while others directed the non-existent air traffic with signal fires. Intriguingly, these ritualized attempts to mimic Western lifestyles and behaviors were often integrated into existing religious contexts. Further, they often developed a somewhat millenarian flavor, preaching of a peaceful future age when economic disparities would be addressed and the “white men” would be driven from their lands. These millenarian expectations were also fueled through the syncretic adoption of Christian theology. These millenarian expectations sometimes led to ultimately self-destructive behaviors, such as the destruction of food or lodgings, in the expectation that the returning ancestors would provide replacements. Cargo cults were not simply responses to Western material possessions. Instead, they emerged as a conscious appraisal of the world following the unavoidable comparisons between the difficult lives of natives and the affluence of Western interlopers. It was to this end that many cargoist movements attempted to incorporate Western rituals, tropes, and religious symbols, while simultaneously execrating their source. Over the last sixty years, many of these cults have vanished. Yet, the John Frumm cult is still active on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. Further, the arresting image of the "cargo cult" in action has brought the term into the popular lexicon as an idiom describing any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance. John Frumm is a religious figure, portrayed in the guise of an American World War II serviceman, who is associated with cargo cults on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. He is believed by his adherents to offer wealth and prosperity (“cargo”) to those who follow him. In visual depictions, his race is indeterminate: he is sometimes portrayed as black, others as white. It is not known whether the religion arose spontaneously or was deliberately created, nor is it clear whether an individual named “John Frum” existed in the first place. Indeed, the name is sometimes considered a corruption of the phrase “John from (America),” which the natives could have heard from US GIs during World War II. The exact origins of the John Frum movement are unknown, though both scholars and indigenous worshipers have forwarded theories. For instance, many people living around Sulphur Bay on Tanna revere a god named Karaperamun who is associated with the extinct volcano Mount Tukosmeru. Some scholars, such as Peter Worsley, suggest that the attributes of this god influenced the development of the John Frum movement. Others credit a native islander named Manehivi who is thought to have began the cult by appearing among people and making promises of houses, clothes, food, and transport, all the while appearing in the guise of John Frum. Regardless of the origin of the cult, the millenarian promise was often the same: the dawn of a new age, in which all white people, including missionaries, would leave the islands, and the universal access of all native Melanesians to the material wealth which white people enjoyed. Today, many historians and anthropologists argue that the term “cargo cult” is a misnomer that describes too wide a variety of phenomena to be of any functional utility. Other theorists believe that the very notion of a “cargo cult” implies an explicit projection of Western prejudices upon supposedly “primitive” people: “European colonialists once upon a time conjured up and talked about cargo cult as a device by which both to excuse and to justify their domination of the colonized. This conspiracy thesis draws upon Edward Said's (1978) notion of ‘Orientalism.’ The cargo cult does not exist per se; rather it appears in the dirty mirror of the European self — a cultic other as a reflection of the imperial self. The standard motifs of cargo-cult writing, too, can be read as European bad conscience. Stock reports that cultists claim that Europeans have hijacked ancestral cargo, for example […], reflect a repressed guilty European understanding of real colonial economic inequalities.” Even the term “cargo cult” itself was invented as a way of attacking and critiquing its participants. Its first recorded usage, in a 1945 editorial by Norris Bird, seeks to explore the dangers of anti-colonial “flare-ups” among New Guinean natives: “Mr. Bird's employment of cargo cult is low usage. The term's origins are, at the least, mean and tactical. In this discourse, cargo cult pairs strategically with the question "but would you let one marry your sister/daughter?" Breakouts of cargo cults and miscegenation are both direly predicted if comfortable structures of colonial inequality are permitted to decay.” Intriguingly, many modern anthropologists suggest that this fascination has as much to do with Western predilections as with the actual beliefs of the islanders in question. For instance, Ton Otto argues that “cargo” beliefs provoke us to think about our separation of economy (cargo) and religion (cult) as distinct cultural domains, such that interpreting “cargo cults [concerns] also our image of ourselves.”
