Cargo, wish you were here

Tam-Tri Le, Phenikaa University (Hanoi, Vietnam)

August 7, 2022

Some people perform rituals to wish for fancy goods and pray for those who brought exotic items to them once upon a time. This reality may sound like hardcore shopaholics, but it is an actual strange cultural phenomenon in isolated tribes.

A cargo cult is a belief system where indigenous people put spiritual values in foreign goods and technologies and worship individuals from the modern world who brought them. The phenomenon was often attributed to the influences of Western soldiers on the islanders of Melanesia (a subregion of Oceania) during the Second World War [1]. Believers may mimic soldiers’ activities, craft wooden rifles, build airplane replicas out of straw, and even make military-style landing strips in the hope of attracting cargo planes.


Ceremonial cross of John Frum cargo cult, by Tim Ross (CC BY 3.0); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JohnFrumCrossTanna1967.jpg

On the remote island Tanna of Vanuatu, hundred villagers worshiped a mysterious American man called John Frum (who was believed to live inside the island’s sacred volcano) [2]. An elder said that praying to this individual would bring them “radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things”. They performed rituals that imitated the soldiers’ parade back in the day, wishing that ships and airplanes would arrive again and with them come endless treasures. Items such as a U.S. flag, military uniforms, and blackboards were displayed on an altar. A hanging globe was believed to have been made by the gods and held powerful magic.

Here, the cargo from the modern world is considered riches blessed by deities. The believers’ behaviors of attempting to make the ships, planes, and soldiers return are results of information processes that “blow up” the perceived value of the foreign goods. The value recognition, although seemingly ridiculous, is driven by their survival desires [3]. Thus, subjectively in their minds, such imitative acts are deemed rational and beneficial behaviors [4]. It may be easier to make sense of their rationalization if we imagine being in the position of these villagers living on isolated islands.

Different humans have different beliefs. There are various strange belief systems out there for various reasons. Some wish for cargo airplanes to come to remote islands in the Pacific, and some wish for magical extraterrestrial squids to arrive at their mansion’s front yards. Maybe these guys are not that different after all.

References

[1] Otto T. (2009). What Happened to Cargo Cults? Material Religions in Melanesia and the West. Social Analysis, 53(1), 82-102. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2009.530106

[2] Raffaele P. (2006, February). In John They Trust. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-john-they-trust-109294882/

[3] Vuong QH. (2022). A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. https://books.google.com/books?id=2wdsEAAAQBAJ

[4] Nguyen MH, La VP, Le TT, Vuong QH. (2022). Introduction to Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics: An innovative method for social and psychological research. MethodsX, 9, 101808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2022.101808