What are Cargo Cults?
In the 19th century, Western observers in Melanesia and the South Pacific began to describe the creation and spread of ‘strange’ new religious movements that were eventually dubbed ‘cargo cults’. Most formed around a charismatic prophet claiming to have visions of a dawning utopian age of native civilisation. These movements are thought to have started when the islanders saw cargo ships (and, later, planes) unloading European goods, whetting their appetite for Western wealth and technology. At the same time, their lack of familiarity with Western culture made it difficult for them to comprehend the process by which these goods were produced in far-off factories and shipped as cargo. Many ‘cultists’ use misguided logic in assuming that because Europeans use these cargo objects and are far wealthier than the natives, that they know the cargo ‘secret’. As a result, ‘cult’ members often try to gain access to Western cargo through magical means, by mimicking European ways. Anthropologist Co
