What are cargo cults, and how do anthropologists explain them?

The term cargo cult appeared in 1945, at the end of the Pacific War. Anthropologists used it for Melanesian social movements in which villagers pursued 'cargo' through new or revived ritual, hoping ancestral spirits or other powerful beings would provide it. Most specialists today explain these movements chiefly as reactions to colonial domination and inequality, with local culture shaping their form. Many also doubt that 'cargo cult' is a sound category. [1]

According to the Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology, the typical cargo cult was led by an inspired prophet who relayed messages from spirits. The prophet persuaded a community that social harmony and improvised ritual, such as dancing, marching or flag-raising, would bring cargo to believers. Wikipedia's summary similarly mentions ecstatic dancing and imitation of colonists and military personnel. These movements belonged to a wider family of messianic or millenarian movements once common across the colonial world. [1] [2]

Some cults later became indigenous churches or local political organizations and remain active. Few new movements of the classic kind appeared after most Melanesian colonies became independent in the 1970s. [1]

Early explanations took cargo literally. Lucy Mair wrote that the driving force was a feeling of hopeless envy of the European's far higher material standards, and some assumed education could cure the problem. Others looked to Melanesian culture itself: ideas that production needs both human and spiritual effort, beliefs that new ideas come from spiritual inspiration, expectations of sudden jumps between eras, and big-man leadership that easily absorbs prophets. Some went further and proposed a 'cargo psychology', blaming anxiety or mental disorder. [1]

Another group stressed colonial conditions. Kenelm Burridge saw the desired cargo as moral regeneration, the creation of a 'new man', for people treated by Australians as animals or children. Guiart called cults forerunners of Melanesian nationalism, and Worsley argued they welded scattered groups into wider 'new unities'. Some religiously inclined writers read cargo as a yearning for spiritual salvation. The encyclopedia says explanations by the 1980s favored the critical, colonial-inequality view, and that cults came to be seen as a Melanesian kind of 'globalization movement'. Sackett added that cults arose at middle distances from colonial centers, where people felt deprived, and where local authority was weak. [1] [3]

Critics argue that 'cargo cult' is an observer's false category that bundles together diverse movements with little in common. Hermann said it is an inadequate concept, and Kaplan argued Fiji's Tuka Movement was neither cargo nor cult. 'Cult' can also be insulting to people's sincere beliefs, and Wikipedia notes the term is considered too wide and too pejorative. Defenders such as Jebens hold that the label points to real, if messy, ethnographic realities, and some find it historically useful for comparison. Recent work in Social Analysis notes a strong tendency to discard the term, while arguing for its value as a comparative field. [1] [2] [4]

Few ethnographers apply the label now. The encyclopedia says Melanesian aspirations today often take other forms, such as health-and-wealth Christianity, and that cargo cult stories circulate widely outside Melanesia as metaphors for unfulfilled desire. [1]