It’s like putting out cookies for Santa Claus, I guess.
One of the world’s last surviving cargo cults is celebrating its official 50th anniversary on Tanna island in Vanuatu.
The John Frum Movement worships a mysterious spirit that urged them to reject the teachings of the Church and maintain their traditional customs.The cult was reinforced during WWII, when US forces landed with huge amounts of cargo – weapons, food and medicine.
Villagers believe the spirit of John Frum sent the US military to their South Pacific home to help them.
Devotees say that an apparition of John Frum first appeared before tribal elders in the 1930s.
He urged them to rebel against the aggressive teachings of Christian missionaries and instead said they should put their faith in their own customs….
Villagers believe that their messiah was responsible for sending the generous US military and its cargo to them.
Speaking in local pidgin, the movement’s head, Chief Isaac Wan, said that John Frum was a god who would one day return. He’s “our God, our Jesus,” he said.
Islanders are convinced that John Frum was an American. Every year they parade in home-made US army uniforms beneath the Stars and Stripes.
They hope one day to entice another delivery of cargo.
This 50th anniversary marks the formal establishment of the John Frum Movement.
It also recognises the day when villagers raised the American flag for the first time in this isolated corner of the South Pacific.
Frum is thought to have been a black American.
The movement gained traction in the 1940s when some 300,000 American troops established themselves in Vanuatu. The islanders were impressed both by the egalitarianism of the Americans and their obvious wealth and power. This led them to conflate perceived benefactors such as Uncle Sam, Santa Claus and John the Baptist into a mythic figure who would empower the island peoples by giving them cargo wealth. Followers of John Frum built symbolic landing strips to encourage American aeroplanes to land and bring them “cargo”.
In 1957, a leader of the John Frum movement, Nakomaha, created the “Tanna Army”, a non-violent, ritualistic organisation which organised military-style parades, their faces painted in ritual colours, and wearing white t-shirts with the letters “T-A USA” (Tanna Army USA). This parade still takes place every year on February 15.
Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices and the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage “drills” and “marches” with twigs for rifles and military-style insignia and “USA” painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting cargo. The cult members built these items and ‘facilities’ in the belief that the structures would attract cargo. This perception has reportedly been reinforced by the occasional success of an ‘airport’ to attract military transport aircraft full of cargo.
The Tannese who believed in Jon Frum took as their religious symbol the red cross seen on wartime ambulances on the island of Efate. In villages north of Yasur Volcano and elsewhere, one may see are little red crosses dotting the countryside, neatly surrounded by picket fences. …
The members strung tin cans and wires from towers, in imitation of radio facilities, so Jon Frum could speak to his people. The movement declared that Frum required that money be thrown away, pigs killed, and gardens left uncultivated, since all material wealth will be provided upon the glorious return of Jon Frum.
link
