Cargo cult

A religious and social movement in Melanesia centered on the anticipated arrival of material goods, often understood as gifts from ancestors or spiritual forces.

Melanesia: A region of the southwestern Pacific comprising island groups northeast of Australia. Cargo cult movements arose in Melanesian communities under colonial and wartime pressures.
Millenarianism: Belief in an imminent transformation of the world, often bringing a new age of justice or abundance. Many cargo cults anticipated a dramatic reversal of social conditions and arrival of a renewed world.
Cargo cult science: A pejorative phrase for research that imitates the outward procedures of science without its evidential rigor. This metaphorical usage is separate from Melanesian religious movements and can obscure their actual histories.
Anthropology of religion: The study of religious beliefs and practices as cultural and social phenomena. Cargo cult scholarship shows how analysts have interpreted unfamiliar religious movements through changing theories.
John Frum movement: A religious movement on Tanna, Vanuatu, centered on the prophetic figure John Frum. It is one of the best-known cargo cult movements, emerging under colonial rule.
Syncretism: The blending of religious beliefs and practices from different traditions. Melanesian movements incorporated Christian figures and ideas into local religious frameworks.
Christianity in Melanesia: The varied Christian traditions established and adapted across Melanesian societies. Christian institutions and teachings interacted with, but did not define, every movement labeled a cargo cult.
Peter Worsley: A British sociologist whose 1957 book examined millenarian movements in Melanesia and popularized the term cargo cult. His work helped establish the category while emphasizing movements’ political and social contexts.
Yali: A Papuan religious and political leader who became a prominent figure in postwar millenarian movements. His movement linked expectations of material transformation with indigenous authority and political change.
Reciprocity: A social principle in which gifts and assistance create expectations of return or mutual obligation. Gift exchange provided a framework for interpreting goods as returns owed by ancestors or spiritual powers.

Linked from 7 pages