It is somewhere around the late 1800s; way, way far out in the Southwest Pacific. In places like New Guinea, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Fiji, as the white-skinned Europeans began their way into the lands of the indigenous peoples that populated these remote areas - whether it be for colonizing, missionary work or military purposes - the effect of these foreign visitors with their enormous flying machines, bizarre behavior, and plentiful and awe-inspiring cargo is very powerful stuff to the natives. Almost immediately, the natives take the things they have experienced and incorporate them into their religious views.
These things the white men bring with them, like food, clothing, machines, medicines, weapons, and whatever else, are items that the native people begin to desire very intensely.
For these native people, acquiring these things is something that can only be done through the practice of religious ritual.
They develop their belief system, centered around the idea that their ancestors are the only inhabitants of paradise, and add that their ancestors alone control the cargo. Sadly, the white man has cleverly, and through terrible manipulation, managed to deceive the ancestors into allowing the cargo to fall into the white man’s hands.
In order to remedy this situation, the natives believe that if they practice the proper rituals with a high enough level of consistency, eventually they will catch the attention of their ancestors and thus begin to receive the shipments of “holy” cargo they have always deserved.
During World War II, and after the establishment of an American military presence in Vanuatu (then New Hebrides), a myth began to gain weight around an American serviceman named John Frum. According to the story, John Frum was a man who told the Natives that he was the one they must follow, and that by following him they would insure that once Frum leaves them to go back to America, he will eventually return with their long-deserved cargo.
It makes a great deal of sense to suspect that the name John Frum was adapted from the terminology “John, from America,” which would have been a reasonable way for a native to refer to an American serviceman. Additionally, it needs to be mentioned that there are no records of a John Frum ever having served in the military at that time.
Once the idea of John Frum began to grow legs, the locals began to imitate the practices of the white people in order to attract the attention of the cargo planes, thereby diverting the cargo to its rightful destination – them.
The natives built bamboo and straw airplanes, runways, air towers, radios, and many other trappings of the white people.
They devised a specific day upon which Frum would return to them, cargo in hand. Their day was the 15th of February (the year never having been determined). And while the story goes that Frum would return soon after he left (in the 40s), the cult is still active, and they are still waiting patiently and dutifully for his return. In fact, February 15 in Vanuatu is still John Frum day.
In his amazing and (I believe) essential book, Richard Dawkins uses the story of the Cargo Cults to help explain, in part, how religions come about. He explains how these cults sprang up more-or-less around the same time, to groups of people that had no contact whatsoever with one another either physically or culturally.
Dawkins explains that this behavior is an example of the way in which people are easily capable of taking ideas, no matter how improbable, or perhaps due to their improbability and using them for the foundation of religious belief.
He argues quite convincingly that these sorts of events say a great deal about how human psychology is tailor-made to develop odd myth-based religious beliefs.
And best of all, while it might be easy to regard these people as delusional and downright silly, how far off is it to recognize that what these people believe is essentially no different than what we believe here in the West?
Is it not utter lunacy to believe, without anything close to convincing evidence, that there was once a man, born of a virgin, who also happened to be an omnipresent, omnipotent god? How about that this all-powerful god died as a mortal man, was entombed, and then miraculously escaped from his tomb, hung out for a while, and then ascended back to heaven to sit alongside his father, who just happens to also be himself?
Anyone still with me?
Smithsonian Magazine article on Frum
The above video was embedded from the Atheist Nation website, and you can watch its second part there as well. The video footage was added to Richard Dawkins’ section on Cargo Cults and the origins of religion from his excellent and devastating book, The God Delusion.
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