cargo cult

A ceremonial cross of the John Frum cargo cult, Tanna island, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), 1967

Cargo cults are spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the early 20th century. The first documented cargo cults were religious movements that foretold followers would imminently receive an abundance of (often Western) food and goods (the "cargo") brought by their ancestors. Cargo cults have a wide diversity of beliefs and practices, but typically (though not universally) include: charismatic prophet figures foretelling a coming cataclysm or utopia for followers (a worldview known as millenarianism); predictions by these prophets of the return of dead ancestors or other powerful beings bringing the cargo; the belief that ancestral spirits were responsible for the creation of the cargo; and the instruction by these prophets to followers to fulfill the prophecy by either reviving ancestral traditions or adopting new rituals, such as ecstatic dancing or imitating the actions of colonists and military personnel, like flag-raising, marching and drilling. Use of the term has declined in anthropological scholarship on the basis that it bundles together too wide a diversity of movements and is too pejorative.