Cargo cult

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Cargo cults were diverse spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the late 19th century. Most cargo cult groups were led by charismatic prophet figures foretelling an imminent cataclysm and/or a coming utopia for followers—a worldview known as millenarianism.^[1][2] While the specific claims made by these prophets varied greatly from movement to movement, most of them predicted the return of dead ancestors bringing an abundance of food and goods.^{[3]: 11 [2]: 90} The movements usually sought to appease these "ancestral spirits or other powerful beings" by either reviving ancestral traditions or adopting new rituals, such as ecstatic dancing or imitating the actions of colonists and military personnel.^[1] Most groups foretold the coming of a bounty of Western goods or money as part of their prophecy,^{[4][1][5][2]: 83, 90} although this was not a universal feature of such movements, with other prophets telling their followers to abandon Western goods.^[3] Anthropologists have described cargo cults as rooted in pre-existing aspects of Melanesian society, as a reaction to colonial oppression and inequality disrupting traditional village life, or both.^{[2]: 85 [1]}

Groups labeled as cargo cults were subject to a considerable number of anthropological publications throughout the 1960s. After Melanesian countries gained political independence, few new groups matching the term have emerged since the 1970s, with some surviving cargo cult groups transitioning into indigenous churches and political movements.^[1] The term has largely fallen out of favour and is now seldom used among anthropologists, though its use as a metaphor (in the sense of engaging in ritual action to obtain material goods) is widespread outside of anthropology in popular commentary and critique,^[6] based on stereotypes of cargo cultists as "primitive and confused people who use irrational means to pursue rational ends".^[7] Recent scholarship on cargo cults has challenged the suitability of the term for the movements associated with it, with recent anthropological sources arguing that the term is born of colonialism and prejudice and does not accurately convey the diversity or nature of the movements within the label,^[1] though some anthropologists continue to see the term as having some descriptive value,^[2]: 88 despite the "heterogeneous, uncertain, and confusing ethnographic reality".^[8]