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Who is not captivated by tales of Islanders earnestly scanning their watery horizons for great fleets of cargo ships bringing rice, radios and refrigerators - ships that will never arrive? Of all the stories spun about the island peoples of Melanesia, tales of cargo cult are among the most fascinating.The term cargo cult, Lamont Lindstrom contends, is one of anthropology's most successful conceptual offspring. Like culture, worldview and ethnicity, its usage has steadily proliferated, migrating into popular culture where today it is used to describe an astonishing roll-call of people. It's history makes for lively and compelling reading. The cargo cult story, Lindstrom shows, is more significant than it at first appears, for it recapitulates in summary form three generations of anthropological theory and Pacific studies.Although anthropologists' enthusiasm for the notion of cargo cult has waned, it now colors outsiders' understanding of Melanesian culture, and even Melanesians' perceptions of themselves. The repercussions for contemporary Islanders are significant: leaders of more than one political movement have felt the need to deny that they are any kind of cargo cultist.Of particular interest to this history is Lindstom's argument that accounts of cargo cult are at heart tragedies of thwarted desire, melancholy anticipation and crazy unrequited love. He makes a convincing case that these stories expose powerful Western scenarios of desire itself—giving cargo cult its combined titillation of the fascinating exotic and the comfortably familiar.

Cargo cults. --- Social & cultural anthropology

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This volume, bringing together six ethnographic papers and an epilogue first presented at ASAO sessions in 2009 (Santa Cruz) and 2010 (Alexandria), includes a wealth of ethnographic and historical information on a topic of enduring interest in Pacific studies and anthropology: cargo cults. These fascinating social phenomena undoubtedly have ongoing relevance for ethnographies of Melanesia. In this collection of papers, we learn about the history of the concept itself as well as how contemporary movements articulate world views, political awareness, material desires and even criticism of the now globalized concept of cargo cult itself. The chapters offer remarkable stories of cult activities and interesting arguments about the entanglement of Western desire for both cargo and cults with these Melanesian visions of how to create a prosperous future for themselves.

History --- Anthropology --- Melanesia --- Pacific --- Cargo Cults --- Kastom --- political movements

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Ce livre retrace les grandes étapes d'une forte poussée de fièvre millénariste dans l'île de Tanna (République de Vanuatu), lieu de naissance à la fin des années 1930 du culte de John Frum, l'un des plus célèbres cultes du Cargo mélanésiens. À l'occasion d'une catastrophe naturelle en Tan 2000, les craintes eschatologiques liées au passage du troisième millénaire, ont contribué à déclencher une série d'événements dramatiques, survenant au cours même de l'enquête de terrain. Replaçant dans un tableau historique d'ensemble l'héritage culturel que représente ce mouvement politico-religieux pour ses adeptes, l'auteur souligne l'intérêt du culte de John Frum pour notre compréhension des processus culturels d'adaptation aux réalités complexes et changeantes de la modernité. L'analyse de ce revivalisme millénariste l'amène à contester les anciens schémas anthropologiques qui assimilaient les cultes du Cargo à d'éphémères réactions à la domination coloniale. La remarquable persistance et l'incessant renouvellement des croyances en John Frum démontrent au contraire la capacité de leurs inspirateurs à pérenniser culturellement une quête identitaire et spirituelle des plus originales.

Cargo cults --- Tanna (Ni-Vanuatu people) --- Culte du cargo --- Tannese (Peuple du Vanuatu) --- Millénarisme --- Religious life and customs. --- Vanuatu --- Vie religieuse. --- Tanna Island (Vanuatu) --- Tanna (Vanuatu) --- Religion. --- Oceania --- Ethnology --- Cargo Cult --- History --- 20th-21st Century --- Tanna (Vanuatu people) --- Tanna (Vanuatuan people) --- Tannese (Ni-Vanuatu people) --- Melanesians --- Cargo movement --- Nativistic movements --- Aipere Island (Vanuatu) --- Ipari Island (Vanuatu)