For ChuckA, via my friend Nick.

See also Stardust Musings and Thoughts for the Freethinker

On Suphur Bay, Tanna Island, in the Vanuatu island chain of the South Pacific, they’re waiting for their “god” to return. How long have they been waiting? Not long–only since 1940!

Who is he? The “God” Jon Frum

…is depicted as an American World War II serviceman, who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him. He is sometimes portrayed as black, sometimes as white; from David Attenborough’s report of an encounter: “‘E look like you. ‘E got white face. ‘E tall man. ‘E live ‘long South America.”

[...]He promised the dawn of a new age, in which all white people, including missionaries, would leave the New Hebrides (as they were known then), and that the native Melanesians would gain access to the material wealth which white people enjoyed. For this to happen, the people of Tanna should reject all aspects of European society (money, Western education, Christianity, work on copra plantations) and return to traditional kastom (a word for native Tannese customs.)

From nthposition online magazine. The Last Cargo Cult:

To anthropologists, John Frum was an example of one of the strangest and most exotic phenomena to be observed in traditional cultures: the cargo cult. All across Melanesia, from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands to Tanna’s archipelago, the New Hebrides, dozens of unconnected communities, thousands of miles apart and speaking unrelated languages, seemed spontaneously to generate the same set of bizarre beliefs. A new dispensation was on the way, when the white man would vanish from the islands, and his cargo - Western goods - would be diverted by magical means to the local people, who were its rightful owners.

This description of an annual February 15th celebration of the anticipated return of “God Jon Frum”, via Smithsonian Magazine, In John They Trust (Feb.2006):

In the morning heat on a tropical island halfway across the world from the United States, several dark-skinned men—clad in what look to be U.S. Army uniforms—appear on a mound overlooking a bamboo-hut village. One reverently carries Old Glory, precisely folded to reveal only the stars. On the command of a bearded “drill sergeant,” the flag is raised on a pole hacked from a tall tree trunk. As the huge banner billows in the wind, hundreds of watching villagers clap and cheer.

Chief Isaac Wan, a slight, bearded man in a blue suit and ceremonial sash, leads the uniformed men down to open ground in the middle of the village. Some 40 barefoot “G.I.’s” suddenly emerge from behind the huts to more cheering, marching in perfect step and ranks of two past Chief Isaac. They tote bamboo “rifles” on their shoulders, the scarlet tips sharpened to represent bloody bayonets, and sport the letters “USA,” painted in red on their bare chests and backs.

This is February 15, John Frum Day, on the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. On this holiest of days, devotees have descended on the village of Lamakara from all over the island to honor a ghostly American messiah, John Frum. “John promised he’ll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him,” a village elder tells me as he salutes the Stars and Stripes. “Radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things.”

For a historical account of how the colonial government tried to put an end to “God Jon Frum”, read Messianic Prophecies–A Millenarian Movement in Tanna, New Hebrides.

So, how do you see a “God”? On Tanna Island, the males drink a muddy decoction called “kava”. It’s from a local plant gathered by women and bundled for sale, but that is all they are allowed to do. From above Smithsonian link, page two:

…mud-coated roots called kava, a species of pepper plant and a middling narcotic that is the South Pacific’s traditional drug of choice. Connoisseurs say that Tanna’s kava is the strongest of all…

Daniel leads me to his village nakamal, the open ground where the men drink kava. Two young boys bend over the kava roots Jessel had purchased, chewing chunks of them into a stringy pulp. “Only circumcised boys who’ve never touched a girl’s body can make kava,” Daniel tells me. “That ensures that their hands are not dirty.”

Other boys mix water with the pulp and twist the mixture through a cloth, producing a dirty-looking liquid. Daniel hands me a half-coconut shell filled to the brim. “Drink it in one go,” he whispers. It tastes vile, like muddy water. Moments later my mouth and tongue turn numb.

The men split into small groups or sit by themselves, crouching in the darkness, whispering to each other or lost in thought. I toss back a second shell of the muddy mix, and my head tugs at its mooring, seeking to drift away into the night…

After I drink my third shell of kava, Daniel peers into my undoubtedly glazed eyes. “I’d better take you back,” he says. By the seaside at my hut, I dance unsteadily to the rhythm of the waves as I try to pluck the shimmering moon from the sky and kiss it.

Take undereducated people, expose them to “Western riches” (so that they compare themselves to these “glorious beings” and find themselves inferior), add a native-narcotic, gather the men around an open firepit–

–and see what happens…

I wonder what the Tannaian women think of this?

[Top image: the "altar" to "God Jon Frum" with globe, US flag and US Army uniforms.
Middle image: the "Tanna Army" marches to the "parade grounds" with carved bamboo "rifles", complete with "blood" on the "bayonets".
Bottom image: "raising Old Glory" up a bamboo flagpole, on the "parade ground", on Jon Frum Day, every February 15.]