There ’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with ’t.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2

Sociology

Theory: Cargo Cult?

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Cargo Cults.


Could there be a cargo cult on the island? Or a nearby island? Are "The Others" a Cargo Cult?


So far, everything we've actually seen has had a real-world explanation - for instance, the ever-so-mysterious "Black Rock." Most all were convinced that there was som super-duper-radioactive-hyperspace-portalish rock sitting on the island somewhere that caused disease, transmitted radio messages, and generally generated mystery.


Surprise, it's a ship. From Portsmouth.


Given that, I'm wondering if JJA will drag in another real South Pacific Phenomenom, namely, the Cargo Cult.


Check it: anth.ucalgary.ca/DHatt/Anth473/Cargo.htm


Poke around, it's really weird. Also, note this map, which shows the region Cargo Cults were/are found:

Look familiar?


Updated to change title in a desperate bid for conversation on this topic.


HotBlack Deisato


Re: Given the South Pacific Flava....


.
..
...
thanks, HBD!


that's a great read with some interesting parallels.
here's another link about cargo cults i found interesting as well:


www.afa.org/magazine/1991/0191cargo.asp


Dark Stool

Re: Given the South Pacific Flava....


Maybe the "sickness" is the meme of the Cargo Cult religion... taking over Danielle's crew and causing them to lend their more modern scientific know-how to the construction of a Tesla-inspired electrical "airplane grabber" and a coal powered forest walking machine, used to harvest cargo from the planes that they bring down...


MrSnazz

Re: Given the South Pacific Flava....


What's interesting to me about it is that Cargo Cults would build false aristrips and airplane models to try to attract carg aircraft to land.They looked at the cargo as "Manna from Heaven," and started worshiping it. The planes became their totems. Some good examples of this:

And Austalia has even been affected. Ever here of "Men at Work"? Their second big album cover is a cargo cult theme:



HotBlack Deisato

Re: Given the South Pacific Flava....


This is fascinating stuff--thanks HBD! To get even more postmodern (BTW, that powerpoint is worth reading to the end), I recall Gilligan's Island had at least one cargo cult ep.


But I love that idea that it would be a sci-fi cargo cult, one which used exceptional means to pull others into its orbit. The writers would have to be exceptionally clever, though, for it not to get campy (here I think of bad ITV horror movies of the 60s and 70s ...)


drabauer

Cargo cults


This is an excellent theory! It is very possible that the magnetic field on the island is strong enough to pull things in from a distance. This read that you have supplied us with answers many questions in theory. These tribes believe that the Messiah presents them with cargo as gifts from Heaven. Perhaps, they believe that the Messiah is a newborn and that is why they are trying to abduct it- to worship it. It also may explain the black smoke. Perhaps it is a form of signal that the Messiah has arrived. There are still holes in the speculation, but we were told that things happen for a reason (by the producers). This really sheds a more true-to-life light than most theories that I have read. I would like to see this specific theory become a major topic as we get nearer to the Season Finale.


StEvil13

Re: Cargo Cults


Fascinating. Never heard anything about this before.


So let's say there are cultists out there (the others) wouldn't they view the castaways as their cargo, and idolize them all? I don't know why they'd be in danger - unless they thought they were dead or ghosts or their long lost reletives.


sawyerhasbestlines

Re: Cargo Cults


No, they looked at the people that came with the cargo more as the God's delivery agents. In fact, one cargo cult figure (John Frum), was worshipped as King of America, and responsible for many cargo shipments in the SE Pacific.


They quite well understood that the people that accompanied the cargo had natinalities - in fact, one Cargo Cult had the location of Heaven specified as being located over Austaralia, and cargo descended from God in Heaven down a ladder, in boxes, addressed to it's recipients. The Australians merely acted as God's agents on earth in delivering the cargo.


The reason for the totem aircraft, landing strips, and towers was to try to divert cargo meant for others to themselves. Thus, there were also many internal wars amongst the cults when one viewed another as "stealing" what they believed was their rightful cargo.


A great (and entertaining) book to read on this theme is the Larry Niven/Steve Barnes collaboration "Dream Park" - which I believe has been mentioned here for the holographic adventure park it's story takes place in. The adventure itself is an adventure in the South Pacific, in the ythos of the Cargo Cult.


Here's another interesting (and truly wierd) Cargo Cult article: www.nthposition.com/thelastcargo.php


HotBlack Deisato

cargo cults/disease


Never did get round to writing that post on Cargo Cults. Pity. Oh well. Might bring up the "Hawaiki" thread as another means to discuss the phenomenon of Cargo cults in the Pacific and the 'Gods' that derived from such. The great Corned Beef Can and 'the Bull' is still worshiped by many Pacific Island nations as a the prime giver of sustenance and potential heart disease. The Cargo Cult phenomenon briefly springs up in the Hell Blazer comic mentioned in the Limbo thread where a 'reality virus' has taken hold, causing improbable flukes and urban legends to manifest and ultimately ends up doing a loop through Australia before the cure is found in Papa New Guinea's rain forests (where its denizens come to pay respect to the comics 'mythic', chain smoking messiah). For some reason this thread brought to mind this old link which I never got round to extrapolating on.


origin of genetic disease found in Guam


After scamming this it might be interesting to have a look at the rest of the journal as a guide to some of the historical events studied in the pacific. I had a link some where to a fascinating site which discussed ancient rituals practiced in the pacific relatively recently which hark back to prehistoric paganism that, though a throw back to ancient settlement of larger land masses, still existed in microcosm on remote isolated islands (an anthropologists play ground). These rituals involved sexual violence, sacrifice and elemental/ancestor worship to cause beneficial events to happen (often as a pretext to war), seasonal life/death cycles to continue (even though certain rituals were somewhat displaced within the pacific settlement context) and is the eventual basis for the cargo cult phenomenon (where as with previous migration history, new forces are integrated into the whole and concepts are reinvented to taylor the shape of deified manifestation).


This is a great new topic to discuss the psychological and spiritual aspects of Lost in. So lets see where it takes us.


Jays tao

Re: Cargo Cults


Well, this is amazing stuff that I had never read about before - the writers would be crazy if they didn't incorporate some of this information into the show.


Just listen to a few of these phrases from the website:


"Trance like state as part of therapy"
"Battering ram used to punish people"
"Renegade missionaries as leaders"
"Worshipping the RED CROSS symbol"
"Europeans as the slaves of the Melanesians"


This is enough fodder for many, many seasons.


runloganrun

Re: Cargo Cults


That slideshow was absolutely amazing. I think that maybe the this could add a very believable spin to the show and some of the other theories.

SouthernGentleman

Re: Cargo Cults


I think that one thing that slows threads like this down is that it actually requires people to think about real possibilities, rather than to imagine some fantastical solution to what the writers are choosing to reveal to us.


JJA has said that the universe of Lost is our universe. And certainly there are many unexplained phenomena that are occuring (Walt / Locke / the monster). What I lean on is that everything that has been answered so far (such as the Black Rock) has been based in reality, which makes this seiries extremely interesting to me - how will Locke's recovery be explained? Etc, etc, etc...


As I have said in other threads, Many, if not all, thought the black rock meant just that - some mystical volcanic/space-alien/alternate universe thingie that was rockish in nature and made for adventure for our castaways. WRONG ANSWER! The Blakc Rock turns out to be a ship, most likely a prison colony ship headed to Australia - a real-world event.


Cargo Cults existed. Some still do, but more as tourist attractions than anything else. But they make for an absolutely fascinating possibility when discussed within the Lost mythos. I am eager to see if "The Others" are a Cargo Cult, or Cults. I am also eager to see how many of the other seemingly fantastical things we have been shown are resolved - will they remain fantastical, or will their answers be based in our (very weird, sometimes!) reality?


HotBlack Deisato

Re: Cargo Cults


Sorry for the delay folks... couldn't watch LOST until today (Friday) and I have been avoiding the boards.
This is a wonderful theory!


And quite possible too...


Cargo Cults Still exist today and I seem to remember a year or two there was some conflict between 2 cults on Vanuatu (about the time Survivor was filming there...)


Let's see... Love that Google...


John Frum vs. Prophet Fred: War!


Religious violence has broken out in Vanuatu. No, it's not Catholics vs. Protestant or Muslims vs. Christians. In the shadow of an active volcano, the members of John Frum movement (a cargo cult) are battling the followers of Prophet Fred (a self-styled Christian messiah). It doesn't get much stranger than this.


Nick Squires writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:


The John Frum movement first emerged in Vanuatu in the 1930s when the islands were jointly ruled by Britain and France as the New Hebrides. Rebelling against the aggressive proselytising of Presbyterian missionaries, dozens of villages on the island of Tanna put their faith in a mysterious outsider called John Frum. They believed he would drive out their colonial masters and re-establish their traditional ways. The cult was reinforced during World War II when the US military arrived with huge amounts of "cargo" - tanks, ships, weapons, medicine and food.


On Tanna, islanders became convinced that John Frum was an American. They have spent the past 60 years dressing up in home-made US army uniforms, drilling with bamboo rifles and parading beneath the Stars and Stripes in the hope of enticing a delivery of "cargo" again. Two weeks ago, however, the normally peace-loving movement was shattered in a bloody encounter with knives, slingshots, axes and bows and arrows, John Frum believers clashed with the members of a breakaway Christian sect led by a softly spoken villager Fred Nasse, who calls himself Prophet Fred. Six houses and a thatched Presbyterian church were burnt down during a battle that involved 400 islanders.


These two groups are only separated by 460 meters of dense jungle - both of their villages lie in the shadow a volcano that regularly emits sulphuric smoke. Before Fred came and convinced the one village to convert to his brand of Christianity, they all lived a relatively idyllic existence of farming, fishing, and hunting in the jungle.
****

So, perhaps The Others are mistaking the Lostaways as another rival tribe/cult...
Perhaps the The Others are descendants from the survivors of the Black Rock and worship the ocassional shipwreck/ planecrash that occurs there...


Quite possible. I like this theory. Sometimes the best answer is the easiest answer.
And truth is indeed stranger than fiction.


Can't wait to see how this pans out!


-MonsterEatsPilot
(formerly Purrkins)

Re: Cargo Cults


Awesome. I'm moving to the South Pacific and changing my name to John Frum.

contradiktion

Re: Cargo Cults

Just be careful of anyone calling themselves Fred...
;-)


MonsterEatsPilot

Theory: Cargo Cult?


I heard something from a friend about Bob Marley being in to or associated with cargo cults. I'm trying to google for info on it, but I'm coming up short - anyway, I thought it was interesting and the mention of Bob Marley on the raft in the season finalle reminded me of this theory...


MrSnazz

Theory: Cargo Cult?


I think this is a great theory. It's a really good jumping off place for the writers, I think, and it may well be part of what they're using. Unfortunately, there are some problems I think they would have to resolve.


First, Cargo Cults seem to be a native reaction to the encroachment of the outside world. From what I read, it sounds like because their religion was suppressed, they took on the trappings of the outsiders and incorporated them into their belief systems, usually mimicking outsider behavior in ways that make no sense to the outsiders, but which make perfect sense to the native people. Kind of like that movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy" which takes place in Africa, I think. A coke bottle seemingly falls out of the sky and the native who sees it thinks it's a sign from the gods.


Also, the others appear to be Caucasian, and how a group of Caucasians would become part of a Cargo Cult eludes me. Whatever background they had would be antithetical to the Cargo Cult movement.


In any event, I had never heard of Cargo Cults prior to reading this board, and it seems to be a pretty complicated, somewhat obscure phenomena. How they would go about explaining it to the viewers is the question, and as yet, I don't think I've seen anything hinting at it.


Just my opinion, though. It's still a great idea.


acovell

drabauer