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The People Who Worshiped Planes and Their Cargo
How a devastating war created a strange cult in the most remote places on Earth
An airstrip sat in the middle of the island, and on it sat a World War II era cargo plane. But the runway was too small to accompany any aircraft. Upon closer examination, the plane sitting on this particular airstrip was made out of leaves and grass. It was an effigy to the sacred men of the sky who were going to bring back the sacred cargo to the people.
This is one example of the mishmash between heavily industrialized modern civilization literally crashing into pre-modern societies. This kind of thing has been happening for centuries, but WWII and its aftermath had some of the most profound effects on these island nations in the Pacific.
John Frum and the Sacred Cargo
World War II saw a mass movement of people and goods like the world had never seen before. Fleets of ships, planes, trains, trucks, and men moved around the globe in numbers never before seen. Some of these things crashed, and sometimes the numbers of cargo laden vehicles were so prevalent that they…
