Pacific Cults of World War II
The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred amongst the Melanesian islanders in the years during and after World War II. A small population of unsophisticated peoples observed, often right in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought between technologically advanced countries. First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of supplies and later the Allied forces did likewise.
The vast amounts of materiel that both sides airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. This was true of the Japanese Army as well, at least initially before relations deteriorated in most regions.
Missionaries and colonial authorities who had been present before World War II were evacuated from combat areas, which deprived the villagers of people who could explain what was going on. At the same time there was little fraternization, or at least exchange of knowledge, between US troops and the Melanesians.
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Famous quotes containing the words pacific, cults, world and/or war:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“O I know they make war because they want peace; they hate so that they may live; and they destroy the present to make the world safe for the future. When have they not done and said they did it for that?”
—Elizabeth Smart (1913–1986)