Regulation of Life After Colonial Fashion
Another aspect of the movement which presages features of later cargo cults is the so-called "imitation of the white man". The leaders of the movement would drill the rank and file as if they were soldiers, they enforced a curfew after the manner of regimented life at plantations, and they held a ceremony which looked for all intents and purposes like having tea in the European fashion. A table would be decorated with crotons, and food would be served for the participants to eat while sitting on stools. According to Francis Edgar Williams, the anthropologist who observed this, under no other circumstances would an indigenous person suffer through sitting at a table in this way; however, there was no explanation linking this to the ancestors, for instance. This illustrates another aspect of cargo cults, which is that some activities described as cargo cults could be rituals with secret meanings, or their description as such could be an outcome of the observer's expectation of secret meanings.
Read more about this topic: Vailala Madness
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