Mambu: a Melanesian Millennium 0691043884, 0691001669

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MAMBU

KENELM BURRIDGE

MAMBU A MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom by Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

©

1960 by Kenelm Burridge; © renewed 1988 the Mythos edition is copyright © 1995 by Princeton University Press

Copyright

copyright

Preface to

All Rights Reserved

This book was originally published in 1960 by Methuen & Co., London, and is reprinted now, with a new preface, by arrangement with the author

Library of Congress Cataloging -in -Publication Data Burridge, Kenelm.

Mambu

:

a Melanesian millennium

/

Kenelm Burridge. cm.

p.

— (Mythos)

Originally published: London

With new

:

Methuen, 1960.

preface.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-04388-4 ISBN 0-691-00166-9 (pbk.)

— — Papua New Guinea. Acculturation — Papua New Guinea.

1.

2. I.

Cargo cults

Title.

II.

Series:

Mythos (Princeton,

N.J.)

GN671.N5

1995 299'.92-dc20

94-42499

Princeton University Press books are printed on and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources

acid-free paper

Paperback printing, Mythos series, 1995

First Princeton

for the

Printed in the United States of America

13579

10

8642

To my

Father's

Memory

—

Acknowledgements The

field

research on which this book

as a Scholar of

is based was carried out The Australian National University under the

supervision of the late Professor S. F. Nadel. For permission to use materials which have already been published I

have to thank the Editors of Oceania, Man, South Pacific, The Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, American Anthropologist, and Annali Lateranensi. I thank Dr R. G. Lienhardt for his constant encouragement, Dr Rodney Needham for reading the first draft, Mrs C. R. Barber for help with German texts, Drs F. G. Bailey and D. F. Pocock for suggestions and comments, Mr J. Jardine for many pungent criticisms, Madame Berthe Oudinot for many kindnesses whilst writing under rather difficult circumstances in Baghdad, my son for his forbearances and Mr A. Ewing and Father Cornelius Van Baar for their generous hospitality and company. My friends in Tangu and in other parts of New Guinea villagers, labourers, missionaries, planters, traders, and administrative officers were always kind, patient, helpful, and understanding. I should like them to know that I value their friendship, and that though in writing about anyone some measure of criticism is implicit, I have written this book mainly for them in the hope that they will find the notion of the myth-dream helpful and useful in their work.

—

vn

Contents PREFACE TO THE 1995 EDITION

PREFACE

page XV xix

PROLOGUE

1

THE NEW GUINEA SCENE

14

II

THE PEOPLE

[i]

45

III

THE PEOPLE

[ii]

72

IV

THE PEOPLE

[iii]

I

112

V

THE MYTH-DREAM

[i]

147

VI

THE MYTH-DREAM

[ii]

177

VII

THE MYTH-DREAM

[iii]

208

VIII

CARGO

246

APPENDIX A

285

APPENDIX

289

B

INDEX

291

IX

Illustrations

PLATES Tangu, a traditional and conventional representation of

man Bak'n

frontispiece

facing page 24 25

in taros

A A

household prepares to wash sago hunter apportions his kill a cassowary An ageing manager with his second wife's family Confirmed bachelor of Riekitzir stitching roof thatch

An An

—

'informal' feast in the garden

ambitious young manager with his first-born

Village in Wanitzir

Catechist going to a dance

An

station on a

Sunday

administrative officer on his rounds

Old man of Riekitzir mother teaches her child to walk

A

Babe

asleep in the gardens In Tangu: a young traditionalist

On the Gepam

coast:

Manam Manam

islanders dancing

an older progressive

island: after the dance,

ready for prayers

Tangu dancing Before the dance: examining harvest exchanges Kenapai a manager

—

An An An

old old old

man man man

of Mangigumitzir of Wanitzir of

40 40

40 41

88 88 89

Village in Riekitzir

Tangu mission

25

Manam xi

89 89

104 105 105 152 152 153 168 168 169 169 216 217 217 217

[ILLUSTRATIONS facing page 232

Kwaling going to a dance Planting yams: preparing the earth Tangu maid going to draw water

233 233

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS 1

Sand drawing

2

General

3

Map showing Tangu and Manam

4

Map

5

Diagram

map

page 10 15

of Melanesia

illustrating the

Primal Myth

illustrating the

xn

island

Primal Myth

46

157

170

Author

s

Note

Vernacular words and Pidgin English words are italicized. It will be obvious which words are Pidgin and which vernacular. Because there is no generally accepted way of spelling Pidgin words, and because Pidgin plurals are inelegant in an English text I have anglicized certain spellings and given them English plurals.

xin

—

Preface

to the

1995 Edition

call from Princeton came as a surprise: "May we have your permission to consider Mambu for our mythology reprint series?" First published by Methuen in 1960, republished as a Harper Torchbook in 1970, here it is again, neither edited nor rewritten, a response to varieties of demand. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since those days

The phone

in the fifties

when cargo

cults, often described as bizarre or

weird, attracted the keen interest of missionaries and admin-

and anthropologists. The idiom sometimes, more sober magico-religious activities directed toward obtaining cargo, manufactured goods seemed to fascinate Euro- American materialist society, which had perhaps forgotten not only much of its own history and origins but also that if you really want to win a lottery against long odds you had better pray or find a potent magic. And although over the last forty years or so the sharper edges of interest have been blunted by hundreds of accounts, cargo cults are still being written about (see, for example, Barr and Trompf 1983) under a variety of other names. No longer regarded simply as rather odd events, an administrative rather than a sociological problem, cargo activities and their analysis came to be seen as challenges to social theory. In those days, however, despite the work of Haddon (1917), considered passe as an anthropologist, Fiilop-Muller (1935), not recognized as a professional, and Knox (1950), as a cleric almost a missionary (sociocultural anthropologists have long been familiar with their own changing parochial political coristrators as well as laypersons

— ecstatic

or,

an amusing satire see Lawrence 1967), most anhung up on the meanings of "cult" and "movement," shunning history as unscientific, and belying the generally social tenor of their description of events and activities,

rectness; for alyses,

tended to be cast in naive psychological or functional terms. The implications of aberration requiring therapy (usually

xv

MAMHU:

A

MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

education) and a return to an appropriate subservience to a given socioadministrative order were clear. In 1957 Peter Worsley went to the literature and to history and, going behind the idiom of cargo, revealed the activities as based in real social, political, and religious discontents and aspirations. In the same year, an irony often missed, Norman

Cohn published a more general work on millenarian movements that seated them in a psychological trauma: paranoia. And even though analyses based in psychologies of various kinds, as in Wallace (1956), continue usefully to appear today,

a

much

larger

number

of essays

and major works

(e.g.,

Fuchs

1965, Guiart 1962, Lanternari 1960, 1965, Lawrence 1964,

Schwartz 1962, Steinbauer 1971, 1979, Wilson 1973, 1975; see La Barre 1971 and Barr 1983 for extensive bibliographies) have chosen to go to the socioreligious and political contexts within whose terms the instructions of the "prophet" or leader (sometimes different persons) directing or organizing the activities seem to gather meaning and relevance. What's in a name? Through the years, attempting to find a more inclusive term but rejecting millenarian and messianic as too loaded, cargo activities have been subsumed under a variety of terms. And these, going to interpretive framework and apparent main emphases, are certainly not mutually exclusive. Thus there are accommodative, acculturative, adaptive, and adjustive that, also used in their noun forms, assume one culture attempting to harmonize its ways with another more powerful and intrusive one; crisis and disaster assume a prior natural or culturally traumatic event; nativistic, militant, and denunciatory indicate forceful renewals of traditional ways in response to foreign rule. Dynamic or dynamistic, vitalization and revitalization evoke self-motivated cultural renewals in the face of what is seen as moral decay; and Holy Spirit, charismatic, prophet, and salvation emphasize Christian missionary influences; cult, movement, and activity, though formally indicating ranges of inclusiveness, tend to break down and become interchangeable in the face of

what actually happens. So many names. The reader may

choose. I think millenarian smells sweetest because the activities envisage or im-

xvi

PREFACE TO THE

1995

EDITION

combined with a new social order, comparable with, say, medieval millenarisms or eighteenth- and nineteenth-century enthusiasms as well as many other reform and socioreligious renewal movements around the world on the one hand, and events such as those at Waco or Jonestown on the other. Whatever the name, however, cargo activities remain the expression in a particular cultural idiom within a historical bracket of what seems to be a universal human proclivity. The accidents and ply a

new

belief system

showing cargo

activities as

processes of history, particularly Christian influences, surely

have played their significant

parts, but if there is

any other

basic condition required to bring that proclivity to action

I

would today place less emphasis on the presence of features of history and the social ambience and pay more attention to absences or gaps in the social structure, particularly the absence of agreed loci of trusted and relevant authority (Burridge 1993). We need constant reassurance regarding the truth of things, and for most of us external structures have to provide it.

WORKS MENTIONED A Survey of Ecstatic Phenomena and 'Holy Movements' in Melanesia. Oceania 54: 109-32. Barr, John, and Garry Trompf. 1983. Independent Churches and Recent Ecstatic Phenomena in Melanesia: A Survey of Materials. Oceania 54: 51-72. Burridge, Kenelm. 1993. Melanesian Cargo Cults in Contemporary Pacific Societies. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Barr, John. 1983. Spirit

Prentice Hall, 275-88. Cohn, Norman. 1957. The Pursuit of the Millennium. London: Seeker & Warburg. Fuchs, Stephen. 1965. Rebellious Prophets: A Study of Messianic Movements. New York: Asia Publishing House. Fiilop-Muller, Rene.

1935. Leaders,

Dreamers and Rebels.

London: Harrap. Guiart, Jean. 1962. Les Religions VOceanie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

xvn

MAMBUA ME LAN ESI AN MILLENNIUM Haddon, A. C, and E.W.P. Chinnery. 1917. Five New Religious Cults in British New Guinea. The Hibbert Journal 15: 448-53. Knox, R. A. 1950. Enthusiasm. Oxford: Clarendon Press. La Barre, Weston. 1971. Materials for a History of Studies of Crisis Cults: A Bibliographic Essay. Current Anthropology 12:

3-44.

Lanternari, V. 1965 [I960]. The Religions of the Oppressed. New York: Mentor. Lawrence, Peter. 1964. Road Belong Cargo. London: Manchester University Press. .

1967.

Don Juan

in Melanesia. Brisbane: University of

Queensland Press. Schwartz, T. 1962. The Paliau Movement in the Admiralty Islands 1946-1954. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 49, part 2. Steinbauer, Friedrich. 1979. Melanesian Cargo Cults. Trans. Max Urohlwill. London: George Prior Publishers. Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1956. Revitalization Movements. American Anthropologist 58: 264—81. Wilson, Bryan. 1973. Magic and the Millennium. New York:

Harper and Row. 1975. The Noble Savages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: .

University of California Press. Worsley, Peter. 1957 [1968]. The Trumpet Shall Sound. London: MacGibbon & Kee.

xvm

Preface

Mambu who

is

the

name of a native of New Guinea,

a

Kanaka

what has movement. Most of his

in the late 'thirties of this century led

come to be known as a

'Cargo'

took place in the Bogia region of the Madang District in the Australian Trust Territory of New Guinea. Mambu was a rebel, a radical, a man sufficiently able to free himself from the circumstances of his time to grasp what he thought to be valuable in tradition and weld it to his perception of what he would have liked the future to be. Because he could, in a sense, transcend himself and become the new man he saw as well as persuade others of the truth of his vision, he symbolizes the main theme of this book. Cargo movements, often described as millenarian, messianic, or nativistic movements, and also called Cargo cults, are serious enterprises of the genre of popular revolutionary activities. Mystical, combining politico-economic problems with expressions of racial tension, Cargo cults compare most directly with the Ghost-dance cults of North America, 1 and the 'prophetist' movements among African peoples. 2 Typically, participants in a Cargo cult engage in a number of strange and exotic rites and ceremonies the purpose of which is, activities

apparently, to gain possession of European manufactured goods such as axes, knives, aspirins, china plate, razor blades, coloured beads, guns, bolts of cloth, hydrogen peroxide, rice, tinned foods, and other goods to be found in a general department store. These goods are known as 'cargo', or, in the Pidgin 1 See for example: James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890, 14th Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 653-947; Leslie Spier, The Prophet Dance of the Northwest and its Derivatives: the source of the Ghost Dance, General Series in Anthropology, No. 1, Menasha, Wisconsin, 1935. 2 See for example: Bengt G. M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, Missionary Research Series, No. 14, Lutterworth Press, London, 1948.

xix

IfAMBU:

A

MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

English rendering, kago. Large decorated houses, or planes' or "siii j>s" made of wood, bark, and palm thatch

4

aero-

bound together with vines, may be built to receive the goods, and participants may whirl, shake, chant, dance, foam at the mouth, or couple promiscuously

in

agitated attempts to

obtain the cargo they want, not from a shop or trade store,

but directly from the mystical source supposedly responsible

manufacture and distribution. Men of European descent have been threatened and even attacked because, though it is for

obvious that they in question,

how

know how

to gain possession of the articles

to tap the source,

it

would seem to many

participants that they have not cared to reveal their 'secret' to their less fortunate black-skinned brothers.

As a

corollary,

manufactured goods were originally meant to be distributed to everyone, but that white men, being greedy, have in various ways intercepted the too, participants often assert that all

cargo en route, holding

it

for their

own

use.

—

Though comparatively tiny in scale which, however, makes them more easily appreciated as a total phenomenon Cargo cults are movements of positive protest and dynamic aspiration

whose study can provide

—

insights of value into such

convulsions as the French and Russian revolutions, and the

more gradually emergent African and Asian nationalisms. The questions they ask are to be encountered in studies of millenarian, revivalist and enthusiastic movements every,

where, whether they have occurred within the Christian tradition or outside

it.

And

the villager or peasant, robust and

secure in his tradition, self-reliant wherever he

has

much

may

the same problems as the Melanesian

panoply of the modern industrialized State, with

be

living,

when

the

its officials,

and immense material wealth, upon the simple dignities of his native Not merely concerned with adjusting to new

services, laws, cliches, slogans,

begins to intrude

country fastness.

and unfamiliar circumstances, Cargo

cults pose the problem of the individual in relation to society at large. They ask,

man is a vote, a unit of labour, or endowed with a divine spark worthy of playing an honourable part in association with other unique individuals. By attempting a

bluntly, whether a

—

xx

PREFACE passage through an adjustment 1 to existing circumstances to a but which is, neverstate of society which may be Utopian they show how new men may theless, a creation in its own right

—

—

be made. Participants in a Cargo cult want to create for themselves a new way of life, 2 a new order of living. And momentarily, in the action of a cult, they do so. For minutes, days, or weeks they shape a new way of life for themselves, creating new customs, new ways of behaving towards one another. This almost numinous translation from one order of being into another lies at the core of all Cargo cults. Sporadic, usually of short duration and involving relatively small numbers of men and women, they are known to have been taking place in the Melanesian archipelago from New Guinea eastwards to the New Hebrides and Fiji and in other islands of the south seas since the late nineteenth century. Gradually increasing in numbers and effect through the earlier decades of this century, since the second World War they have been recorded more and more frequently—though it may be that similar kinds of movements had been taking place regularly before Europeans first took cognizance of them and committed their thoughts and observations to writing. The hallmarks of a millenarian movement are there. Those who take part in the cults look forward to the future, envisaging days of bliss and plenty when no one will want for anything. There are prophecies, revelatory messages, psycho-physiological states such as hysteria, trances, paroxisms, and rites and ceremonies that, to a European, often seem extremely bizarre. Since the participants possess no recorded history, nor a testament of truth, they cannot easily cast back into the past to the ancient, regarded as purer, more primitive forms from which to take inspiration: instead, they have to look into themselves as they are, and into the past as they think it might or ought to have been. Many Cargo cults have 1

Piddington

calls

them 'adjustment

An

Ralph Piddington, and Boyd, London, 1957,

cults': vide:

Introduction to Social Anthropology, Oliver Vol. II, pp. 735-44.

2 cf. Anthony F. C. Wallace, who calls them revitalization movements in Revitalization Movements, American Anthropologist, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 264-79.

xxi

IIAMBU:

A

M E

LAN KSIAN MILLENNIUM

approaches uniquely (heir own, and a survey of all the recorded instances would show a wide variety of ceremonial and ritual. Hut there are also general similarities of context. Such factors as a restless discontent with things as they arc, being underprivileged politically, poverty in European terms, and consequently a very restricted access to manufactured goods, play a large part in the genesis of any Cargo cult. On the other hand, equally if not more important is the positive moral content: the spark in the tinder which generates the flame. Almost always, in the van of a Cargo movement, urging the participants on, there is an individual who assumes the role of a leader, deliverer, or hero; who, as might a messiah, parenetically tells of the wonderful days to come. Mambu was just such a man, a charismatic figure. So far as an outsider is competent to judge, those involved in a Cargo cult are acting in accordance with the dictates of their emotions rather than their intellects, from what they feel rather than from what they have thought out. It is true that, post hoc, participants may express themselves as being discontented with things as they are but the gusto with which they live out their day-to-day lives hardly bears out the oral expression. Rationalization afterwards there may be, but there seems to be little or no prior intellectualization of what are, basically, intuitive perceptions. Of course they would like more money who would not? Of course they would like the

—

—

means

and of want to have an authoritative voice in the administration of their own affairs. What makes the difference between an all too familiar political unrest combined with the economic disabilities of a multi-racial society, and the occurrence of a Cargo cult, is a sudden onset of moral and emotional passion concentrated to the point of action by and in the sort to have freer access to the goods of this world,

course, too, they

of

man Mambu

was.

leader says, does,

And

the kinds of things a charismatic

and encourages others

to do, clearly reveal

that the participants in a cult are striving after moral renova-

They want

new man. Out of the crucible of moral regeneration they want to mould and shape for themselves and their children a new, more satisfying world. Not so

tion.

to put on the

xxii

PREFACE much

which they live they are, weary of being what they think themselves to be, and eager to grasp the opportunity to become what they think they might be. They tend to evoke the supposed glories of the days before the European came to Melanesia, the days when men were men and each man knew precisely what to do to gain the approbation and respect of his fellows. And since Kanakas, natives of New Guinea, generally see their downfall from this state as a direct result of European penetration, in tired of the conditions in

rather, both

all

Cargo cults there are elements of anti-Europeanism. In the latter combination had led to Cargo cults being

itself

described as nativistic.

Very much the same conditions obtain throughout Melanwhere the European has penetrated. But Cargo cults have not occurred everywhere. That is, there is not a simple relation between conditions obtaining and the occurrence of a cult. esia

We

can only say that under certain conditions a Cargo cult might occur. The catalytic spark which explodes into a cult cannot be pinned to a where or a when. Nevertheless, the general conditions, the moral problems to which a Cargo cult could be seen as a response, have grown out of a series of events and circumstances which may be reasonably well defined. Many of the old customs, institutions, and modes of behaviour which together constituted viable frameworks of traditional and trusted ways of life are either fast disappearing or have already died out. Those that remain seem not to be adequate to the environment in which the people concerned now find themselves, and fresh institutions must take the places of those that have gone. To an individual trapped in his own narrow scale of time the process is neither swift nor definite.

The

elders

who once

controlled the destinies of their

new found wealth of who work on European owned plantations. New fashions, new habits of thought learned from other native peoples as well as from white men have wrecked the old certainties. At any chosen moment some institutions may be obsolescent, others in genesis. And since institutions contain peoples are impotent in the face of the their sons

and express

series of

moral notions there can be xxiii

little

certainty

— IfAMBU:

A

ICELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

thai this institution expressing these sentiments will not soon

be replaced by that institution expressing other ideas. a

is

guide

in

tween

a variety

ent

The

general perplexity as to which doctrines should

result

particular circumstances, a

many

cornered fight be-

of conservatisms on the one hand, and differ-

kinds and orders of radicalism on the other.

To

who

participate in a Cargo cult the current situawholly confused altogether too much to comprehend in a sweep of imaginative thought. By concentrating on the necessity for gaining a living from the soil, from the sea, from the jungle, or from work as a domestic or as a labourer in a plantation, Kanakas succeed for a while in pushing the number and variety of moral choices into the background. Nevertheless, there comes a time when these choices insist on being confronted and resolved, when a man together with other men must decide in more or less permanent terms what is to be good and what is to be bad. Then an attempt must be made to make the new man. Many would prefer to evade such a 'moment of truth'. Others, more courageous or more rash, turn their faces to the dilemma and attempt to persuade their fellows to do the same. Slowly, the bulk of the population in Melanesia is beginning to grasp something of the general nature of the problem. The imposed peace of the white man facilitates travel and communication. News and gossip about other peoples' activities fall on many ears, exciting enthusiasm, criticism, and wonder. For the most tion

those

—

appears

—

part discontent, anxiety, desire, and the agonies of choice are

buried in feelings, in the stomach, searching for a fit and proper articulation from the intellect. They express themselves in turbulent,

locally co-ordinated activities of very small

scale. And as the problems and associated feelings become more and more generalized so are they narrowed, more accurately denned, and partially articulated by men such as

Mambu. Those who take part in Cargo movements feel their problems rather than know them, and they feel rather than know that these problems have to be faced and resolved by themselves if they are to command self-respect and a future for xxiv

PREFACE

A

new European world is swallowing can be pressed into distinctive Melanesian patterns. In general, the evidence reveals that Kanakas do not want these new patterns devised for them by others. And since it is impracticable at the present time for Kanakas to make their future entirely by themselves, a crucial problem is what kind of help, whether material or in the shape of ideas, may be accepted in what circumstances. For of this we may be sure. Kanakas want to so fashion their future that it accords with their own conception of it. To think of themselves as simply the charges of white men, going in the way the white man has mapped out for them, is not to be suffered. They want to be men in much the same way as white men seem to them to be men: competent, independent individuals capable, through conflicts of choice, of ordering their own lives in their own way within a framework of accepted institutions and conventions. Presently, however, their circumstances are almost demands demain flux. The atmosphere spawns gogues: cheats and other riff-raff are provided with their opportunities in a world made temporarily disnomic. Nevertheless, for all the hubris evident in Cargo cults there is an underlying dignity, a bedrock of honest endeavour revealing the moral in man. themselves.

them up. But

relatively it

—

—

one thing to say that a study of Cargo cults provides movements that have occurred within our own cultural and historical tradition, quite another to go beyond and assert that they are sociologically comparable. But if there are obvious, surface differences the range of similarity in principle is seductive. Again and again, quarrying into the huge corpus of writing on revolutionary, millenarian, enthusiastic, nativistic, and messianic movements which have taken place in many parts of the world at different times in man's It

is

insights into

recorded history, the same features come to light and recur.

on Cargo cults. Long ago Haddon pointed out that, 'An awakening of religious So, too, with the considerable literature

a frequent characteristic of periods of social unThe weakening or disruption of the old social order may

activity rest.

is

xxv

MAMBU:

MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

A

new and often bizarre ideals, and these may give movements that strive to sanction social or religious rise to aspirations. Communities that feel themselves political

Stimulate

oppressed anticipate the emergence of a hero who will restore their prosperity and prestige. And when the people are imbued

with religious fervour the expected hero Messiah.' 1 gists,

And

since

administrative

Haddon

will

be regarded as a

wrote, numerous anthropolo-

and missionaries have made their New facts have been have had their more shaded facets

officers,

valuable contributions to the subject.

brought to

light, old facts

burnished, and Haddon's acute

if

relatively simply phrased

observations have been adumbrated, developed, and pushed closer to the

growing mass of emerging

detail. All students of

the subject, not least the present writer, stand in their debt: the names of Allan, Belshaw, Berndt, de Bruijn, Elkin, Firth, Guiart,

Hogbin, Holkter, Inselmann, Keesing, Lawrence,

Mair, Mead, Piddington, Stanner, and Williams

come

to

mind and

at once. 2 In particular, Belshaw, Hogbin, Keesing, Mair,

Stanner have provided us with standard works on the MelanMost notably and recently Peter Worsley, with his The Trumpet shall Sound 3 has not only given us a comprehensive and comparative review of the material available and the problems involved in Cargo movements: he has made excellent sense of it, forcibly demonstrating historical and evolutionary links within terms of a coherent and intelligible schema. There is no need, I think, to go over the same ground and repeat what Worsley, Hogbin, Mair, and Stanner and others have said so well. Nor is there much to be gained by continually referring the reader to comparative material. All of us who have worked on the same problems in the same field have had very similar experiences though the interpretative models may differ. This book is intended to be in the nature of a esian scene.

1

E.

W. P. Chinnery and A. C. Haddon, New Guinea', The Hibbert Journal,

British

'Five

Vol.

New

Religious Cults in 3, 1916, p. 455. asked to refer to

XV, No.

2 For the works of these authors the reader is Appendix A which contains a select bibliography. 3 Peter Worsley, The Trumpet shall Sound, Mac Gibbon and Kee, London, 1957.

xxvi

PREFACE modified

Though

field it is

monograph: comparison

is

implicit,

not explicit.

presented as a supplement to the more general

and comprehensive standard works on the area and lems

it is

addressed not so

much

to

my

its

prob-

colleagues as to those

whose work takes them to faraway places, and whose knowand what anthropologists do and experience may be limited. My concern is with certain people only, with men and women who were known to me at first hand and who happen to have been involved in a Cargo situation. Although an interpretative model must emerge, far from presuming to account for Cargo cults in general the matter presented attempts, rather, to penetrate an atmosphere created by both white men and black, charged with emotions and fluid ideas, yet existing side by side with, and at the same time as, the humdrum tasks of a workaday world. Interest is centred on the activities, thoughts, and feelings of Tangu, a people living in a knot of hills about fifteen miles inland from Bogia Bay in the Madang District in northern New Guinea, and on the people of Manam island, an impressive volcano lying a dozen miles to the north and seaward of Bogia. In drawing the limits of relevance I have kept close to the themes that seem to arise from the fieldwork experience, and I have cut out that ethnographic detail which seems to be only of secondary importance in the context. Within this framework I have tried, first, to 'explain' or make intelligible the events narrated in the Prologue, and secondly, because the atmosphere of Cargo cult is not only one of anomy, of 'disorder, doubt and incertaintie over all S 1 I have tried to show how and in what senses Cargo cults reveal moral notions in genesis. This seems to me to lay the basis for, and to be the proper approach to, the quite different problem of the connexions between Christian dogmatics on the one hand, and the indigenous religious beliefs on the other. ledge of Social Anthropology

.

1

Lambarde, Archeion

xxvn

(1653).

.

MAMBU

Prologue

When

in the field anthropologists frequently

have

experiences which they tend to reserve for dinner

parties or as a relaxation after seminars. Only rarely do such anecdotes find their way into serious discourse. And in many ways it is a shame that this should be so. During the first few weeks of my stay with Tangu I was impressed and puzzled by an atmosphere of suspicion, reticence, and even expectancy. But it was not until after some months had passed, after the difficulties of language had been hurdled and we had come to know each other quite well, that Tangu gave me the clue to what I had begun to think was a normal reaction to having a stranger living among them. A few months before I arrived, they said, they had received news of a dream which had been dreamed by a youth of the village of Pariakenam, fairly close by but not a Tangu village. If Tangu would perform the rites and ceremonials which had been revealed in the dream then all sorts of good things such

as rice, tinned meat, cloth, knives, axes, beads, soap, hydro-

gen peroxide, and razor blades would appear in quantities for the common use. There would be plenty for everyone. Accordingly, some people in Tangu, men as well as women but by no means the whole of any one community in Tangu, went ahead and performed the rites that had been revealed in the dream. These rites were comparatively simple. The participants provided themselves with a large communal meal at which everyone present ate. After the feast, they formed circle round a single individual. Then they started to dance, moving and stamping their feet, and chanting rhythmically. Neither dance nor chant was taken from their own familiar dances and chants.

With the cadence gradually quickening the person in the centre of the circle excitedly urged the others to Otim.r (Hot it up!) i

1

MELANESIA N MILLENNIUM some minutes the man (or woman) in the centre

MAMBU:

A

After the circle was expected to

on

of

back in a trance. Thereupon an aide, one of the dancers, would step into the circle to massage the mouth of the prone man whilst the others chanted slowly, as in a dirge, 'Yu-ker-ap, Yu-ker-apV (Like Otim, not Pidgin English, but an attempt at the English 'You get up, You get up!') The prostrate man was then lifted to his feet. He was expected to talk, shout, or cry out. The participants hoped that the utterances would communicate something to them, but in fact they do not seem to have been intelligible. The cycle ended when the man in the centre of the circle had regained his senses. It started again when any other who washed to do so took his turn in the centre. Not all who attempted the feat were able either to fall into a trance, or communicate. These activities, in spite of attempts at secrecy, came to the knowledge of the missionary resident in Tangu, and they were fall flat

his (or her)

suppressed by administrative action.

At about the same time as Tangu were busying themselves with the news from Pariakenam, another series of rites were revealed in a dream to a man of Jumpitzir, a group of settlements bordering Tangu. Tangu participated. The dreamer announced that if the villagers would build a large shed near the cemetery, and then followed his instructions, the shed would be filled with tinned meat, axes, knives, beads, soap, aspirins, cloth and so on. Forthwith the villagers turned to and built the shed. The rites commenced with the adults of both sexes drawing water from the stream in bamboo barrels, heating the water, and then washing themselves. This done, the participants gathered at the cemetery in complete silence, neither dancing, nor singing, nor talking. Quite still. At a given signal the women loosed their grass skirts, the men threw off their breech-clouts, and all engaged in promiscuous sexual intercourse. Precisely how promiscuous it was difficult to tell. No one who admitted to taking part in the rites would, or could be expected if indeed they knew to reveal the names of those

—

—

—

2

PROLOGUE whom they had copulated. Nevertheless, one may presume a form of coitus interruptus since the men's semen and the women's sexual secretions had to be collected, bottled, mixed together with water, and poured over the burial place. These rites, too, came to the ears of the administration and they were suppressed. The shed was destroyed, and, as a sharp lesson, the participants were made to carry the timbers some with

seventeen miles to the sea.

When Tangu had

me

about these rites, their Cargo cult activities, a number of what had seemed to be discordant features of their culture began to fall into place. It was vexing not to have been informed about them beforehand, but it was also instructive. In explaining why they had performed the ceremonies Tangu first recounted a myth, a myth which appears in this book as the Primal Myth. 1 Pressing them further they went on to tell me about Mambu, a man who had once lived in the Bogia region, and who, in 1937, had been the leader of a Cargo movement which had caused the authorities no little trouble. 2 They told me, too, of their impressions of Yali, a Kanaka from the Rai coast who in the years following the Japanese war had been the leader of a movement rather more mature than that initiated by Mambu, but otherwise rather similar. 3 Bit by bit a pattern began to take shape. Months later, when the time came for me to leave Tangu, I packed my bags and went down to the coast. There, having some spare time, and hearing that there had been troubles on Manam island, I decided to go and see for myself. I visited

Manam

finished telling

island for a fortnight.

My

host was the

Catholic missionary, a priest of the Society of the Divine I stayed at the mission station, a tourist, on holiday. was particularly interested in meeting Irakau, a Kanaka businessman who had organized his kinsmen and co-villagers into a copra producing concern, and whose home was at Baliau, the largest and most important of the Manam villages.

word. I

1

Discussed infra p. 147.

2

Infra p. 177.

3

3

Infra p. 196.

MAMBU: When

A

MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

went along to Baliau village the villagers cold indifference. It was strange not to be offered the milk of a green coconut in welcome, more disconcerting to be plainly ignored. Nobody showed the slightest received

first

I

me with

interest. I

walked into the middle of the

made play with

A

lighting

my

village, sat

on a

log,

and

pipe. I waited.

seemed to be showing some curiosity at such modest behaviour. As a European I ought to be bustling about, demanding attention, getting things done. Still, no one was sufficiently inquisitive to ask what I wanted. It was obvious that my presence was repugfew of the

villagers, I thought,

nant. Finally weakening, I took the initiative. I asked a passer-by for the Luluai, the

government appointed headman. Curtly,

he was pointed out. I crossed over to where the Luluai was working and sat down on a tree trunk a few feet away from him, watching him carpentering. He was making a stool. He ignored me studiously. I smoked. After some minutes he looked up from his work and said, pointedly, in Pidgin, that if I cared to wait until the evening

meal was cooking

—three

hours away

—

I

might have some

refreshment.

Having spent nearly a year with Tangu, and being accustomed to the ways of Kanakas, especially their hospitality, the behaviour of this Luluai seemed to me exceedingly rude. Remarking, therefore, that tobacco blunted hunger, I some from my pouch. Confused, rather doubtfully, he accepted. I knocked out my pipe and rose to go. At once he protested. I said I had work to do another time perhaps. He protested again, shouting to the other villagers. I offered my hand. We shook hands. I walked off. A small crowd followed, asking me to be sure and come back. A couple of boys, I noticed, had climbed a coconut palm and were slashing at the green nuts. My second visit to Baliau elicited a very different kind of offered

—

.

4

.

.

PROLOGUE response. Though, to

my disappointment,

a trading voyage, his relations took entertained

and handsomely

me

fed.

I

Irakau had

on was

left

into his house. I

was given matches,

tobacco, cigarettes of English make, fruit, and a cup of tea as well as

many

kinds of native food. Table and chair were

my disposal,

and

was invited to stay for the dance was the welcome that I was ashamed of and never offered the gift I had prepared myself with: a dozen sticks of cheap 'twist' tobacco. placed at

I

to be held that evening. So generous

—

—

In the course of conversation one of my hosts pointed to my notebook and remarked that they of Baliau had such a book in which all the lore of the ancestors was written. If I cared to see it I could. Only the nobility of Manam, only those holding the rank of Tanepoa, might see it. Others, especially administrative officers and missionaries, might not. I asked if the book was exactly like mine. They said no, it was of another kind. They added that there were other things they would like to show me. I would be delighted, I said. In a few minutes I was taken to a small shed built on stilts behind Irakau's magnificent Tanepoa house. The shed was painted in lurid washes, but very dilapidated. The floor boards were rotten and in a state of collapse. Carefully, a young man crept inside the shed to fetch the objects that were going to be shown me. The rest of us waited outside chatting in the sun.

The young man brought out for

my inspection,

first,

a

wand

of hardwood, about seven feet long with a spray of very dirty,

dusty, and tattered cassowary plumes

bound on one end;

made and polished; third, a human form about five inches

second, a stone axe-blade, well

carved wooden statuette of the high, rudely executed, unfinished, dusty, with smears of red and white chalk on it; fourth, a broad circlet of decorated turtleshell, battered, and apparently very old. This was the 'book'. It

seemed to

me

as I handled these things, examining them,

objects of a former age when the were renowned in the region as sailors, fighters. No longer made as they used to be,

that they were the

people of traders,

Manam

and

fierce

common

5

IfAMBU:

IfELANESIAN MILLENNIUM

A

were quite literally the 'things' or Apart from their age they had little

as a matter of course, they

lore of the ancestors

1 .

merit. I

had

just finished looking at these objects

Irakau's sisters

when one

of

—a cousin as we would say—pressed forward

and begged me to shake hands with

her. I did so.

She burst

into tears.

The others around me, men and women, also started to weep. Not the conventional wailing on a death or a parting, but deep, uncontrollable sobs with tears coursing down their faces. Later, when we had had some more tea and were comfort-

me why they had wept. they said. 'We like you. You have just seen something to do with Tanepoa, things to do with our nobility, things belonging to our ancestors. Your home is far away. You do not come from Australia quite close by, you come from England ever so far away. And you have come all that way to see us, we, black-skinned men of New Guinea. That is why we like you. That is why we like you to be with us.' One impetuous young man broke in with, 'You see, this, the things you have seen, belong to us. They are ours, our own, and all we have. We think that white men have deceived us. So we are turning back to our ancestors. How is it that white men have so much and we have so little? We don't know. able with our pipes, they explained to

'We sympathize and

feel for you,'

—

But we

are trying to find out.'

There was little for me to say, little I could say. And as the sun settled to the horizon the people of Baliau gathered in the village, dressed in all their finery. They were going to dance. The Luluai who was sitting next to me remarked that in Baliau they were very progressive. The dance would last a couple of hours. I expressed some surprise because in Tangu it was usual for dances to go on all night. 'We do not dance all the night through,' said the Luluai. 'We are not bush-Kanakas! (un-

couth, uncivilized jungle folk).'

In an orderly way, precisely and without proceeded. I was impressed. Unlike Tangu, 6

fuss, the

dance

who were wont

to

— PROLOGUE dance with abandon, these Manam islanders were dancing coolly, with quiet dignity, each step carefully disciplined. Thrumming hand-drums kept perfect time, the crescendos faultlessly executed to the rhythm of limbs moving in unison. When the dance was over, food was distributed. Again, quietly and without fuss. Then the villagers lined up in front of Irakau's house for night prayers. I was surprised, for the missionary had told me that Baliau villagers avoided the mission; that though most of the islanders had been baptized, not a man and only a very few married women came to Mass on Sundays. The prayers, as I heard them, were the standard night prayers taken from the Catholic prayer book, without alterations or additions. A renegade catechist, a mission teacher who refused to have anything more to do with the mission, led them. 'You see,' the Luluai remarked, 'we are not bad people. We are all good Catholics. Only this we want to say our prayers

—

for ourselves.'

Prayers over, ending with each one making the Sign of the Cross, I was asked if I would shake hands with the assembled villagers.

As we came down the steps from Irakau's house the vilmen and women, sorted themselves into a single straight line stretching to the end of the village. In company with the Luluai and two or three others, I started across the open space to the head of the line. One by one, hand by hand, we went down the line in the gathering dusk. Nobody said anything. It was perfectly quiet. About half-way down the line the air seemed to have become perceptibly charged with I know not what. A little further and someone started to sob. First he, then another, lagers,

—

then everyone

—

all

started to weep.

Next day, a little disturbed, I went to the village of Aberia, beyond Baliau. As I reached the houses a youth approached me. 'Ah!' he exclaimed. 'You have arrived. I think you have got something for us. I think you have a message for us 7

BfAMBU: A MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM something you for

will till us

which would straighten things out

us/

'NO,'

I

'I have no message for you.' remembered, had gone round the

replied.

Mambu,

I

Bogia giving the people a message, telling should do to get cargo

—the good things of

villages of

them what they

And then again, who had gone from village to populace to mend their ways. Had life.

there was that other one, Yali, village

exhorting the

Mambu and visited?

Yali been greeted like this in the villages they

Were they awaited

Yali had had a message.

as anxiously?

Both

Mambu

and

And

they had both been imprisoned. .' 'No,' I repeated. 'I have no message 'I think that you have got a message for us,' insisted the youth. 'And I think you will tell us your message when you .

.

are ready.'

must have been difficult for Yali not to respond, not to wipe away the tears and give them the message they wanted. 'You are mistaken, my friend,' I said. 'What kind of message are you waiting for?' 'I think you have a message which will straighten things out It

for us,' said the youth.

Whilst working in Tangu

I

used sometimes to explore into one such journey I chanced

the hinterland and environs.

On

on a missionary

mutual introductions and

ings he asked

him

I

priest. After

me how

greet-

long I intended to stay in Tangu. I told

would be there another four months. he exclaimed. Then, 'Have you any family?' he

'Ah!'

asked. 'Yes.' 'Well,' he advised. 'You had better write to them soon. Perhaps you will not see them again.' He had seen fiery signs in the sky, he told me, and from these he had learned that the end of the world was at hand. Early in October. He had lived on his station for month upon month, in country thick with expectations of marvels to come, among people such as I was now meeting in Manam. In some scarcely

8

— PROLOGUE definable

way he had become

—as

I

was by way of becoming

a part of the atmosphere of Cargo.

Down on the coast, on the mainland opposite Manam, I had encountered a European planter. He was certain, he told me, that he was being watched by a Russian submarine. He had seen the periscope out at sea, and he had heard it charging its batteries by night on the surface. 'But why should a Russian submarine come here?' I asked him. 'To make a chart, of course!' he snapped. 'Or to land agents. Stirring up trouble. Something ought to be done!' If the people of

Manam

should they think that

One evening

I,

Manam

in

were waiting for a message, why a European, should bring it? while I was strolling through the

bush after a walk, a Kanaka came down through the shrubs, .' he murmured. following a few paces behind. 'Hummm .

'Hummm Back servant,

.

.

.

in the throat, like our

and

.

Ha.'

in the English.

own

idea of a punctilious civil

'Hummm

.

.

.

Yes!

Hummm

.

.

.

Okeydoke!' It was impossible to ignore him, equally unsatisfactory to turn and confront him. So I sat on a rock, and, as he drew level, offered

him

my

pouch.

'Thank you, brother!' he said. Masta (Master) was the correct Pidgin term of address from Kanaka to European. Why barata, brother? Perhaps he was trying to draw me closer, curry favour, by using the more intimate term or was he assuming a moral relationship, the kind of relationship between moral equals which had already been established at Baliau? At any rate, he was friendly even though he might have been presuming a little. We smoked contentedly, remarking the weather and where either was bound. Then he nodded sagely, eyeing me askance. 'Mi save!' he announced. 'I understand!' 'Oh yes? What is it that you understand?' I asked.

—

9

— MA 'All!

Mill

T

:

A

MKLANESIAN MILLENNIUM

understand well

I

—

see!'

My

companion slipped

off the

rock to his knees. He skimmed the palm of his hand over a dry patch of sand, flattening it smooth. Then he started to draw.

(Figure

l.)

'This here,' he said pointing to the dot in the middle of the

drawing,

'is

where bigpela bolong

ol

gat ap, where the greatest

imaginable being (usually God) created himself or was born.' s Moresby

3 I 00

W

0)

.

1

.

A New

A

MELANE8IAN MILLENNIUM

Religious

( wit

in Fiji, Oceania, Vol.

XVIII, No.

2,

1948,

Hi.

Chinnery, E. \V. 1*. and Haddon, A. C. Five New Religious Cults in British New Guinea, The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XV, No. 3, 1917, 1>.

448.

Klkin, A. P. Social Anthropology in Melanesia, O.U.P.,

Firth,

Raymond.

London

1953.

Changes in the Western Pacific, Journal of the RoyalSocietyofArts, Vol. CI, No. 4909, 1953, p. 803. The Theory of 'Cargo' cults: A Note on Tikopia, Man, LV, 142, 1955, p. 140.

Social

and

Political Evolution in Melanesia, South No. 7, 1951, p. 128. Forerunners of Melanesian Nationalism, Oceania, Vol. XXII, No. 2, 1951, p. 81. John Frum Movement in Tanna, Oceania, Vol. XXII,

Guiart, Jean. 'Cargo Cults'

Pacific, Vol. 5,

1952, p. 163.

Report of Native Situation in the North of Ambrym, South Pacific, Vol. 5, No. 12, 1952, p. 256. Culture Contact and the 'John Frum' Movement on Tanna, New Hebrides, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1956, p. 105. Hogbin, H. Ian. Experiments in Civilisation, Routledge, London 1939. Transformation Scene, Routledge and Kegan Paul,

London

1951.

Social Change, Watts,

Holtker, Georg. How 'Cargo Cult' XVII, No. 4, 1946, p. 16.

is

London

1958.

Born, Pacific Islands Monthly, Vol.

Judy. Cargo Cults: The Problem of Explanation, Oceania, Vol. XXVII, No. 4, June 1957, p. 249.

Inglis,

Inselmann, Rudolph. 'Cargo Cult' not caused by Missions, Pacific Islands Monthly, Vol. XVI, No. 11, 1946, p. 44.

Keesing, Felix M. The South Seas in the London 1942.

286

Modern World, Allen and Unwin,

APPENDIX A Lawrence, Peter. Cargo Cult and Religious Beliefs among the Garia, International Archives of Ethnography, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, 1954, p. 1. The Madang District Cargo Cult, South Pacific, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1955, p. 6.

Lett, Mollie. 'Vailala Madness':

Papua

wave

of religious fanaticism that swept

in 1919, Pacific Islands Monthly, Vol. VI,

No.

5,

1935, p. 25.

MacAuley, James. The Distance between the Government and the Governed, South Pacific, Vol. 7, No. 8, 1954, p. 815.

Mair, L. P. Australia in

Mead, Margaret.

New

New

Guinea, Christophers,

London

Lives for Old, William Morrow,

1948.

New York

1956.

Graham. Naked Cult in Central West Santo, Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. LVII, No. 4, 1948, p. 330.

Miller, J.

W.

Paton,

F.

The Native Situation

Pacific, Vol. 16,

Pos, Hugo.

No.

4,

No.

5,

in the

North of Ambrym, South

1952, p. 392.

The Revolt of Manseren, American

Anthropologist, Vol. 52,

1950, p. 561.

Quinlivan, P. J. Afek of Telefomin, Oceania, Vol.

XXV, Nos.

1-2, 1955,

p. 17.

War in the Markham Valley, New Guinea, Oceania, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, 1948, p. 95. Missionary Activities and Social Change in the Central Highlands of Papua and New Guinea, South Pacific,

Read, K. E. Effects of the Pacific

A

Vol. 5, No. 11, 1952, p. 229. 'Cargo' Situation in the Markham Valley, New Guinea, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 3,

1958, p. 273.

Stanner,

W.

E. H. The South Seas in Transition, Australasian Publishing Co., London 1953. the Interpretation of Cargo Cults, Oceania, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, September 1958, p. 1.

On

287

M

\

If

Williams, P, M.

BU

:

The

\

M B

I

Vailala

Ceremonies

A \ E

man

MIL LE NNIU M

Madness and the Destruction of Native In

the Gulf Division,

Papuan Anthropo-

logy Reports, No. 4, L928.

Orokaiva Magic, Oxford University Press, London 1028. Vailala Madness in Retrospect, in Essays presented to C. G. Sclioman, Kegan Paul, London 1934.

The

288

Appendix A

list

B

of the Religious Missions operating in the Territory of

New

Guinea in 1952. (Taken from the Report to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the Administration of the Territory of New Guinea, 1952, p. 204.)

Assemblies of

God

in Australia

Australian Lutheran Mission

Baptist

New

Guinea Mission

Bismarck Archipelago Mission of Seventh Day Adventists Catholic Mission of the Divine

Word

Holy Ghost Catholic Mission of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christian Missions in Many Lands Catholic Mission of the

East and West Indies Bible Mission Evangelical Lutheran Mission

Franciscan Mission

Lutheran Mission,

New

Guinea

Marist Mission Society

New

Guinea Anglican Mission

Methodist Missionary Society of

New

Guinea

Methodist Overseas Mission (New Guinea District)

New New

Guinea Lutheran Mission (Missouri Synod) Tribes Mission

North East

North West

New Guinea Mission of Seventh Day Adventists New Guinea Mission of Seventh Day Adventists

South Sea Evangelical Mission Nationalities of 'European' personnel engaged in mission work:

Australian

269

Irish

13

Austrian

13

Italian

7

British

28

Luxembourgese

4 5

Canadian

2

Polish

Czechoslovakian

3

Swiss

Dutch French

German

34

United States

12

Others

170

289

2

139 19

Index Aberia, 7

Administration,

trative

Australian Trust Territory of Guinea (New Guinea),

33-47, 49, 68-9, 72-3, 88, 90, 105-6,

110,

140-7,

184-8,

154,

124-38,

193,

209-14,

203-5,

201,

114-6,

197, 226-45,

Adultery, 38, 60, 63, 66-7 Aeroplane, 160 Aitape, 10, 241

Alexishaven, 74, 136 89-92,

98,

105,

109-12, 128

Amuk, 156 6, 32,

184, 258-9, 263-4

ancestral ground, 197 Andarumitzir, 46-8, 52, 103, 118, 163, 168

Angau

(Australian

New

Bridewealth, 121, 147 Br'ngun'guni, 53, 57-9,

Brothers, 36, 49, 52, 54-9, 78, 86-93 Ambwerk, Tuman, 158-65, 251,

259 brother-sister, 49, 51-9

Canberra, 14, 136 Cargo, 26, 218, 246-282 cargo, xv, 26, 44, 189, 191, 198, 213, 223, 228, 246, 258-9, 267,

281-2 cults,

movements,

xv-xxiii,

1-

13, 25-44, 138, 140, 149, 175,

217-82

myth-dream:

see

Myths

Catechist, 7, 17, 47, 55, 73-5, 109,

115, 182, 197, 255

Australia, 6, 20, 188, 191, 204

Australians, 12, 21, 134 Australian Mandated Territory of

New

75-80,

83-4, 88-103, 105-6, 111, 262

37-8, 40-1, 175, 244,

278-9

xxiii, 18, 47-8, 125, 127,

132, 182, 186-8, 197, 201

Guinea

Administrative Unit), 22 Angelus, 183 Anger, 84, 87-9, 94, 97-8, 103-6, 210-11, 233 Anomy, xxiii, 43, 275 Apingam, 132, 182-3, 187 Aspirations, 27, 148 Astrolabe Bay, 239

Atonement,

xv,

148

Baliau, 3-7, 12, 125, 138, 229-32

Bogia, xv,

Allan, C. H., xxii

Ancestors,

10, 13, 18, 19,

New

Banara, 184 Baptism, 185 Belshaw, C. S., xvii, xxii, 27, 273 Berndt, R. M., xxii, 25 Betrothal, 76 Bible, 153, 200, 244 Bogadjim, 18

247, 256, 260, 264-6

Admiralty islands, 241 Adoption, 77, 88, 91

81-5,

Guinea AdminisUnit (Angau): see

Angau

Administrative

officers, xxiii, 2, 3, 12, 17-25,

Amity,

New

Australian

Adjustment, xvii

Guinea, 15

Catholic, 3, 7, 34-5,

132,

182-3,

232, 234

Celibacy, celibate, 186-7, 200, 203

291

Mamih: Charismatic lo-l,

l

figure,

28,

Ksian MILLENNIUM Dreams,

11,

(

\\

hristian(s), \\i. xxiii, 15, 1

52,

:»."..

02, L09,

199, 22

1,

Clubhouse(s), 12(1,

is, 27, 84,

191,

Earthquake, tremor, Education, 37, 131

123,

England,

68, 70-1, 78-4, 96, 1.-,,

1

L81-6,

1

14,

280, 234 10,

114,

10, 29, 201

Elkin, A. P., xxii 115,

188, L85

G,

10

English, 11

interruptus, 3, 220-1

(

(>itns

(

uinpensation, 04-5, 103-5

Enthusiastic, xxi Equivalence, equivalent, 58, 81 -5»

Confession, 38, 03-0

Consent, 32-4, 281-2

178-

I

P., xxii

.

167,

hiongangwongar, 1 55-7 Dwongi, L61-2, 172

248-9, 254-8, 262-70, 277-82

Chinnery, E.

165,

160,

156,

82, 246, 249-54

175, its. 229, 240,

is.

l

mi: i.an

\

xviii,

89, 93, 90-7, 100, 103, 105-12,

40-3,

115,

250,

114, 128, 178 European(s), white men, xv-xxi,

onservative(s), 97, 115-0, 130 Cooking-pots, 52, 98-9, 120 Court, 90-1, 105

9, 14, 17, 20, 21-5,

(

30-42, 51,

70, 110, 124-5, 133-4, 140-7,

150, 152, 154, 105, 171, 170,

184-217,

221-2,

224-8,

230-

48, 251, 253-5, 258-9, 203-70

Evil, 38-9, 59, 02, 08, 109, 113

Damzerai, 1G1-2 Dances, 48, 58, 93, 98, 133 de Bruijn, J. V., xxii, 27, 248

Exchange(s), 55-9, 75, 81-5, 91, 113, 123, 120, 181, 187, 220

Excommunication, 232

Deliverer, xviii

Expiation, 175, 280

Descent, 49, 147, 100 ambilineal, 49, 100 bilineal, 49 double unilineal, 48, 119, 100 matrilineal, 49, 119, 100 patrilineal,

patriline,

48,

Feast(s), 20, 57, 75, 83-4, 99-100,

113, 123, 120, 133

Feud, feuding,

119,

Dimuk,

120

xxii

Flutes, 114 48, 52, 120,

Fly, 15

Forgiveness, 173, 175, 178-80

101, 108

Disnomy,

10,

Raymond,

Flowers, 197

121, 153, 100

Devil, 08, 70, 73

Diawatitzir,

Firth,

Freud, Sigmund, 20

xxi, 274-5, 280-2

Disputes, 80-107

Friend(s), friendship, 30, 87, 89,

Divine, divinity, xvi, 71, 170, 199, 207, 274, 277-82

Fulop-Miller, Rene, 20

Doctor boy, 210

Genealogies, 49

114

17, 47, 55, 73-5, 115,

Dogoi, 150, 104 Dog(s), 52, 103-4 Dogs' teeth, 121-2, 275 Dreamer(s), 05 Dream men, 197

Genitals, 185

Germans,

Germany,

10-11,

120, 134, 138

Ghost-dance, xv God, 10, 23, 73, 178, 230, 234

292

124,

INDEX (Black men), 171, 176, 184-217, 222, 230-48, 256, 261, 264-70 Bush-Kanaka, 6, 23, 140, 258 Kanakatzir, 53, 140, 221 Kangwan, 52, 156, 164 Karkar island, 235 Keesing, Felix M., xxii

Guiart, Jean, xxii, 27 Guilt, 37-8, 40-1, 64, 173, 175, 180,

246 Gundakar, 156-7

Haddon, A. C,

Head

xxi, xxii

tax, 184-5

Kiap,

Hero, xviii, 179 Hogbin, H. Ian, xxii, 29, 261 Holocaust, 184 Holtker, Georg, xxii, 27, 182-7, 192, 203 Household, 49, 53-9, 73-80, 105, 171, 187 Hygiene, 17, 73, 132, 135, 141, 180, 210 Hypocrites, 37 Hysteria, xvii, 246

12, 35, 77, 129,

Labour, contract, division of, 53

17, 51,

72

Lae, 17 Language(s), 25, 48, 70, 116-7 Latrines, 69, 129, 135, 141 Lawrence, Peter, xxii, 202 Leadership, 73-80, 108-12

League of Nations Mandate, 18, 22, 126,

Letter: see

Incest, 49

Liars, 37

Innocence, 172 Inselmann, Rudolph, xxii, 27 Insult, 63, 76 Integrity, 24, 105, 215

Lilau, 156, 164

30,

Low

15,

136

Pas

Incertainties, xxiii, 35, 275

xx,

142

King, Black, 185-6, 200 Divine, 207, 281 Kukurai, 126, 139, 236

Igamukitzir, 46, 48, 52 Immunity, 186

Intellectualization,

142

Kill, killing, 12, 35, 77, 129,

Countries, 18

Luluai,

4-6,

47-9,

17,

73-5,

55,

86-8, 94, 97-103, 107, 115, 210,

225, 236, 261

40,

Lutheran Mission:

148-9, 198

Irakau, 3-7, 12-13, 140, 146, 176, 228-37, 245, 256-64

Madang,

Iwarum, 48

see Mission.

17, 18, 137-8, 186,

196,

232 District, xv, xxiii

Japanese, 12, 116, 133-8, 188, 242 Jester, 94, 112, 113 Jumpitzir, 2, 48, 52, 118 Jung, C. J., 26

Mair, L. P., xxii

Maize, 49 Malaya, 270-1

Mambu,

xv, xviii,

3, 8, 13, 132-3,

140, 146, 149, 176-9, 182-96,

203-9,

Kampanimasta,

213, 223, 228,

255-6,

259, 265, 281-2

Kago, xvi, 26 35,

Mambu

77

myth:

see

Myths

19-

Manager(s), 57, 74-80, 81, 84-5, 88,

25, 30-42, 53, 140-7, 154, 160,

92, 102-3, 108-11, 112-15, 203,

162, 165

226, 257, 259, 260-1, 278-9

Kanaka(s), xv-xxi,

3, 4, 9, 16,

293

MAMBU:

A

M

I'.

LA N

I

.SI

AN MILLENNIUM

Manant island. Manain islanders, win, 8-18, 80-44, 124-5, 188L82, 184,

lo.

Mandate:

sec

182,

Manns,

160, 184,

176-82;

notions,

105;

obligation,

order,

36,

194;

power

207,

277-82; reciprocity,

League of Nations

194; re-

21, 81,

generation, 29, 247; relation-

189, 192, 199,

ships, 83, 90-1, 172, 194; right,

l,

81; status, 82; surrender, 247;

246

'J-js,

issue,

xxiii;

'J-J.s-ir>

Manufactured goods, xv, 20:5,

279-82;

unity, 37; values, 248, 277-82

10, 241

Mariap. 52, 156

Markham, 15 Marriage, 49, 52, 54, 75, 121-4, 131, 147, 154, 165, 168, 187

Mass, 52, 115, 183, 232 Material prosperity, 29

Moresby, Port, 10, 14, 241 Myths, general 33-4, 249-55 Mambu myth, 188-96, 214, 217, 280 myth-dream, 26-30, 41-3, 116,

Matzia, 161

125, 132, 138, 147-245, 246, 249, 254-7, 259, 266-82 origin myth, 150-1

Mead, Margaret, xxii

Primal Myth,

Matrilineal: see Descent

Nativistic, xv, xix

New New New

115-6,

124,

Dutch, 10

New man,

Lutheran mission, 18-24, 35, 142 missionary sister, 183, 229 Seventh Day Adventist, 11, 18-9, 35, 164, 165, 230, 233 Society of the Divine Word,

3,

17-24, 124-5, 138, 142, 229

Mngwotngwotiki, 58-9, 82, 85, 106, 111, 278

Mooney, James, xv Moral, conflict, 247; equality, 81, 110, 239, 246; equivalence, 58, 85; European, 204, 207, 20913,

240-3,

248, 258, 264-70,

29, 33, 36,

132, 179,

206, 222, 247-9, 254-9, 266,

131, 132-8, 140-7, 153-4, 1848, 193, 198, 201, 203-5, 212-13, 228-45, 247, 256, 264-5

Britain, 183

dispensation, 41, 185, 246-82

Guinea, Australian Trust Territory of: see under Australian

Mission, missionaries, xxii, 2, 3, 8, 12, 17-25, 33-7, 47, 52, 57, 110,

177,

250-1, 263, 280

Messages, xvii, 7-9, 12, 28-9, 159 Messiah, xviii Messianic, xv, xxi Miklucho-Maclay, N. N., 113, 239 Millenarian, xv, xvii, xxi, 274 Misin, 35, 77

73,

154-76,

Yali myth, 197, 200

Melanesia, xvi, xix, xxii, 15, 25

68-71,

3,

209, 214, 217, 241, 244, 248,

Medicine hut, 17, 135, 141 Meditation, 91-2, 99

277, 280-2

New New

order, 184, 187 society,

39,

222-5,

247-8,

259-66

New unities,

247

Niangarai, 163, 166 North America, 10 Nous, 171-2

Papua, 14, 18 Pariakenam, 1, 230 youth from, 1, 13, 138, 140, 146, 149, 175, 223, 227, 248, 256,

259 Paroxsyms, xvii

294

INDEX Pas, 159, 162, 189, 191-5, 224 Pater, 35

Salvation, 29, 178

Patrol Officer, 17, 126, 130, 180 Piddington, Ralph, xvii, xxii

Samaingi, 164, 169 Sand drawing, 9-11, 240-2 Scapegoat, 59, 65 Sea: White, Blue, Green, 10-11, 240-2

Pidgin, xv, 4,

Secret, xvi, 154, 165, 189, 191, 194,

Patrilineal, patriline: see

Descent

Patrol(s), 18, 126. 128-9, 134, 211

9,

16, 26, 33, 45,

204

48-9, 71, 117, 127, 150, 184,

191, 196, 198-9, 215-6, 232

Sepik, 15

Day

Seventh

Pig, 86-97, 155-6, 179, 181 Planter(s), 9, 20, 23, 33, 141, 188,

11, 164, 241

193, 200, 202, 212, 214, 231,

Sewende,

239, 247

Sibling, 54-9

Police, 17, 106, 126, 129, 189, 193,

Adventist: see Mis-

sionaries

Sickness,

38,

60,

258 Population, 47, 119 Prayer, 70, 73

Sign of the Cross,

Prophecies, prophetist, xv, xvii

Sisters,

127,

63-4,

great,

130;

68,

85,

124,

122,

194 36,

49,

7,

52,

234 54-9,

86-93,

189, 191-4

Sky, signs

Quarrels, 83-4

8

in,

Slit-gong, 48, 84, 97-8, 101, 113,

See Disputes Queensland, 14

128-9, 199, 211

Social Anthropologist, 138, 239

Society of the Divine

Rabaul,

10, 17, 183, 188,

241

Rai coast, 3, 137, 196 Ramatzka, 158, 163-6, 169-74, 213

75,

59,

96,

104,

198, 208, 233, 278, 278-9 sorcerer killer, 61-3

163, 166, 169

Recruiters, 125, 141

Sorkmung, 161 South America,

Repentance, 37-8, 40

Spell, 64,

Reports, missionary, 116 patrol, 116, 130 Resurrection, 29 Revelation, xvii, 28 Reversionary, 27 Rice, xv, 1, 49, 72, 75, 92 189, 225-6, 260-3, 281 Rous, 232-3

Spier, Leslie,

Salt, 125, 163, 167,

93,

160, 167, 174, 179, 180, 187-8,

60

Rape, 202

Rawvend,

82-4,

79,

107-9, 112, 114, 122, 134, 144,

15, 48, 211

Ranguma,

see

Sorcerer, 16, 20, 38-9, 59-71, 72-3,

251, 254, 267

Ramu,

Word:

Missionaries

168

Stanner,

186

10, 242

108

xv

W.

E. H., xxii Stomach, xx, 43 Suaru bay, 132 Submarine, Russian, 9 Sundkler, Bengt G. M., xv Syncretic, 27

Tanepoa, 236

295

5,

6,

12, 139, 140, 231

1

MA M

r.

ft

105; •:

I

A N

M

•

Tultul, 17,

l--*;.

.

and

amity

217-28;

equivak

9

I

activiti

cult

dii;

M

A

I

IT.

19, 55,

78-5, 98-108,

107. 115, 187, 2 10, 225. 261

disputes,

;

distributive

historical,

1

Unilineal:

stem,

-\

United Nations, 2 United Stat rnknownland, 2

12-88; ideal

15, .

.

of

MM

manhood,

108-11;

intro-

l

45-5

ductory, 78-fi

rj

Tangwattitzir,

r&hip,

59-71

.

16,

Utopia.

1

:'»7

Value. 26,91, 128, 181-2, 198

52

18,

242

23, 241

Vision, 246

Techniques, 29, 80, 80, 108, 194-5, 228 Theft, thuv. ry, 80-1, 38, 60, 184

Tokio, 10 Tools, 17, 20, 50-1, 72, 77, 123,

132-3

WaUsikin, 35 Wallace. Anthony F. C, xvii Warfare, 16, 54, 119, 123, 127 war materials, 21, 23 Warriors, 20, 112, 126 Wedgwood, Camilla, 138, 238-9

141, 188, 193, 202, 231, 239,

Weeping, 6-7 White men: see European

247

Widow(s). 167

Trader(s), 20, 23, 33, 36, 125, 136,

Trading

relationship,

55-9.

52,

Witch, 59

123, 126

Trance,

Wonam,

xvii, 2

20-4,

140-6,

136,

i48,

188, 197, 202, 203, 210, 213,

228-35,

237-8,

246-7,

188,

(i),

20, 126, 138, 229

(ii),

Worsley. Peter,

21, 229 xxii,

186

Yali, 3, 8, 13, 136-8, 140, 146, 149,

264-6,

176-9,

281-2 Truth(s),

161, 163, 168

World War World War

Transgression(s), 37-8, 40, 64, S3 Trespass, 76, 83-4, 97-8 Triangle,

Williams, F. E., xxii, 25

182,

196-202,

206-7,

223. 229, 231, 233-7, 239, 243, 32-4,

192,

150-5,

245,

177,

249-54,

Try, 190-1, 195-6, 240

181,

255-7, 259, 265

2C6

Yali myth: see

Yasa, 11

296

Myths

MYTHOS: The Princeton/Bollingen Series J. J.

Bachofen

in

World Mythology

MYTH, RELIGION, AND MOTHER RIGHT THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF HORA-

/

George Boas, trans.

/

POLLO Anthony

Bonner,

ed.

/

DOCTOR

ILLUMINATUS:

A

RAMON LLULL READER Jan Bremmer

THE EARLY GREEK CONCEPT OF THE

/

SOUL

THE LEGEND OF THE BAAL-SHEM Kenelm Burridge MAMBU: A MELANESIAN MILLENNIUM THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND Joseph Campbell FACES Henry Corbin AVICENNA AND THE VISIONARY REMartin Buber

/

/

/

/

CITAL

FROM RELIGION TO PHILOSOPHY Marcel Detienne THE GARDENS OF ADONIS: SPICES IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY Mircea Eliade IMAGES AND SYMBOLS Mircea Eliade THE MYTH OF THE ETERNAL RETURN F.

M. Cornford

/

/

/

/

Mircea Eliade

SHAMANISM: ARCHAIC TECHNIQUES

/

OF ECSTASY Mircea Eliade

/

Garth Fowden

Erwin

R.

/

YOGA: IMMORTALITY AND FREEDOM

THE EGYPTIAN HERMES

Goodenough (Jacob Neusner,

ed.)

/

JEWISH SYM-

BOLS IN THE GRECO-ROMAN PERIOD

ORPHEUS AND GREEK RELIGION Harrison PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY

W.K.C. Guthrie Jane Ellen

/

/

OF GREEK RELIGION Joseph Henderson & Maud Oakes THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT Erik Iversen THE MYTH OF EGYPT AND ITS HIEROGLYPHS IN EUROPEAN TRADITION /

/

C. G.

Jung

&

Carl Kerenyi

/

ESSAYS ON A SCIENCE OF

MYTHOLOGY Kerenyi

Carl

ARCHETYPAL IMAGE OF

ELEUSIS:

/

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER THE PRESENCE OF SIVA CREATION AND THE PERSISTENCE Jon D. Levenson OF EVIL: THE JEWISH DRAMA OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE THE GRAIL: FROM CELTIC MYTH TO Roger S. Loomis CHRISTIAN SYMBOL MALINOWSKI Bronislaw Malinowski (Ivan Strenski, ed.) AND THE WORK OF MYTH Kramrisch

Stella

/

/

/

/

Louis Massignon (Herbert Mason, ed.)

/

HALLAJ: MYSTIC

AND MARTYR Erich

Erich

Neumann Neumann

Richard Noll,

/

/

ed.

/

AMOR AND PSYCHE THE GREAT MOTHER MYSTERIA: JUNG AND THE ANCIENT

MYSTERIES Maud Oakes with Joseph Campbell WHERE THE TWO CAME TO THEIR FATHER Dora & Erwin Panofsky PANDORA'S BOX Paul Radin THE ROAD OF LIFE AND DEATH Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, Alan Dundes IN QUEST OF THE /

/

/

/

HERO Gladys Reichard

NAVAHO RELIGION

/

Geza Roheim (Alan Dundes,

ed.)

/

FIRE IN THE

DRAGON

ed. THE GNOSTIC JUNG SURVIVAL OF THE PAGAN GODS: THE MYTHOLOGICAL TRADITION AND ITS PLACE IN RENAISSANCE HUMANISM AND ART Philip E. Slater THE GLORY OF HERA Daisetz T. Suzuki ZEN AND JAPANESE CULTURE

Robert A. Segal,

Jean Seznec

/

/

/

/

Jean-Pierre Vernant

(Froma

I.

Zeitlin,

ed.)

/

MORTALS

AND IMMORTALS Jessie L.

Weston

/

FROM RITUAL TO ROMANCE

Helmut Wilhelm and Richard Wilhelm

ING THE

I

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UNDERSTANDON THE

CHING: THE WILHELM LECTURES

BOOK OF CHANGES THE KING AND ed.) THE CORPSE: TALES OF THE SOUL'S CONQUEST OF Heinrich Zimmer (Joseph Campbell,

/

EVIL

MYTHS AND ed.) SYMBOLS IN INDIAN ART AND CIVILIZATION Heinrich Zimmer (Joseph Campbell,

/

1

Anthropology

With a new preface by the author

lI'IllHU H

MELHNESIHN MILLENNIUM

KENELM BURRIDGE Perhaps the most famous modern-day millenarian movements are the "cargo 1950s. Melanesians cults" of Melanesia, active especially during the 1930s and

had long believed

that the sign of the

millennium would be the

arrival of their

advent ancestors in ships bearing lavish material goods, and they interpreted the apparbecame of European vessels as the fulfillment of these expectations. As it ent that the Europeans

meant

of small-scale revolts

known

to

keep the goods and

as cargo cults

to colonize the people, scores

emerged

as attempts to secure the

cargo and thereby preserve the people's most cherished religious beliefs: native aspirations for individual and cultural redemption fastened leaders, of

whom Mambu was the

on

local charismatic

greatest.

a book not just about cargo cults or even about millenarianism generally of but about the ways humans strive to make sense of the most wrenching kinds on works other of array the from apart Mambu sets What lives. their in upheavals

"This

is

these cults

is

—one might almost say

Burridge's philosophical

existentialist—per-

and emergence of the political and cults. But he is distinctive in focusing on the consequences of those social upheavals for the world view of the Melanesians." spective.

No

less fully than others

does he describe

in detail the political

especially the social conditions that undeniably spurred the

—Robert Segal, Lancaster University Kenelm Burridge British

is

Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at the University of

Columbia.

MAVfaTlL^TtSfV jLM*'-

My thos: Tne PrincetonlBollingen Series in World Mythology makes available in

and influential

Cover

illustration: Detail

in mother-of-pearl, paint,

studies

of a shield,

new paperback formats many

on world mythology.

SBN 0-691-00 166-9

and basketry,

from 19th-century Oceania-Melanesia.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1972

Copyright© 1991 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (1978. 412. 730).

design by Donald Hatch

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