Cargo cults
Name(s):
Revivalist movements
Nativistic movements
Millenarian movements
Nature
These movements received their name from the Melanesian movements early in this century characterized by the belief that the millennium will be ushered in by the arrival of great ships loaded with European trade goods (cargo). The goods will be brought by the ancestral spirits and will be distributed to natives who have acted in accordance to the dictates of one of the cults. Some of the cults advocated the expulsion of all things alien, the renunciation of all things European and the return to traditional ways of life. Others called for the rejection of traditional ways of life and the adaptation of European customs. These movements develop where there is extreme material and other inequality between societies in contact. They attempt to explain then erase the differences in material wealth between natives and Europeans.
Narrower
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems