Selected Bibliography for the Study of Cargo Cults

Selected Bibliography for the Study of Cargo Cults

John E. Adkins, M.A., M.S.L.S.

University of Charleston, Charleston, West Virginia

Scope Note

This bibliography contains selected items on the largely Pacific Island phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult' including items related to the John Frum cargo cult on Vanuatu.  My interest in this topic originates in the chapter dealing with the issue in Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion.  

Cargo cults are religious cults dating primarily to the World War II and post war era (though there are similar instances dating to the first appearance of outsiders in the area in the 1850s) in the Pacific islands.  Cargo cults developed from native observations of the activities of American and Japanese occupation force activities on the islands.  To the natives, it appeared that the strange activities of these people had to be magical in nature as much of the activity appeared to be impractical and unrelated to the production of the goods that they used and received via cargo plane and ship.  Once the islands were abandoned the natives began to perform activities modeled after what they observed in the hope that the “cargo” would return.  Many of these cults are associated with particular individuals such as John Frum.

This bibliography should be considered a working bibliography and is not intended to be exhaustive.  Annotations will be added to items as time allows.  The compiler is not an anthropologist but a librarian with graduate degrees in library science and historical studies.

Books

Christiansen, Palle.  The Melanesian Cargo Cult: Millenarianism as a Factor in Cultural Change.  Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1969.

Cochrane, Glynn.  Big men and Cargo Cults.  Oxford: Claredon Press, 1970.

Dawkins, Richard.  The God Delusion.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Jebens, Holger, ed. Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique.  Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2004.

Kaplan, Martha. Neither Cargo Nor Cult. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.

Lattas, Andrew. Cultures of Secrecy: Reinventing Race in Bush Kaliai Cargo Cults.  Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.

Lindstrom, Lamont.  Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and Beyond.  Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Worsley, Peter.  The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of ‘Cargo’ Cults in Melanesia. 2nd ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Articles

Brunton, R.  “Cargo Cults and Systems of Exchange in Melanesia.” Mankind 8 (1971): 115-28.

Dalton, D.  “Cargo Cults and Discursive Madness.”  Oceania 70, no. 4 (2000): 245-361.

Hermann, E. “The Yali Movement in retrospect: Rewriting History, Redefining ‘Cargo Cult.’” Oceana 63 (1992): 55-71.

Jebens, Holger. “Trickery or Secrecy? On Andrew Lattas’ Interpretation of ‘Bush Kaliai Cargo Cults.’” Anthropos 97 (2002): 181-99.

___.  “‘Vali did that too’: On Western and Indigenous Cargo Discourses in West New Britain (Papua New Guinea).”  Anthropological Forum 14, no. 2 (July 2004): 117-139.

Lattas, Andrew. “Cargo Cults and the Politics of Alternity: A Review Article.” Anthropological Forum 17, no. 2 (July 2007): 149-161.

___.  “Telephones, Cameras and Technology in West New Britain Cargo Cults.” Oceania 70, no. 4 (2000): 325-44.

Lindstrom, Lamont.  “Cargo Cults, Sexual Distance and Melanesian Social Integration.”  Canberra Anthropology 1, no. 2 (1978): 42-58.

Schein, Louisa.  “Of Cargo and Satellites: Imagines Cosmopolitanism.”  Postcolonial Studies.  2, no. 3 (1999): 345-375.