Melanesian Cargo Cults: New Salvation Movements in the South Pacific

Melanesische Cargo-Kulte. English translation.
xv,215p., 22p. of plates : diagrs., graphs, map ; 22cm. #120522
Cargo cults. Theological aspects. Melanesia. | Cargo movement. | Melanesia — Religion.
Accounts of natives belief and interpretation of western knowledge which led to the rise of the cargo cult in the South Pacific. Briefly looks specifically at West and East Irian Jaya, Papua, Sepik, Madang, Morobe, New Guinea Highlands, Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, New hebrides, New Caledonia and Fiji. There follows an extensive analysis of cargo cults, and reflections on ways of understanding them. The real significance of cargo cults as a response to the invasion of an alien, powerful civilization is revealed in this valuable study first published in German in 1971.