Cargo Cults - The John Frum Movement

I first heard about "cargo cults" while reading Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania. Theroux had visited a "John Frum movement" village on the island of Tanna. I'd since read a bit more about this bizarre cult following, but a microserf I know encouraged me to personally check it out. And so, soon after arriving in Tonga, I was already making mental plans to visit the island of Tanna in Vanuatu.

My style of travel is a lot more laid back now then it used to be, and upon arriving in Vanuatu in July, I handed planned much of anything. I found a tourism agency who booked me a flight on a small plane to Tanna. That's "plane" in the most liberal sense; it was something that flew and could land, and they allowed me to be the co-pilot (limited seating). I spend an hour battling the constant urge to pulls leavers flip switches and press pedals.

Must not...press...pull...flip...

I had a couple days to kill before my flight to Tanna, and no idea how I was going to find a cargo cult village once I had arrived. That was when drinking kava paid off. At a kava namakal on my first night in Port Vila, I met a ni-Vanuatu who had spent time in Tanna. When I told him I was interested in visiting a cargo cult village, he gave me a note to give to the principal of a school near the resort I would be staying at ("resort" in the most liberal sense). "Please help my friend to visit a John Frum movement village in Tanna," it read, and upon arriving, finding the school, and presenting the note, I was directed to a resident of a nearby village, who arranged for a friend to drive me to meet the chief of a large John Frum village. I brought a bundle of kava roots to give as a gift, and the next morning I was on my way.


During the hour and a half trip along Tanna's only road ("road" in the most liberal sense, as that 90min was needed to cover just twenty kilometers), locals who were headed our way piled into the truck. One such local, the cousin of the driver, was Thomas. Thomas claimed that he was the man to see for any John Frum information. He said he had interviewed everyone connected to the movement, and had cut through the BS to compile the one true history of "John Frum." Thomas proceeded to enlighten me with the details:

Thomas, a young and educated John Frum follower, and leader of a unity movement to patch a divide in the cult.

Isaak, the chief of a John Frum village of about two hundred residents. Isaak told me he was born in 1939, though he may be taking theatrical license as the history of the cult centers around the events of World War II. Isaak is the leader of the splinter group Thomas is working so hard to bring in.

In 1936, a spirit appeared to a village in South East Tanna. It appeared in the form of a white man, but would later take many shapes including that of a tiger and a pussy cat. the spirit called itself "John," speaking in the language of the villages (no small feat, considering most villages in Vanuatu had their own language and there are still more then 150 languages spoken in the islands today).

Most of what John told the villages was prophesy. Tanna was one of the islands furthest from the colonial capital Port Vila from which Britain and France governed Vanuatu. But John told the people that they would learn to drive, to speak English and French, and be blessed with great material wealth. His biggest prophesy, though, and the one around which the movement would center, was that America would come and be a friend to Vanuatu.

In 1941 Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbour, and in 1942 the USA made Vanuatu its main staging ground in the South Pacific. Thousands of American soldiers passed through Vanuatu every month on their way to the battlegrounds of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. These soldiers had a major impact on every Pacific nation they spent time in. In Kiribati, their wealth and friendliness encouraged the locals to ask the US Naval Commander who they could switch from being a British colony to being a colony of America. In Tonga, hundreds of Americans took Tongan girlfriends in exchange for cigarettes, beer, and radios. But to the people of Tanna, who traveled to Port Vila to work for the Americans, these soldiers and their unending supply of cargo represented the fulfillment of prophesy.

The Tannans returned home to their island at the end of the war, expecting their own material wealth (and driving lessons!) to come at any time. They copied what they had seen in Port Vila - they built runways in their villages for cargo planes to land, constructed radio towers out of tin cans so the Americans could contact them, and raised the flags they had seen on the Americans bases - the Stars and Stripes, and the Red Cross - to help the cargo planes find their villages.

The British and French did their best to quash the "cargo cult villages" in Tanna, because the people there ignored the government and looked to America. A Pentecostal missionary even spread a rumour that the villages were practicing Devil worship. Time passed, and the "founders" who had seen the spirit of John (one was Isaak's father) died. People learned English, French, and how to drive, but they never received the great wealth they had witnessed in American military bases.
So what are the followers doing now? Are they still waiting for the cargo planes to come? Do they expect John to return, with more prophesies? Here is where the rift formed in the movement. When I met him, Isaak explained to me that they are indeed waiting for such things. However, for that to happen, he said the people needed to abandon western ways and return to their cultural beliefs. For this reason, Isaak does not allow his villages to attend school of Christian church services, the two biggest institutions of "western influence" in Tanna. Every Friday night, Isaak's village holds their own Church service, where they sing, perform custom dances, and raise the flags of (among others) America and the US Marine Corps.

No school, and a visit from a white man in an AMERICAN Ralph Lauren shirt? Hot dog!

But Thomas claims that Isaak and other elderly John Frum followers misunderstood John's original message. John never told the people to abandon "Westernism" and embrace custom. Instead, says Thomas, John was simply speaking about change. Thomas encourages his people to go to school and to church, while looking at John Frum as a kind of John the Baptist, readying the Tannan people for the coming of the West.

Arriving in the village, I spoke with Isaak but already had a pretty good idea of the movement's history. Isaak didn't speak much English or French, but his son was fluent i n French and interpreted my confusing Canadian French. I saw the meeting hall, the flag polls, and many many kids (Isaak himself has over a dozen). When my ride returned, I wished Isaak the best, and wished I had brought a Canadian flag for them to add to the ceremony. Whoever John Frum was (some claim Frum is a corruption of "From," and John was simply introducing himself as "John from America"), I thought about all I had learned first hand about a cult I'd only read about before. As I got in the 4WD, Isaak sent his son to get something. He handed me his business card, instantly shattering everything I thought I understood about his movement.

Kava

Kava is a staple drink in Tonga. Typically, anything and everything that has Tongan men in attendance will include the drinking of kava. Being a man in Tonga, I partake by default, and have had it dozens and dozens of times in the past year and eight months. The effects are similar to alcohol, which is why, in the Pacific, beer is sometimes called "European kava." However, while it slows physical coordination, it leaves the mind clear to think. You're physically sleepy, but mentally alert. There's also an increased sense of sense of calm, sociability, and camaraderie, which helps to explain why men here break out the kava bowl at every social event.

Despite all this, I didn't feel that kava deserved more then a mention here (until now). That's because Tongan make it weak. Want to try some yourself? Mix one part dirt to twenty parts water, dissolve in a couple of those cough drops that numb your tongue, and drink a cup every ten minutes for four hours. I've had as many as fifteen shells full (that's right, actual coconut shells, cause I'm cool) yet felt only a mild effect.

Kava has always been a part of Pacific culture, but the use of kava has changed in recent times. In a large way, it's become nationalizing. I don't want to get into a whole thing here about colonization and decolonization and the reason there are so many coups in the South Pacific. The main point of all that is that people and culture vary widely island to island within the borders set by a bunch of European map makers. So many islanders today are trying to look to the things that unite them rather then divide them, and the consumption of kava is one such unifier. In Micronesia, the kava shell even appears on the state’s flag!

So in Vanuatu, kava drinking has become part of the national identity, and kava bars (called nakamal) there are more popular then alcohol bars. And in Vanuatu, kava is different. I'm not clear on if its the age of the roots, or the way it's prepared, but kava in Vanuatu is potent. Troost, one of the authors I mentioned last post, was knocked near-unconscious in Vanuatu by two shells of kava. A friend of a Japanese teacher at my college was temporarily paralyzed by the same amount. So you can appreciate it when I tell you that I had six shells.

In hindsight, five would have been enough. But despite it's weakness, Tongan kava seems to have built up my tolerance. So, after two shells and a wait of twenty minutes with no apparent effect, I was ready for more (with no risk to my wallet, since each drink cost about 50 cents Canadian). And twenty minutes was also more then enough time to make some new Ni-Vanuatu friends who were happy to learn that I was not (as I appeared) Australian. Those darn Australians! My Ni-Vanuatu friends had a much higher tolerance then I, and they had a truck, with which we went bar hopping Vanuatu-style.

Neighbourhood to neighbourhood, sometimes across the street from each other or even four to a corner like gas stations in Canada, were nakamal in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila. Each evening, when it begins to get dark, the owners light red lamps to show patrons that they're open for business. Some that we visited were actual bar-like structures with tables, tin roofs, and food for sale. Others were little more then a woman sitting in her yard mixing a plastic bucket full of kava. But somehow my new friends knew which nakamal in each neighbourhood was the best (measured by the kava's strength, I think), and when it was time to move on to another.

To prove your manhood, you're supposed to drink the entire shell in one go, not sip it like an expensive beer in a dance club. That was never a problem for me, much to the delight of the serving girls. Oh yeah, in Tonga, it's still taboo (oooo) for women to drink kava, but its slowly becoming accepted for women in Vanuatu (though I never saw any who were drinking instead of serving). I downed a third and a fourth in quick succession. but held off on my fifth until late in the evening. Finally I downed it, and was surprised to find that I was still conscious and not paralyzed. So much so that, after being dropped off at my room at the end of the night, I decided to take one more "for the road" at the nakamal across from my hostel. Big. Mistake.

Somehow, I made it back to my room, and even took a bite of some Chinese takeaway I got. I turned on the TV, and lay down for a wide-eyed hour of French television. I vaguely remember a fear-factor type show that included two "little people" as helpers, a master samurai jail keeper, and Merlin (the sorcerer of King Arthur's court). I spent six more nights in Vanuatu, but never had more then five shells of kava again!

And if you're looking to try some kava, these days it's available from Amazon.com.  This one, from Tonga, is quite potent kava of the "vanuatu" variety.  Gather some friends, a pair of pantyhose, a bucket, and you're good to go!

Vanuatu

Fiji was alright, but I went to Fiji mostly because, before coming to Tonga, everyone I had to talked to in Canada said (once we had established where Tonga was) "the Pacific? My [any family member] went to Fiji!" That and then in Tonga, most Tongans told me something to the effect of, "yeah our country is OK...but you should really go see Fiji!" So I felt like I had no choice but to check it out. But the country I was REALLY looking forward to visiting was Vanuatu. Where!? I've met British here in Tonga who had never heard of Vanuatu, and it was in THEIR empire! Some background:

Two of my favourite travel writers, Paul Theroux and J. Maaten Troost, visited Vanuatu during their time in the South Pacific. And a new favourite explorer of mine, Captain Cook, had also visited and written extensively about what were then called the "New Hebrides." After reading the accounts of these three men, I was determined to see the islands with my own eyes.

When Cook visited the New Hebrides, he wrote, "the people of this country are in general the most ugly and ill-proportioned of any I ever saw." What a jerk! But what really interested Europeans was Cook's description of the people's paganism, barbarism, and cannibalism. John Williams was the first missionary there. He had played a major role in bringing the Wesleyan faith to Polynesia, but as he stepped off his boat in the New Hebrides he was promptly clubbed and eaten. The competition was on - Cannibals 1, Christianity 0. Soon missionaries from both the English Presbyterian Church the French Catholic Church and were flooding in to the islands. They were followed by British and French settlers, who became frustrated by the lawlessness in a country that neither Britain nor France was willing to adopt as a colony. Finally, after a series of attacks and murders in the New Hebrides committed by both natives and Europeans, and an increasing German presence in the South Pacific, Britain and France agreed to jointly rule the colony. In 1906 the New Hebrides became the first and only place where these two worked together in one colony, and the result was about as awkward as you can imagine.

Ni-Vanuatu (citizens of Vanuatu) I talked with, who lived through this condominium government, said it was all extremely confusing. Instead of actually working together, the British and French competed and doubled up on everything. There were two school systems - one British and one French. Two hospitals, two police forces, two sets of laws, two courts, two postal systems! At one time, the height of flag poles was measured, to make sure the French weren't flying their flag higher then the British or vise-versa. Real confusion came when British insisted on driving on the left while the French drove on the right! I made that last one up (or did I...).

Things finally came to a head in the 1970s when the British were determined to unload the last of their colonies while the French were determined to keep all of theirs. In the end, the British convinced France to pull out of the New Hebrides and the country became independent "Vanuatu" in 1980. The British promptly disappeared, as if they had never been there, leaving a lot of Ni-Vanuatu wondering if the fight for independence had really been a good idea. While France gives some aid to the former colony, things appear much better for nearby New Caledonia which remains a part of the French empire.

Now with a history like that, I knew I'd enjoy myself. But just in case, I also planned to go to the rim of an active volcano, visit to a remote island that all but worships Americans, and take plenty of powerful yet legal narcotics (true story). How could Vanuatu be anything but awesome?

Britain and France, united only by their fear of der German Kaiser Wilhelm II!

Fiji

I know you're supposed to take time to form an educated opinion about a new country, but I was only in Fiji for a week. So, here's what I immediately noticed on my first day in its capital, Suva:

• There are lots of Indians! So many, in fact, that I considered the possibility that Suva was in fact a gateway in space and having visited Suva, I could now claim I've been to India. Sari shops, curry stands, Hindi music, and Bollywood films are everywhere. The tension between Indo-Fijians and Ethnic Fijians is palpable (and the cause of four political coups since Fiji's independence).

• There are no dogs. As I write this in Tonga, there's a dog fight going on in my back yard. In Tonga, livestock, in the form of dog, wanders the street. Hungry? Got a rock and a match? Hunger solved. But then Fiji has something Tonga doesn't: McDonald's...coincidence?

• The people aren't that friendly. But then, it's all relative. Tonga has kept true to its nickname "the Friendly Islands" ever since Captain Cook bestowed it on them in the 1770s. You'd be hard pressed to pass any Tongan on the street without exchanging some form of pleasantry. (as a bonus, I also can't pass a Tongan child who doesn't want to practice/show off his/her English). It's so much the norm that I'm in the habit of saying "hello," waving, or at least nodding my head and raising my eyebrows (Tongan custom) to every person I pass. All's well in Tonga, but in Suva that habit got me treated like an escaped mental patient.

I spent half my week in and around Suva, before heading to the opposite side of the main island and Fiji's second-biggest city, Nadi (pronounced Nan-dee). I bought some snacks for the four-hour bus ride to Nadi, wandering through an actual grocery store in a stunned daze. In Tonga, if I wanted strawberry jam, I would go to the shop that sold strawberry jam and buy the brand of jam they carried. In Suva, I was confronted by half an aisle devoted to jams of all kinds. I wasn't buying jam for the bus, but I still stared at five different brands of strawberry jam and wondered if stepping into a Superstore in Canada would put me into a coma.

And then, in the milk section, I saw something I never though I would. You see, in Tonga, every shop carries the exact same brand of ultra-heat treated ANCHOR regular milk. Many shops put up the free poster that I assume the receive when they order their millionth case of ANCHOR milk. The poster reads "ANCHOR Milk, Which Would You Choose?" With check boxes next to the flavours Chocolate, Strawberry, and Hokey Pokey (and in a cunning display of advertising genius, an additional and checked box labeled "All of them!"). This poster is made of false hope, and is a cruel tease to every Tongan child. "Regular" is the only flavour of milk sold in Tonga.

Now I already know what chocolate and strawberry taste like. But "Hokey Pokey"? Whenever I saw a poster and tried to imagine it, I imagined some flavourful mix of skipping school and playing Twister. And there, in Suva, sat juicebox sized portions of Hokey Pokey milk. I didn't even wait for the bus; I guzzled it as I left the cash register. I wish I could say it tasted like I imagined it would, but it turned out to just be caramel.

Bula bula

So much for finishing Tasmania, that's on hold now that I've arrived in Fiji! It's my first full day in Suva, coincidentally also my birthday (though none of the airport and customs officials noticed). But all I care about is that it's "town day," woo hoo!

I'm staying with a friend from Papua New Guinea at the Marist College. Ashton and I taught together last year, before he returned to Fiji to finish his training to become a priest. He invited me to stay at the college, which has been fantastic and I haven't even been here a day yet. There are about 30 seminarians here, and they're from all over the Pacific. This morning I ate breakfast and spoke French with two seminarians from Vanuatu, one from Wallis, one from New Caladonia, and a visiting priest from Africa. Thank you colonialism!

I came at just the right time - last night, being Friday, was "social night," and I was adopted by the Tongan seminarians to join them for what Tongans do best - eating, and drinking kava. And then, as I mentioned, today is "town day." The first Saturday of every month the seminarians are given $30 each to go wild in Suva. Wild with a 10:30pm curfew, that is. Now I know what you're thinking - how crazy can it get when everyone is training to be a priest? Well I'll have you know, we're going to see Transformers 2, and there's even talk of ice cream. So Fijian mothers, lock up your Fijian daughters! Fifteen minutes and seventy cents from now, the bus will be dropping us off in Suva!