Cargo Cult as Theater

Dorothy K. Billings' unique ethnography is based on thirty-five years of anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Cargo Cult as Theater offers anthropologists, and anyone interested in the Johnson cult, careful insight into this unlikely cultural phenomenon.

---

Why did half the people on New Hanover, a small island north of New Guinea, vote for Lyndon Baines Johnson to be their ruler in 1964? Dorothy K. Billings believes that this sort of action—seen in New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia—is part of the "cargo cult" phenomenon, or micronationalist movements which are principally regarded as responses to European colonialism. Based on thirty-five years of fieldwork and observation, Cargo Cult as Theater demonstrates how the 'Johnson Cult,' originally mocked and ridiculed by the outside world, should be seen as an ongoing political performance meant to consolidate local power and advance economic development. This fascinating study follows the changes in this community ritual, from the time of the white 'master' to post-colonial self-determination, and reveals the history of this people's attempt to gain intellectual, moral, economic, and political control over their own lives.