August 8, 2026 • 25 mins
Compared to most people, the UK's Prince Phillip has a pretty swell life -- he's literally royalty, has never gone hungry, and has traveled the world meeting some of Earth's most important people. And, to some residents of Vanuatu, he's also a god. Join the guys as they explore the evolution of the religious movements collectively known as 'cargo cults'.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Phillow Ridiculous Historians. We're returning to you with this week's
(00:03):
classic episode. The question is what's the most famous a
person could be?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Dupe? Dupe, dupe Edinburgh. That's all I got this world,
Oh boy, I didn't know any other That's all I got.
This is a fun one. Guys about the Duke of Edinburgh,
who pretty interesting life.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Mm hmm, yeah, literally royalty. You may know him by
the name Prince Philip. Uh. He has obviously lived a
very different life to that of most people on the planet.
And Noel, as you said, he also, depending upon whom
you ask, attained godhood.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah. I don't know if the term cargo cult means
anything to you, but maybe do take a little peekback
through the feed of our sister podcast stuff. They don't
want you to know if you want some companion material,
because it's wild. It is a religious movement and this
guy was highly revered in it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:36):
Recently on Twitter, I was asking some friends about which
books we find ourselves rereading again and again in this
sort of inevitable way, Like you read this, you know
a few years later, you're going to reread it for me.
One of my favorite books in the world is a
(01:57):
book called The Atlas of Remote Islands. Talked about this book.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I don't think so, Ben. My name is Nola by.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
The way, Oh yes, and I'm Ben. And we are
joined with our guest super producer, Paul Michigan controlled Decan,
who you may recognize for another show stuff they don't
want you to know. Paul, do you have a sound
Do we have a sound effect? Paul is nodding, Oh,
there it is, and as always, shout out to our
(02:23):
super producer, Casey Lebouche Pegram, who is pursuing his double life.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I just think it's a delight that he's able to
do that, you know, and only receive mild ragging from us.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Ragging, No, say it ain't so. I have immense respect
for anyone who can kaiser SoSE to that degree. Let's
just hope his French friends never listened to this English
language podcast where it's all over for Lebouche. One thing
about this book now, I'll get you a copy because
it's a tremendous book. It's one of those books that
I end up having to buy copy of repeatedly because
(03:02):
they keep giving it away. One thing about this book
is it's an atlas and an anthology of short true
stories that happen on some of the world's most remote islands.
And when we think here in the States of traveling,
we think of places like, you know, Europe, maybe Africa,
(03:25):
South America, Asia, But we often and there's not a
ding on us. I'm just saying the general we people
in the US, we often forget about the thousands and
thousands and thousands of tiny islands around the globe, you
know what I mean. They have their own distinct, rich,
amazing history that you will not find anywhere else on
(03:46):
the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, and a bunch of them are in the South Pacific.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I know if you've seen the
musical South Pacific. But it's very accurate about the life
on these islands.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
In that they're in the South Pacific.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's right. And they sing constantly. Everything's in song form,
with occasional snatches of dialogue. Everyone's washing men out of
their hair. You know. Their showers are these little stalls
with little coconut thing. Everything's made of coconuts. It's like
Iligan's Island, kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You know, right, I have to say I have not
I have not seen the musical South Pacific.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, the most famous song I think is the Balia
We'll call you ballyt Highs, like the kind of shangri law.
It's like the sort of like Paradise.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, maybe I'll check it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The thing about this area of the world is that
it is populated with thousands and thousands of islands grouped
in different places, you know, Micronesia, Malaysia, Indonesia where our
good pow Christopher Hasiotis has spent some time Indonesia, Indonesia.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, he's deep in the Indonesia game. We should ask
him about it one day. Today's story it takes us
to the South Pacific. We are traveling to Melanesia e
l A n e Sia, and we're examining a religious
movement that may be familiar to some and completely out
(05:18):
of the blue for others. We're going to Tana, a
small island in the southern part of the Vanuatu Archipelago
where devoted believers await the second coming of a god,
an American god, a US god who will bring divine
(05:41):
gifts and their specific.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, there's a pigeon English word that I didn't know this,
but cargo is Pigeon English for like stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Basically, right, this god will bring televisions, refrigerators, Coca cola.
This belief system, this religious movement is often referred to
as a cargo cult. And the idea, just like you said, Noel.
For a lot of us, cargo means like something you
would haul on a ship, but here it means stuff gifts.
(06:13):
So there will be in this belief a new age
of blessing and it will be signaled by the arrival
of a special cargo of goods from supernatural sources.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But Ben, this god doesn't have a particularly godlike name.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Does he in when there is John from Frum, so.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
It's an odd name for a god.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, so this there's a documentary called Waiting for John,
an Island's cult worships American materialism, and it's about the
John From movement on Tanna. This is commonly called a
cargo cult, which may seem like an advisive word for people,
but in the belief system, John From is a soldier
(06:56):
who visited Tanna during World War Two bringing.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So what this is to me and to many anthropologists
that have examined this phenomenon is sort of a clashing
of modern culture with indigenous culture, right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Right, Yeah, there's real there's syncretism of a type going
on here. So the John From movement has its greatest
stronghold in a village called Lama Kara, and many villagers
have still according to a Great Slate article written in
twenty eighteen, many villagers in this area have left the
(07:36):
movement for other religions, typically Christian alternatives. The idea becomes
becomes sticky because it is a real thing, right, and
it is a genuine belief system. But also there's a
little bit of othering that occurs when we're talking about this.
You know, it's very easy perhaps for people to be
(07:58):
condescending about this, but we know that the cargo cults
existed before World War Two. One of the first occurrences
was the Tuka movement that began in Fiji in eighteen
eighty five around the British colonial plantation era. And it's
kind of the same Grand Theater written out, there's going
(08:18):
to be a there's going to be a stranger who
has tremendous power who is going to bring these this
unending cycle of goods and gifts. And usually when we
talk about cargo cults. Today, we're talking about the Melanesian
Islanders in the years during and after World War Two,
(08:42):
because these people were not living you know, globally connected lives.
And then in the because of the tragedy of World
War Two, they see the largest war ever fought by
you know, high tech nations. Right, I see Japan bringing
a great deal of supplies and then later the Allied forces.
(09:05):
So what would you think, you know what I mean
if you wake up one day people dressed in a
way you've never seen. Right, They're coming out of machines
that you have never seen. Are they machines? It's tough
to know. And then they're bringing tons. Tons are really
cool stuff, really cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And they not only sought the blessings and the largesse
of these items that would rain down from the sky
and theory they had to sacrifice some stuff, or at
least they created this system that was again this kind
of East meets West or kind of you know, clashing
of cultures where they were able to kind of adapt
their traditional beliefs into this kind of new sort of
(09:44):
hybridized religion and some of it involved sacrificing.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right, Like what kind of sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, some of the native folks would want to butcher
all of their pigs because they knew they were going
to receive a blessing of grit eight pigs that would
rain down from the sky. So they would hoard food
and firewood, and they would stockpile all these things for
the arrival of the great pigs that they would then
(10:10):
use to feed them. This is my favorite part, and
this is really fascinating. All that gear we were talking about,
all that stuff that they would see. They built their
own kind of like stand ins for some of these things,
like radio towers may have bamboo and rope.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, and would dress in ways that were reminiscent
of the what they believed these other people had looked like.
I think you're talking specifically about when the Australian government
went into New Guinea right in the nineteen forties, nineteen
forty six, and people went nuts. Can you imagine how
(10:47):
surreal the situation would because they were slaughtering all their pigs, right,
that was the sacrifice before the They thought, because they
saw these forces, that it was a signed the world
was going to end right three days of Darkness millennium. Yeah,
and then as you said, no great pigs appear from
the sky. And what's interesting about this is that there
(11:12):
are multiple versions of these of these religions, and they
appear to have arisen independently as sort of a parallel
response to social stress and strain. There's the Taro cult
and New Gueni, the Vii Laala Madness of Papua, the
Naked cult of Espiritu Santo, the John From movement which
(11:34):
you mentioned earlier, and the Touka cult from the late
eighteen hundreds. It's strange that this applied to troops on
either side of World War Two. So Axis forces land
somewhere on an island and boom, it's a sign of
the apocalypse. Allied forces arrive, boom, it's a sign of
the same. And there's a story about Gis who were
(11:57):
moving toward the conflict on Guadalcanal. When they arrived in
the New Hybrides, they found native people preparing these airfields,
these roads, and these docks that you mentioned, and they said,
we're preparing for the ships and planes that were coming
from Rusfel, which was their word for Roosevelt. They thought
(12:18):
he was the King of America.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
But they also saw him as a benevolent king, didn't they, Ben,
They did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, it's true he was. If the preparations were made correctly,
then this King of America would show favor to people
who kept the faith the lack of.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
A better word, how about the Japanese, Ben, They had
their own kind of encounter with this sort of thing,
didn't they They did?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They did. No, So here's one of the stranger instances
in Dutch New Guinea. Japanese forces had to be turned
against the local Papuan inhabitants of the Guilvink Bay region.
At first, they had been received with great joy because
the native people living there saw them as harbingers of
(13:12):
a new world that was dawning, and they saw the
arrival of the Japanese forces as a sign that the
creator of their islands and their people, named Mansren, would
now return, bringing with them the great ancestral dead. And
the religious leaders said that this was all not this
was all public knowledge. But the Dutch were trying to
(13:33):
control the island, and they had torn out the first
page of the Bible where the true story was inscribed,
and when Mansarin returned, the existing world order would be
entirely thrown on its head. People would change skin color,
broot crops would grow in trees, coconuts, and fruits would
grow on the ground like tubers. And then they started
(13:56):
getting together in large towns and renaming their villages. Even
they adopted military uniforms, they imitated military drills. This turned
the tide against the Japanese forces. How so they became
(14:17):
very unpopular. They were trying to disarm and disperse these communities,
and eventually canoe loads of fanatics sailed out to attack
Japanese warships. They believed they were invulnerable because of the
Holy water they had sprinkled themselves with.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Power belief, right, the power of belief.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Let's go. You know what's interesting here. I think we
should go back to John Frum. So we've shown that
there are multiple iterations of this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
And John Frum wasn't the only deity. It was sort
of parallel thinking, right.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So there is a rich folkloric ecosystem,
which is probably the most protect thing I've said in
a while.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
But you know what, Ben, it had to be that.
I'm glad that's the one. It was because that is
a very smart sounding, pretentious thing you just said.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Great, Thanks, thanks so much so. John From is still celebrated.
Every year on February fifteenth, natives of Tanna Island hold
a celebration in honor of From. People clue themselves in
US Army pants, they paint USA on their chest. They
have a replica of a US flag alongside the Marine
(15:30):
Corps emblem. And then the celebrants of this, dressed as soldiers,
march in the shadow of the island's active volcano and
they have replica rifles, red tipped bamboos slung over their shoulder.
This is considered the holiest religious service that followers of
the John From religious movement can do. And it's so difficult.
(15:55):
This is a big topic. We talked about this a
little bit off. Era is a big topic that we
could probably return to. There are so many incredible cultural
impacts that were made by these encounters with US and
Allied forces. Islanders were First off, they were astonished that
these that these visitors, at least from the Ally side,
(16:18):
were way better than the British missionaries had been. And
then imagine their surprise too when they saw wait, some
of these soldiers have skin like hours and they're getting
all the benefits of this cargo, you know what I mean,
the food, the medicine, the treats, the shelter, the technology.
And in the past, because of their skin colored people
(16:38):
who lived on these islands had been denied any of
these benefits by the British and by other European powers.
So of course they see this, there's something aspirational about it,
and we see human propensity to create religion. But we
should go you know what, we would be remiss if
(16:59):
we didn't cover one of the most infamous examples of
a quote unquote cargo cult. That's the story of Prince Philip.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The infamous Prince Philip Movement.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
No, no, no, is that the Prince Philip?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh, yes, yes it is, Yes, it has been. It's
the Prince Philip. So the Prince Philip Movement began on
that very island we talked about at the top of
the show, a Tana in the nineteen sixties. They believed
that the Prince was some sort of deity unto himself,
a god among men, right like, brought to this earth
(17:36):
to fulfill some sort of ancient prophecy. He was the
son of some kind of mountain spirit who would take
the form of a very conveniently pale skinned man. As
we know, Prince Philip was you know, a little pasty
oh that worked out a little bit on the pasty side,
a little ghostly in his you know, visage, right, And
(17:59):
that this man would travel abroad, marry a powerful woman,
check check, and eventually returned to the island. And when
the villagers saw this portrait of Prince Philip, I'm quite
sure how they happened upon said portrait, Ben, Have you
heard this part of the story?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, So, so we know that this belief probably
arose sometime in the fifties or sixties, nineteen fifties or sixties,
and it really picked up steam when the Royal couple
visited the island in nineteen seventy four and some villagers
were able to see physically see Prince Philip from a distance. Right.
(18:37):
He was not aware, by the way, of any of this.
He did not know what was happening until later a
guy named John Champion, the British Resident Commissioner of the area,
informed him about this belief system. And Champion is the
one that said, hey, Prince Philip, you should send them
a picture of you that makes sense. So he sends
(19:00):
the picture and he signs it. The villagers respond by
sending him a traditional club used to kill livestock. It's
called a null null and he complies with their request
to send them a picture of himself posing with the club.
So he sends it, and I think there was another
photograph that was sent as recently as the year two thousands.
(19:22):
It was recently as nineteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
And there's a really great mental Fluss article. You know
how much we love Mental Fluss articles. It doesn't have
a writing credit on it, which is strange. I guess
it's just the staff writer. Maybe it was written by committee.
Who knows, I'll have to ask Will and mangsh But
it is about the cult of Prince Philip, and it
talks about how so many world movements, machinations of you know,
(19:50):
cultural shifts, were attributed by these native folks to Prince
Philip and his influence, his spiritual kind of web of influence.
They actually claimed that his powers gave black men the
ability to become president of the United States, and that
he possessed a kind of magic that allowed the US
(20:12):
forces to locate Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Interesting. Interesting. He was also said at times to be
a brother to John Frum. What I think will startle
many people is to know that this continued so far
into the modern age. In two thousand and seven, BBC's
Channel four broadcast a reality show called Meet the Natives,
(20:41):
which I think is a tone deaf name. Five men
from the Prince Philip movement went on a visit to
Britain and their trip culminated in an audience with Prince Philip.
They actually met, physically met him, talked to him, They
got a new photoph the exchanged some gifts.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Can you imagine how cool that must be if you
really believed this stuff. It'd be like meeting Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's the amazing thing. Yeah, it's It kind of makes
you think about the ideas of various ancient civilizations where
there were god emperors. How powerful is it to meet
someone who has at the center of your religion. Now,
this also goes into an ethical thing that I wanted
to I wanted to ask everybody listening about if you
(21:27):
found out that there was some part of the world
where you had never been, maybe even never thought about visiting,
and that people in this part of the world knew
about you and worshiped you. What would you do? Would
you go, would you allow yourself to be worshiped? Or
would you say, Hey, I'm just a person, you know
what I mean? I you know, I burned my bell
(21:50):
bottoms one leg at a time, like everybody else in
the post disco era.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That's right. I put my sacrificial robes on with a drawstrain,
just like the rest of you. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I too love Tushy Bidetz and Miller like.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, and piniccolatas and occasionally walks in the rain.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
So what would you do? It's an interesting question. It's
an ethical dilemma. We know what Prince Philip did.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
He kind of leaned into it a little bit, it
really did. Yeah, that's almost got a problematic, is it not.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It's I would say, I would say almost kind is
a good qualifier. He has other stuff he's done and
things that he said that were very racist. Yeah, way
more offensive.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That's also true. But here's the thing, though, Ben is
it more or less offensive if it's truly these people's
belief to like reign on their belief, party on their
faith parade?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Or is it more respectful just to go along with it,
even if you happen to be at the center of it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, I don't know. It's I mean, it's a quandary.
It's a quagmire. I'm not sure what the right thing
to do would be. If somebody has such tremendous faith
in you, you don't want to let them down, you know,
So we want to hear from you. Let us know
what you think, let us know what your decision would be.
You can tell us, along with your fellow listeners on Instagram,
(23:05):
on Twitter, on Facebook, and as always, we look forward
to hearing your takes and to hearing your discussions. These
are active religious movements. They're still around, so let's all
be respectful of people's beliefs.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What would you do, though, if folks worshiped you and
revered you and held you up as a god, would
you burst their bubble? Or would you go with it?
Let us know. You can write to us at Ridiculous
at iHeartRadio dot com. The aforementioned Facebook page we recommend
you joining is called Ridiculous Historians. I think all you
have to do is name one of our names or
(23:42):
say something clever that lets us know you actually seen
on the show, and then you can be part of
a really cool group of like minded history buffs that
post a lot of memes and ask a lot of
fun questions, and we lurk in there occasionally and pop
into threads from time to time. You can also find
me and Ben collectively individually rather at our Instagram handles.
Mine is at how Now Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Mine is at Ben Bolin tune In. I don't remember
when this episode will come out, but I'll probably be
on some more strange shenanigans and misadventures, so so let
me let me know. I'll also be asking for some
travel advice. And if you if you log into that Facebook, honestly,
just like make us laugh, do something make us laugh.
(24:26):
We're in a big thanks to our guest super producer
Paul Mission Control Deck and Paul Invisible Air High five
Up Top Boom, and as always, a big big thanks
to Casey LaBouche Hegrim, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
To Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks to our
reach associate Gabe Lusier, and thanks to Chris fhrasiotis here
in spirit as per usual, and Ben, thanks to you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Thanks to you, no I almost called you Buckaroo. But
those are fighting words for people over.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
No fighting here, sir.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
We're all about peace.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
See you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(25:27):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Phillow Ridiculous Historians. We're returning to you with this week's
(00:03):
classic episode. The question is what's the most famous a
person could be?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Dupe? Dupe, dupe Edinburgh. That's all I got this world,
Oh boy, I didn't know any other That's all I got.
This is a fun one. Guys about the Duke of Edinburgh,
who pretty interesting life.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Mm hmm, yeah, literally royalty. You may know him by
the name Prince Philip. Uh. He has obviously lived a
very different life to that of most people on the planet.
And Noel, as you said, he also, depending upon whom
you ask, attained godhood.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah. I don't know if the term cargo cult means
anything to you, but maybe do take a little peekback
through the feed of our sister podcast stuff. They don't
want you to know if you want some companion material,
because it's wild. It is a religious movement and this
guy was highly revered in it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:36):
Recently on Twitter, I was asking some friends about which
books we find ourselves rereading again and again in this
sort of inevitable way, Like you read this, you know
a few years later, you're going to reread it for me.
One of my favorite books in the world is a
(01:57):
book called The Atlas of Remote Islands. Talked about this book.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I don't think so, Ben. My name is Nola by.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
The way, Oh yes, and I'm Ben. And we are
joined with our guest super producer, Paul Michigan controlled Decan,
who you may recognize for another show stuff they don't
want you to know. Paul, do you have a sound
Do we have a sound effect? Paul is nodding, Oh,
there it is, and as always, shout out to our
(02:23):
super producer, Casey Lebouche Pegram, who is pursuing his double life.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I just think it's a delight that he's able to
do that, you know, and only receive mild ragging from us.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Ragging, No, say it ain't so. I have immense respect
for anyone who can kaiser SoSE to that degree. Let's
just hope his French friends never listened to this English
language podcast where it's all over for Lebouche. One thing
about this book now, I'll get you a copy because
it's a tremendous book. It's one of those books that
I end up having to buy copy of repeatedly because
(03:02):
they keep giving it away. One thing about this book
is it's an atlas and an anthology of short true
stories that happen on some of the world's most remote islands.
And when we think here in the States of traveling,
we think of places like, you know, Europe, maybe Africa,
(03:25):
South America, Asia, But we often and there's not a
ding on us. I'm just saying the general we people
in the US, we often forget about the thousands and
thousands and thousands of tiny islands around the globe, you
know what I mean. They have their own distinct, rich,
amazing history that you will not find anywhere else on
(03:46):
the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, and a bunch of them are in the South Pacific.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I know if you've seen the
musical South Pacific. But it's very accurate about the life
on these islands.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
In that they're in the South Pacific.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's right. And they sing constantly. Everything's in song form,
with occasional snatches of dialogue. Everyone's washing men out of
their hair. You know. Their showers are these little stalls
with little coconut thing. Everything's made of coconuts. It's like
Iligan's Island, kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You know, right, I have to say I have not
I have not seen the musical South Pacific.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, the most famous song I think is the Balia
We'll call you ballyt Highs, like the kind of shangri law.
It's like the sort of like Paradise.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, maybe I'll check it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The thing about this area of the world is that
it is populated with thousands and thousands of islands grouped
in different places, you know, Micronesia, Malaysia, Indonesia where our
good pow Christopher Hasiotis has spent some time Indonesia, Indonesia.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, he's deep in the Indonesia game. We should ask
him about it one day. Today's story it takes us
to the South Pacific. We are traveling to Melanesia e
l A n e Sia, and we're examining a religious
movement that may be familiar to some and completely out
(05:18):
of the blue for others. We're going to Tana, a
small island in the southern part of the Vanuatu Archipelago
where devoted believers await the second coming of a god,
an American god, a US god who will bring divine
(05:41):
gifts and their specific.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, there's a pigeon English word that I didn't know this,
but cargo is Pigeon English for like stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Basically, right, this god will bring televisions, refrigerators, Coca cola.
This belief system, this religious movement is often referred to
as a cargo cult. And the idea, just like you said, Noel.
For a lot of us, cargo means like something you
would haul on a ship, but here it means stuff gifts.
(06:13):
So there will be in this belief a new age
of blessing and it will be signaled by the arrival
of a special cargo of goods from supernatural sources.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But Ben, this god doesn't have a particularly godlike name.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Does he in when there is John from Frum, so.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
It's an odd name for a god.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, so this there's a documentary called Waiting for John,
an Island's cult worships American materialism, and it's about the
John From movement on Tanna. This is commonly called a
cargo cult, which may seem like an advisive word for people,
but in the belief system, John From is a soldier
(06:56):
who visited Tanna during World War Two bringing.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So what this is to me and to many anthropologists
that have examined this phenomenon is sort of a clashing
of modern culture with indigenous culture, right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Right, Yeah, there's real there's syncretism of a type going
on here. So the John From movement has its greatest
stronghold in a village called Lama Kara, and many villagers
have still according to a Great Slate article written in
twenty eighteen, many villagers in this area have left the
(07:36):
movement for other religions, typically Christian alternatives. The idea becomes
becomes sticky because it is a real thing, right, and
it is a genuine belief system. But also there's a
little bit of othering that occurs when we're talking about this.
You know, it's very easy perhaps for people to be
(07:58):
condescending about this, but we know that the cargo cults
existed before World War Two. One of the first occurrences
was the Tuka movement that began in Fiji in eighteen
eighty five around the British colonial plantation era. And it's
kind of the same Grand Theater written out, there's going
(08:18):
to be a there's going to be a stranger who
has tremendous power who is going to bring these this
unending cycle of goods and gifts. And usually when we
talk about cargo cults. Today, we're talking about the Melanesian
Islanders in the years during and after World War Two,
(08:42):
because these people were not living you know, globally connected lives.
And then in the because of the tragedy of World
War Two, they see the largest war ever fought by
you know, high tech nations. Right, I see Japan bringing
a great deal of supplies and then later the Allied forces.
(09:05):
So what would you think, you know what I mean
if you wake up one day people dressed in a
way you've never seen. Right, They're coming out of machines
that you have never seen. Are they machines? It's tough
to know. And then they're bringing tons. Tons are really
cool stuff, really cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And they not only sought the blessings and the largesse
of these items that would rain down from the sky
and theory they had to sacrifice some stuff, or at
least they created this system that was again this kind
of East meets West or kind of you know, clashing
of cultures where they were able to kind of adapt
their traditional beliefs into this kind of new sort of
(09:44):
hybridized religion and some of it involved sacrificing.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right, Like what kind of sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, some of the native folks would want to butcher
all of their pigs because they knew they were going
to receive a blessing of grit eight pigs that would
rain down from the sky. So they would hoard food
and firewood, and they would stockpile all these things for
the arrival of the great pigs that they would then
(10:10):
use to feed them. This is my favorite part, and
this is really fascinating. All that gear we were talking about,
all that stuff that they would see. They built their
own kind of like stand ins for some of these things,
like radio towers may have bamboo and rope.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, and would dress in ways that were reminiscent
of the what they believed these other people had looked like.
I think you're talking specifically about when the Australian government
went into New Guinea right in the nineteen forties, nineteen
forty six, and people went nuts. Can you imagine how
(10:47):
surreal the situation would because they were slaughtering all their pigs, right,
that was the sacrifice before the They thought, because they
saw these forces, that it was a signed the world
was going to end right three days of Darkness millennium. Yeah,
and then as you said, no great pigs appear from
the sky. And what's interesting about this is that there
(11:12):
are multiple versions of these of these religions, and they
appear to have arisen independently as sort of a parallel
response to social stress and strain. There's the Taro cult
and New Gueni, the Vii Laala Madness of Papua, the
Naked cult of Espiritu Santo, the John From movement which
(11:34):
you mentioned earlier, and the Touka cult from the late
eighteen hundreds. It's strange that this applied to troops on
either side of World War Two. So Axis forces land
somewhere on an island and boom, it's a sign of
the apocalypse. Allied forces arrive, boom, it's a sign of
the same. And there's a story about Gis who were
(11:57):
moving toward the conflict on Guadalcanal. When they arrived in
the New Hybrides, they found native people preparing these airfields,
these roads, and these docks that you mentioned, and they said,
we're preparing for the ships and planes that were coming
from Rusfel, which was their word for Roosevelt. They thought
(12:18):
he was the King of America.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
But they also saw him as a benevolent king, didn't they, Ben,
They did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, it's true he was. If the preparations were made correctly,
then this King of America would show favor to people
who kept the faith the lack of.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
A better word, how about the Japanese, Ben, They had
their own kind of encounter with this sort of thing,
didn't they They did?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They did. No, So here's one of the stranger instances
in Dutch New Guinea. Japanese forces had to be turned
against the local Papuan inhabitants of the Guilvink Bay region.
At first, they had been received with great joy because
the native people living there saw them as harbingers of
(13:12):
a new world that was dawning, and they saw the
arrival of the Japanese forces as a sign that the
creator of their islands and their people, named Mansren, would
now return, bringing with them the great ancestral dead. And
the religious leaders said that this was all not this
was all public knowledge. But the Dutch were trying to
(13:33):
control the island, and they had torn out the first
page of the Bible where the true story was inscribed,
and when Mansarin returned, the existing world order would be
entirely thrown on its head. People would change skin color,
broot crops would grow in trees, coconuts, and fruits would
grow on the ground like tubers. And then they started
(13:56):
getting together in large towns and renaming their villages. Even
they adopted military uniforms, they imitated military drills. This turned
the tide against the Japanese forces. How so they became
(14:17):
very unpopular. They were trying to disarm and disperse these communities,
and eventually canoe loads of fanatics sailed out to attack
Japanese warships. They believed they were invulnerable because of the
Holy water they had sprinkled themselves with.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Power belief, right, the power of belief.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Let's go. You know what's interesting here. I think we
should go back to John Frum. So we've shown that
there are multiple iterations of this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
And John Frum wasn't the only deity. It was sort
of parallel thinking, right.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So there is a rich folkloric ecosystem,
which is probably the most protect thing I've said in
a while.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
But you know what, Ben, it had to be that.
I'm glad that's the one. It was because that is
a very smart sounding, pretentious thing you just said.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Great, Thanks, thanks so much so. John From is still celebrated.
Every year on February fifteenth, natives of Tanna Island hold
a celebration in honor of From. People clue themselves in
US Army pants, they paint USA on their chest. They
have a replica of a US flag alongside the Marine
(15:30):
Corps emblem. And then the celebrants of this, dressed as soldiers,
march in the shadow of the island's active volcano and
they have replica rifles, red tipped bamboos slung over their shoulder.
This is considered the holiest religious service that followers of
the John From religious movement can do. And it's so difficult.
(15:55):
This is a big topic. We talked about this a
little bit off. Era is a big topic that we
could probably return to. There are so many incredible cultural
impacts that were made by these encounters with US and
Allied forces. Islanders were First off, they were astonished that
these that these visitors, at least from the Ally side,
(16:18):
were way better than the British missionaries had been. And
then imagine their surprise too when they saw wait, some
of these soldiers have skin like hours and they're getting
all the benefits of this cargo, you know what I mean,
the food, the medicine, the treats, the shelter, the technology.
And in the past, because of their skin colored people
(16:38):
who lived on these islands had been denied any of
these benefits by the British and by other European powers.
So of course they see this, there's something aspirational about it,
and we see human propensity to create religion. But we
should go you know what, we would be remiss if
(16:59):
we didn't cover one of the most infamous examples of
a quote unquote cargo cult. That's the story of Prince Philip.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The infamous Prince Philip Movement.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
No, no, no, is that the Prince Philip?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh, yes, yes it is, Yes, it has been. It's
the Prince Philip. So the Prince Philip Movement began on
that very island we talked about at the top of
the show, a Tana in the nineteen sixties. They believed
that the Prince was some sort of deity unto himself,
a god among men, right like, brought to this earth
(17:36):
to fulfill some sort of ancient prophecy. He was the
son of some kind of mountain spirit who would take
the form of a very conveniently pale skinned man. As
we know, Prince Philip was you know, a little pasty
oh that worked out a little bit on the pasty side,
a little ghostly in his you know, visage, right, And
(17:59):
that this man would travel abroad, marry a powerful woman,
check check, and eventually returned to the island. And when
the villagers saw this portrait of Prince Philip, I'm quite
sure how they happened upon said portrait, Ben, Have you
heard this part of the story?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, So, so we know that this belief probably
arose sometime in the fifties or sixties, nineteen fifties or sixties,
and it really picked up steam when the Royal couple
visited the island in nineteen seventy four and some villagers
were able to see physically see Prince Philip from a distance. Right.
(18:37):
He was not aware, by the way, of any of this.
He did not know what was happening until later a
guy named John Champion, the British Resident Commissioner of the area,
informed him about this belief system. And Champion is the
one that said, hey, Prince Philip, you should send them
a picture of you that makes sense. So he sends
(19:00):
the picture and he signs it. The villagers respond by
sending him a traditional club used to kill livestock. It's
called a null null and he complies with their request
to send them a picture of himself posing with the club.
So he sends it, and I think there was another
photograph that was sent as recently as the year two thousands.
(19:22):
It was recently as nineteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
And there's a really great mental Fluss article. You know
how much we love Mental Fluss articles. It doesn't have
a writing credit on it, which is strange. I guess
it's just the staff writer. Maybe it was written by committee.
Who knows, I'll have to ask Will and mangsh But
it is about the cult of Prince Philip, and it
talks about how so many world movements, machinations of you know,
(19:50):
cultural shifts, were attributed by these native folks to Prince
Philip and his influence, his spiritual kind of web of influence.
They actually claimed that his powers gave black men the
ability to become president of the United States, and that
he possessed a kind of magic that allowed the US
(20:12):
forces to locate Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Interesting. Interesting. He was also said at times to be
a brother to John Frum. What I think will startle
many people is to know that this continued so far
into the modern age. In two thousand and seven, BBC's
Channel four broadcast a reality show called Meet the Natives,
(20:41):
which I think is a tone deaf name. Five men
from the Prince Philip movement went on a visit to
Britain and their trip culminated in an audience with Prince Philip.
They actually met, physically met him, talked to him, They
got a new photoph the exchanged some gifts.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Can you imagine how cool that must be if you
really believed this stuff. It'd be like meeting Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's the amazing thing. Yeah, it's It kind of makes
you think about the ideas of various ancient civilizations where
there were god emperors. How powerful is it to meet
someone who has at the center of your religion. Now,
this also goes into an ethical thing that I wanted
to I wanted to ask everybody listening about if you
(21:27):
found out that there was some part of the world
where you had never been, maybe even never thought about visiting,
and that people in this part of the world knew
about you and worshiped you. What would you do? Would
you go, would you allow yourself to be worshiped? Or
would you say, Hey, I'm just a person, you know
what I mean? I you know, I burned my bell
(21:50):
bottoms one leg at a time, like everybody else in
the post disco era.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That's right. I put my sacrificial robes on with a drawstrain,
just like the rest of you. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I too love Tushy Bidetz and Miller like.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, and piniccolatas and occasionally walks in the rain.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
So what would you do? It's an interesting question. It's
an ethical dilemma. We know what Prince Philip did.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
He kind of leaned into it a little bit, it
really did. Yeah, that's almost got a problematic, is it not.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It's I would say, I would say almost kind is
a good qualifier. He has other stuff he's done and
things that he said that were very racist. Yeah, way
more offensive.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That's also true. But here's the thing, though, Ben is
it more or less offensive if it's truly these people's
belief to like reign on their belief, party on their
faith parade?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Or is it more respectful just to go along with it,
even if you happen to be at the center of it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, I don't know. It's I mean, it's a quandary.
It's a quagmire. I'm not sure what the right thing
to do would be. If somebody has such tremendous faith
in you, you don't want to let them down, you know,
So we want to hear from you. Let us know
what you think, let us know what your decision would be.
You can tell us, along with your fellow listeners on Instagram,
(23:05):
on Twitter, on Facebook, and as always, we look forward
to hearing your takes and to hearing your discussions. These
are active religious movements. They're still around, so let's all
be respectful of people's beliefs.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What would you do, though, if folks worshiped you and
revered you and held you up as a god, would
you burst their bubble? Or would you go with it?
Let us know. You can write to us at Ridiculous
at iHeartRadio dot com. The aforementioned Facebook page we recommend
you joining is called Ridiculous Historians. I think all you
have to do is name one of our names or
(23:42):
say something clever that lets us know you actually seen
on the show, and then you can be part of
a really cool group of like minded history buffs that
post a lot of memes and ask a lot of
fun questions, and we lurk in there occasionally and pop
into threads from time to time. You can also find
me and Ben collectively individually rather at our Instagram handles.
Mine is at how Now Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Mine is at Ben Bolin tune In. I don't remember
when this episode will come out, but I'll probably be
on some more strange shenanigans and misadventures, so so let
me let me know. I'll also be asking for some
travel advice. And if you if you log into that Facebook, honestly,
just like make us laugh, do something make us laugh.
(24:26):
We're in a big thanks to our guest super producer
Paul Mission Control Deck and Paul Invisible Air High five
Up Top Boom, and as always, a big big thanks
to Casey LaBouche Hegrim, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
To Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks to our
reach associate Gabe Lusier, and thanks to Chris fhrasiotis here
in spirit as per usual, and Ben, thanks to you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Thanks to you, no I almost called you Buckaroo. But
those are fighting words for people over.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
No fighting here, sir.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
We're all about peace.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
See you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(25:27):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of NFL Media hosts including Jourdan Rodrigue, Colleen Wolfe, and Nick Shook provide all the NFL news, previews, recaps and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.