June 4, 2019 • 24 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'.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Recently
(00:28):
on Twitter, I was asking some uh, 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 book called The Atlas of Remote Islands. So
(00:50):
we ever talked about this book? I don't think so. Ben,
my name is Null by the way, yes, and I'm Ben.
And we are joined with our guest super producer Paul
Mission Controlled Decad, who you may recognize for another show
stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, Paul, do
you have a sound Do we have a sound effect?
Paul is nodding, Oh, there it is, And it's always
(01:13):
shout out to our super producer Casey La Bush Pegram,
who is pursuing his double life. I just think it's
a delight that he's able to do that, you know,
and only receive mild ragging from from us. My ragging, No,
say it ain't so. I I have immense respect for
anyone who Ken Kaiser sociated to that degree. Let's just
(01:36):
hope his French friends never listened to this English language
podcast where it's all over for the bush. Uh. The
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 copies of
repeatedly because I keep giving it away. One thing about
this book is it's an atlas and uh, an anthology
(02:00):
of short true stories that happened 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, South America, Asia, But we often and there's
not a ding on us. I'm just saying the general
(02:22):
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
the planet. And a bunch of them are in the
South Pacific. Oh yeah, and if you've seen the the
musical South Pacific, but it's very accurate about the life
(02:45):
on these islands in that they're in the South Pacific
and they sing constantly. Everything's in song form with occasional
snatches of dialogue. Um, everyone's washing men out of their hair.
You know. Their showers are these little stalls with little coke.
Not I think everything is made of coconuts. It's like
Gilligan's Island kind of situation, you know, right. I have
to say I have not I have not seen the
(03:08):
musical South Pacific. Well, the most famous song I think
is than this Ballya We'll call you Ballet Highs, like
the kind of shangri law. It's like this sort of
like paradise. Yeah, maybe I'll check it out. Uh. Yeah.
The thing about this area of the world is that
(03:29):
it is populated with thousands and thousands of islands grouped
in different places, you know, Micronesia, Uh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Where
are good pal Christopher Haciotes has spent some time Indonesia, Indonesia. Yeah, yeah,
he's he's deep in the Indonesia game. We should ask
him about it one day. Today's story takes us to
(03:52):
the South Pacific. We are traveling to Melanesia M E.
L A N E s I A, and we're examining
a religious movement that may be familiar to some and
completely out of the blue for others. We're going to Tanna,
(04:16):
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 gifts.
And they're specific. Yeah, there there's a pigeon English word
(04:36):
that I didn't know this, but a cargo is pigeon
English for like stuff. Basically, right, this god will bring
television's refrigerators, Coca cola. This belief system, this religious movement
is often referred to as a cargo cult. And the
idea just like you said, nol u for for a
(04:57):
lot of US, cargo means like something you would haul
on a ship, but here it means stuff gifts. 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. But Ben,
this god had doesn't have a particularly godlike name, does he?
(05:19):
And one there is John from f r U m
uh so it's an odd name for a god. Yeah.
So this there's a documentary called Waiting for John. An
Islands cult worships American materialism, and it's about the John
From movement on Tanna. This is commonly called a cargo cult,
(05:40):
which may seem like an advice of word for people,
but in the belief system John From is a soldier
who visited Tanna during World War Two bringing cargo. So
what this is to me, uh and and too many
um anthropologists that have examined this phenomenon is sort of
a clashing of modern culture with indigenous culture. Right then, right, yeah,
(06:07):
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 Carra, and many villagers have still
according to a Great Slate article written in many villagers
in this in this area have left the movement for
(06:27):
other religions, typically Christian alternatives. The idea becomes um become
sticky because it is a real thing, right, and it
is a genuine belief system. But also there's a little
bit of mothering that occurs when we're talking about this.
You know, it's very easy perhaps for people to be
(06:49):
condescending about this, but we know that the cargo colts
existed before World War Two. One of the first occurrences.
Was the took up movement that began in Fiji in
five around the British colonial plantation era. And it's it's
kind of the same grand theater written out, there's gonna
(07:09):
be a there, there's gonna be a stranger who has
tremendous power, who is going to bring these this unending
cycle of goods and gifts. And usually when we talked
about cargo colts. Today we're talking about the Melanesian Islanders
in the years during and after World War Two because
(07:34):
these people we're not living you know, uh, 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, you see Japan bringing
a great deal of supplies and then later the Allied forces.
(07:55):
So what would you think, you know what I mean,
if you wake up one day people dressed the 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 of tons are really cool stuff,
really cool stuff. And they not only sought the blessings
and the the largesse of these items that would rain
(08:17):
down from the sky in theory, Um, 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 hybridized religion. And some of
it involved sacrificing, right, like what what kind of sacrifices? Well, Um,
(08:41):
the some of the native folks would want to butcher
all of their pigs because they knew they were going
to receive a blessing of great pigs that would rain
down from the sky. Um, So they would hoard what
food and firewood, and they would stockpile all these things
for the arrival of the great pigs that they would
then used to to feed them. This is my favorite part,
(09:04):
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 ends for some
of these things like radio towers may have bamboo and rope.
Yeah yeah, and uh would dress in ways that were
reminiscent of the what what they believed these other people
(09:25):
had looked like I think you're talking specifically about when
the Australian government went into New Guinea right in the
nineteen forties and people went nuts. Can you imagine how
surreal the situation would be because they were slaughtering all
their pigs, right, that was the sacrifice before the They thought,
(09:45):
because they saw these forces, that it was a sign
the world was going to end, right, three days of
darkness the millennium. Yeah, and then as you said, Nold,
great pigs appear from the sky. And what interesting about
this is that there are multiple versions of these of
(10:08):
these religions, and they appear to have arisen independently a
sort of a parallel response to social stress and strain.
There's the Taro cult and againy the Vila madness of Papua,
the naked cult of his Spiritu Santo, the John From
movement when you mentioned earlier, and the took occult from
(10:28):
you know, the late eighteen hundreds. It's strange that this
applied to troops on either side of World War Two.
So access forces land and somewhere on an island and boom,
it's a sign of the apocalypse. Allied forces arrived, Boom,
it's a sign of the same. And there's a story
about g I s who are moving towards the conflict
(10:49):
on Guadalcanal. When they arrived in the New Hibrides, they
found native people preparing these air fields, these roads, and
these docks that you mentioned. Uh, And they said, we're
preparing for the ships and planes that were coming from
russel Felt, which was there their word for Roosevelt. They
thought he was the King of America. But they also
(11:11):
saw him as a benevolent king, didn't they been? They did? Yeah,
it's true, he was, he was. If the preparations were
made correctly, then this King of America would show favor
to people who kept the faith. In the lack of
a better word, how about the Japanese ben They they
(11:36):
had their own kind of encounter with this sort of thing,
didn't there they did? They did not. So here's one
of the stranger instances in Dutch New Gutting. Japanese forces
had to be turned against the local Papua and inhabitants
of the Guilvink Bay region. At first, they had been
(11:57):
received with great joy because the the native people living
there saw them as harbingers of 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 mons Rin, would now return, bringing
with them the great ancestral dead. And the religious leaders
(12:19):
said that this was all not this was all public knowledge.
But the Dutch were trying to 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.
Uh people would change skin color, broot crops would grow
(12:41):
in trees, coconuts, and fruits would grow on the ground
like tubers. And then they started getting together in large
towns and renaming their villages. Even they adopted military uniforms,
they imitated military drills. The US turned the tide against
(13:02):
the Japanese forces, how so they UH They became very unpopular.
They were trying to disarm and disperse UH these communities,
and eventually canoe loads of fanatics sailed out to attack
Japanese warships. They believed they were invulnerable because of the
(13:23):
holy water they had sprinkled themselves with power of belief. Right,
the power of belief. Let's go, you know, what's interesting here, Uh,
I think we should go back to John From. So
we've we've shown that there are multiple iterations of this thing,
and John From wasn't the only deity. It was sort
of parallel thinking, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So there
(13:46):
is a rich folkloric ecosystem. Which is probably the most
pretentious thing I've said in a while, but you know
what them 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. Thanks, thanks so much. The
uh so, John From is still celebrated Every year on
February fifteen, natives of Tanna Island hold a celebration in
(14:10):
honor of From. People clue themselves in US Army pants,
they paint USA on their chest, they have a replica
of the US flag alongside the Marine Corps emblem, and
then the celebrance of this stressed as soldiers march in
the shadow of the island's active volcano, and they have
replica rifles red tipped bamboo slung over their shoulder. This
(14:35):
is considered the holiest religious service that followers of the
John From religious movement can do. And and it's so
difficult 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
(14:58):
and Allied forces. Islanders were first off, they were astonished
that these that these visitors, at least from the Allies side,
were way better than the British missionaries have been. And
then imagine their surprise too when they saw, wait, some
of these soldiers have skin like ours, and they're getting
(15:18):
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 color, people
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 there's something aspirational
(15:40):
about it, and we see human propensity to create religion.
But we should go you know what, we would be
remiss if we didn't cover one of the most infamous
examples of a quote unquote cargo cult. That's the story
of Prince Philip, the infamous Prince Philip movement. No No
(16:03):
No is that the Prince Philip. 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 Antana in the nineteen sixties.
They believed that the Prince was some sort of deity
unto himself, a god among men, right like, brought to
(16:26):
this earth to fulfill some sort of ancient prophecy. That
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, a little bit on the pasty side,
a little ghostly in his uh you know, visage, right um.
(16:49):
And 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. Man, Have
you heard this part of the story? Yeah, yea. So
(17:10):
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. He
was not aware, by the way of any of this.
(17:31):
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
the picture and he signs it. The villagers respond by
(17:55):
sending him a traditional club used to kill livestock. It's
called a no No 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,
was recently as nineteen years ago. And there's a really
(18:21):
great mental fluss article. You know how much we love
mental fluss articles. Uh, it doesn't have a writing credit
on it, which is strange. I guess it's just the
staff writer, or maybe it was written by committee who
knows not to ask will in Mangesh But It is
about the cult of Prince Philip, and it talks about
how so many world movements, machinations of you know, cultural
(18:42):
shifts were attributed by these native folks to Prince Philip
and his influence, his spiritual kind of uh web of influence.
They actually claimed that his powers gave black men um
the ability to become President of the United States, and
that he possessed a kind of magic that allowed the
(19:03):
US forces to locate Osama ben Latten. Interesting, right, Interesting.
He was also said at times to be a brother
to John. From what I think will startle many people
is to know that this this continued so far into
the modern age. In two thousand and seven, BBC's Channel
(19:27):
four broadcast a reality show called Meet the Natives, which
I think is a tone deaf name. Uh. Five men
from the Prince Philip movement went on a visit to
Britain and their trip culminated in a audience with Prince Philip.
They actually met, physically met him, talked to him, They
(19:50):
got a new photograph, they exchanged some gifts. Can you
imagine how cool that must be if you really believe
this stuff. It would be like meeting Jesus Christ. That's
the amazing thing. Yeah, it's 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
(20:13):
goes into an ethical thing that I wanted to I
wanted to ask everybody listening about if you 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,
(20:35):
I'm just a person, you know what I mean? I
you know, I burned my bell bottoms one leg at
a time, like everybody else in the post disco era.
That's right. I put my sacrificial robes on with a
draw string, just like the rest of you. I too,
love Toshie bidats and Miller like and pina coladas and
occasionally walks in the rain. So what would you do?
(20:57):
It's an interesting question. It's an ethical dilemma. We what
Prince Philip did. He kind of leaned into it a
little bit. It really did Yeah, that's almost kind of problematic,
is it not. 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 we're vary racist,
more offensive. That's also true. But here's the thing, though, Ben,
(21:19):
is it more or less offensive if it's truly these
people's belief to like bigin on their belief, party on
their faith parade? Or is it? Is it more respectful
just to go along with it, even if you happen
to be at the center of it. 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. Uh.
(21:41):
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, on Twitter,
on Facebook, and as always, we we look forward to
(22:01):
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. 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 my heart radio dot com.
(22:23):
The aforementioned Facebook page we recommend you joining is called
Ridiculous Historians. Think. All you have to do is name
one of our names, or I say something clever that
lets us know you actually sen to the show, and
then you can be part of a really cool group
of like minded history buffs that you know post a
lot of memes and ask a lot of fun questions,
and we learn in there occasionally and pop into threads
(22:45):
from time to time. You can also find me and
Ben collectively individually rather at our our own Instagram handles.
Mine is at how Now Noel Brown. Mine is at
Ben Bolan. Uh tune in. I don't remember when this
episode come out, but I'll probably be on some more
uh strange shenanigans and misadventures, so uh so let me
(23:06):
let me know. I'll also be asking for some travel advice.
Uh And if you if you log into that Facebook
honestly just like make us laugh, do something to make
us laugh. We're in big thanks to our guest super
producer Paul Mission Controlled Decade, Paul Invisible Air, High five, Up,
Top Boom and as always big Big thanks to Casey
(23:29):
La Bouche, Pegram Banksed Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Thanks to our Reach associate Gabe Losier, and thanks to
Christopher Aciotes. Here in Spirit as per usual and PNN,
thanks to you buddy. Thanks to you know uh. I
almost called you buckaroo, but those are fighting words for
people over. No fighting here, Sarah, We're all about peace.
(23:53):
See you next time. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(24:18):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Recently
(00:28):
on Twitter, I was asking some uh, 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 book called The Atlas of Remote Islands. So
(00:50):
we ever talked about this book? I don't think so. Ben,
my name is Null by the way, yes, and I'm Ben.
And we are joined with our guest super producer Paul
Mission Controlled Decad, who you may recognize for another show
stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, Paul, do
you have a sound Do we have a sound effect?
Paul is nodding, Oh, there it is, And it's always
(01:13):
shout out to our super producer Casey La Bush Pegram,
who is pursuing his double life. I just think it's
a delight that he's able to do that, you know,
and only receive mild ragging from from us. My ragging, No,
say it ain't so. I I have immense respect for
anyone who Ken Kaiser sociated to that degree. Let's just
(01:36):
hope his French friends never listened to this English language
podcast where it's all over for the bush. Uh. The
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 copies of
repeatedly because I keep giving it away. One thing about
this book is it's an atlas and uh, an anthology
(02:00):
of short true stories that happened 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, South America, Asia, But we often and there's
not a ding on us. I'm just saying the general
(02:22):
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
the planet. And a bunch of them are in the
South Pacific. Oh yeah, and if you've seen the the
musical South Pacific, but it's very accurate about the life
(02:45):
on these islands in that they're in the South Pacific
and they sing constantly. Everything's in song form with occasional
snatches of dialogue. Um, everyone's washing men out of their hair.
You know. Their showers are these little stalls with little coke.
Not I think everything is made of coconuts. It's like
Gilligan's Island kind of situation, you know, right. I have
to say I have not I have not seen the
(03:08):
musical South Pacific. Well, the most famous song I think
is than this Ballya We'll call you Ballet Highs, like
the kind of shangri law. It's like this sort of
like paradise. Yeah, maybe I'll check it out. Uh. Yeah.
The thing about this area of the world is that
(03:29):
it is populated with thousands and thousands of islands grouped
in different places, you know, Micronesia, Uh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Where
are good pal Christopher Haciotes has spent some time Indonesia, Indonesia. Yeah, yeah,
he's he's deep in the Indonesia game. We should ask
him about it one day. Today's story takes us to
(03:52):
the South Pacific. We are traveling to Melanesia M E.
L A N E s I A, and we're examining
a religious movement that may be familiar to some and
completely out of the blue for others. We're going to Tanna,
(04:16):
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 gifts.
And they're specific. Yeah, there there's a pigeon English word
(04:36):
that I didn't know this, but a cargo is pigeon
English for like stuff. Basically, right, this god will bring
television's refrigerators, Coca cola. This belief system, this religious movement
is often referred to as a cargo cult. And the
idea just like you said, nol u for for a
(04:57):
lot of US, cargo means like something you would haul
on a ship, but here it means stuff gifts. 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. But Ben,
this god had doesn't have a particularly godlike name, does he?
(05:19):
And one there is John from f r U m
uh so it's an odd name for a god. Yeah.
So this there's a documentary called Waiting for John. An
Islands cult worships American materialism, and it's about the John
From movement on Tanna. This is commonly called a cargo cult,
(05:40):
which may seem like an advice of word for people,
but in the belief system John From is a soldier
who visited Tanna during World War Two bringing cargo. So
what this is to me, uh and and too many
um anthropologists that have examined this phenomenon is sort of
a clashing of modern culture with indigenous culture. Right then, right, yeah,
(06:07):
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 Carra, and many villagers have still
according to a Great Slate article written in many villagers
in this in this area have left the movement for
(06:27):
other religions, typically Christian alternatives. The idea becomes um become
sticky because it is a real thing, right, and it
is a genuine belief system. But also there's a little
bit of mothering that occurs when we're talking about this.
You know, it's very easy perhaps for people to be
(06:49):
condescending about this, but we know that the cargo colts
existed before World War Two. One of the first occurrences.
Was the took up movement that began in Fiji in
five around the British colonial plantation era. And it's it's
kind of the same grand theater written out, there's gonna
(07:09):
be a there, there's gonna be a stranger who has
tremendous power, who is going to bring these this unending
cycle of goods and gifts. And usually when we talked
about cargo colts. Today we're talking about the Melanesian Islanders
in the years during and after World War Two because
(07:34):
these people we're not living you know, uh, 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, you see Japan bringing
a great deal of supplies and then later the Allied forces.
(07:55):
So what would you think, you know what I mean,
if you wake up one day people dressed the 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 of tons are really cool stuff,
really cool stuff. And they not only sought the blessings
and the the largesse of these items that would rain
(08:17):
down from the sky in theory, Um, 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 hybridized religion. And some of
it involved sacrificing, right, like what what kind of sacrifices? Well, Um,
(08:41):
the some of the native folks would want to butcher
all of their pigs because they knew they were going
to receive a blessing of great pigs that would rain
down from the sky. Um, So they would hoard what
food and firewood, and they would stockpile all these things
for the arrival of the great pigs that they would
then used to to feed them. This is my favorite part,
(09:04):
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 ends for some
of these things like radio towers may have bamboo and rope.
Yeah yeah, and uh would dress in ways that were
reminiscent of the what what they believed these other people
(09:25):
had looked like I think you're talking specifically about when
the Australian government went into New Guinea right in the
nineteen forties and people went nuts. Can you imagine how
surreal the situation would be because they were slaughtering all
their pigs, right, that was the sacrifice before the They thought,
(09:45):
because they saw these forces, that it was a sign
the world was going to end, right, three days of
darkness the millennium. Yeah, and then as you said, Nold,
great pigs appear from the sky. And what interesting about
this is that there are multiple versions of these of
(10:08):
these religions, and they appear to have arisen independently a
sort of a parallel response to social stress and strain.
There's the Taro cult and againy the Vila madness of Papua,
the naked cult of his Spiritu Santo, the John From
movement when you mentioned earlier, and the took occult from
(10:28):
you know, the late eighteen hundreds. It's strange that this
applied to troops on either side of World War Two.
So access forces land and somewhere on an island and boom,
it's a sign of the apocalypse. Allied forces arrived, Boom,
it's a sign of the same. And there's a story
about g I s who are moving towards the conflict
(10:49):
on Guadalcanal. When they arrived in the New Hibrides, they
found native people preparing these air fields, these roads, and
these docks that you mentioned. Uh, And they said, we're
preparing for the ships and planes that were coming from
russel Felt, which was there their word for Roosevelt. They
thought he was the King of America. But they also
(11:11):
saw him as a benevolent king, didn't they been? They did? Yeah,
it's true, he was, he was. If the preparations were
made correctly, then this King of America would show favor
to people who kept the faith. In the lack of
a better word, how about the Japanese ben They they
(11:36):
had their own kind of encounter with this sort of thing,
didn't there they did? They did not. So here's one
of the stranger instances in Dutch New Gutting. Japanese forces
had to be turned against the local Papua and inhabitants
of the Guilvink Bay region. At first, they had been
(11:57):
received with great joy because the the native people living
there saw them as harbingers of 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 mons Rin, would now return, bringing
with them the great ancestral dead. And the religious leaders
(12:19):
said that this was all not this was all public knowledge.
But the Dutch were trying to 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.
Uh people would change skin color, broot crops would grow
(12:41):
in trees, coconuts, and fruits would grow on the ground
like tubers. And then they started getting together in large
towns and renaming their villages. Even they adopted military uniforms,
they imitated military drills. The US turned the tide against
(13:02):
the Japanese forces, how so they UH They became very unpopular.
They were trying to disarm and disperse UH these communities,
and eventually canoe loads of fanatics sailed out to attack
Japanese warships. They believed they were invulnerable because of the
(13:23):
holy water they had sprinkled themselves with power of belief. Right,
the power of belief. Let's go, you know, what's interesting here, Uh,
I think we should go back to John From. So
we've we've shown that there are multiple iterations of this thing,
and John From wasn't the only deity. It was sort
of parallel thinking, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So there
(13:46):
is a rich folkloric ecosystem. Which is probably the most
pretentious thing I've said in a while, but you know
what them 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. Thanks, thanks so much. The
uh so, John From is still celebrated Every year on
February fifteen, natives of Tanna Island hold a celebration in
(14:10):
honor of From. People clue themselves in US Army pants,
they paint USA on their chest, they have a replica
of the US flag alongside the Marine Corps emblem, and
then the celebrance of this stressed as soldiers march in
the shadow of the island's active volcano, and they have
replica rifles red tipped bamboo slung over their shoulder. This
(14:35):
is considered the holiest religious service that followers of the
John From religious movement can do. And and it's so
difficult 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
(14:58):
and Allied forces. Islanders were first off, they were astonished
that these that these visitors, at least from the Allies side,
were way better than the British missionaries have been. And
then imagine their surprise too when they saw, wait, some
of these soldiers have skin like ours, and they're getting
(15:18):
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 color, people
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 there's something aspirational
(15:40):
about it, and we see human propensity to create religion.
But we should go you know what, we would be
remiss if we didn't cover one of the most infamous
examples of a quote unquote cargo cult. That's the story
of Prince Philip, the infamous Prince Philip movement. No No
(16:03):
No is that the Prince Philip. 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 Antana in the nineteen sixties.
They believed that the Prince was some sort of deity
unto himself, a god among men, right like, brought to
(16:26):
this earth to fulfill some sort of ancient prophecy. That
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, a little bit on the pasty side,
a little ghostly in his uh you know, visage, right um.
(16:49):
And 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. Man, Have
you heard this part of the story? Yeah, yea. So
(17:10):
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. He
was not aware, by the way of any of this.
(17:31):
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
the picture and he signs it. The villagers respond by
(17:55):
sending him a traditional club used to kill livestock. It's
called a no No 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,
was recently as nineteen years ago. And there's a really
(18:21):
great mental fluss article. You know how much we love
mental fluss articles. Uh, it doesn't have a writing credit
on it, which is strange. I guess it's just the
staff writer, or maybe it was written by committee who
knows not to ask will in Mangesh But It is
about the cult of Prince Philip, and it talks about
how so many world movements, machinations of you know, cultural
(18:42):
shifts were attributed by these native folks to Prince Philip
and his influence, his spiritual kind of uh web of influence.
They actually claimed that his powers gave black men um
the ability to become President of the United States, and
that he possessed a kind of magic that allowed the
(19:03):
US forces to locate Osama ben Latten. Interesting, right, Interesting.
He was also said at times to be a brother
to John. From what I think will startle many people
is to know that this this continued so far into
the modern age. In two thousand and seven, BBC's Channel
(19:27):
four broadcast a reality show called Meet the Natives, which
I think is a tone deaf name. Uh. Five men
from the Prince Philip movement went on a visit to
Britain and their trip culminated in a audience with Prince Philip.
They actually met, physically met him, talked to him, They
(19:50):
got a new photograph, they exchanged some gifts. Can you
imagine how cool that must be if you really believe
this stuff. It would be like meeting Jesus Christ. That's
the amazing thing. Yeah, it's 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
(20:13):
goes into an ethical thing that I wanted to I
wanted to ask everybody listening about if you 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,
(20:35):
I'm just a person, you know what I mean? I
you know, I burned my bell bottoms one leg at
a time, like everybody else in the post disco era.
That's right. I put my sacrificial robes on with a
draw string, just like the rest of you. I too,
love Toshie bidats and Miller like and pina coladas and
occasionally walks in the rain. So what would you do?
(20:57):
It's an interesting question. It's an ethical dilemma. We what
Prince Philip did. He kind of leaned into it a
little bit. It really did Yeah, that's almost kind of problematic,
is it not. 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 we're vary racist,
more offensive. That's also true. But here's the thing, though, Ben,
(21:19):
is it more or less offensive if it's truly these
people's belief to like bigin on their belief, party on
their faith parade? Or is it? Is it more respectful
just to go along with it, even if you happen
to be at the center of it. 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. Uh.
(21:41):
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, on Twitter,
on Facebook, and as always, we we look forward to
(22:01):
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. 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 my heart radio dot com.
(22:23):
The aforementioned Facebook page we recommend you joining is called
Ridiculous Historians. Think. All you have to do is name
one of our names, or I say something clever that
lets us know you actually sen to the show, and
then you can be part of a really cool group
of like minded history buffs that you know post a
lot of memes and ask a lot of fun questions,
and we learn in there occasionally and pop into threads
(22:45):
from time to time. You can also find me and
Ben collectively individually rather at our our own Instagram handles.
Mine is at how Now Noel Brown. Mine is at
Ben Bolan. Uh tune in. I don't remember when this
episode come out, but I'll probably be on some more
uh strange shenanigans and misadventures, so uh so let me
(23:06):
let me know. I'll also be asking for some travel advice.
Uh And if you if you log into that Facebook
honestly just like make us laugh, do something to make
us laugh. We're in big thanks to our guest super
producer Paul Mission Controlled Decade, Paul Invisible Air, High five, Up,
Top Boom and as always big Big thanks to Casey
(23:29):
La Bouche, Pegram Banksed Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Thanks to our Reach associate Gabe Losier, and thanks to
Christopher Aciotes. Here in Spirit as per usual and PNN,
thanks to you buddy. Thanks to you know uh. I
almost called you buckaroo, but those are fighting words for
people over. No fighting here, Sarah, We're all about peace.
(23:53):
See you next time. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(24:18):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
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Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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