“John Frum”

Origin of New Hebrides Movement

Letter to the Editor HAVING at one time served as British District Agent at Tanna, in the New Hebrides, I was interested in your notes on what is known as the “Jon Frum” movement existing there.

While there, I went to some pains to find out the exact meaning of the title, but I met with a wall of silence, until one day I did a favour for one of the heads of the movement and, as a token of grati tude, he gave me the whole story of its origin, which I pass on to you for what it is worth.

In rapid Pidgin English, my friend re lated how some 10 years or so ago a very enterprising member of a certain Mission, who wished to increase his congregation, approached various leading natives of the Presbyterian persuasion, and pointed out that, although the latter Mission had been long established, it had done little for the natives in the way of education. He suggested that if the natives transferred their children to his Mission he would send them North to his Mission’s training centre, and teach them to build boats, to typewrite, and to do all sorts of things.

My informant explained that the plan succeeded, because they had all got very tired of prayers and hymns every day, with little practical gain to their child ren; but that later on. the young Pres byterians came back bitterly disappointed at the failure of the missionary’s promises to materialise. It was just the same up North, he explained—“ Pray, pray, pray and sing, sing, sing, all the time.”

The result of all this, according to my friend, was that natives in large numbers left both Missions, and rejoined the “heathen” in the various villages, an nouncing that they had left the John the

Baptist Missions, and formed instead the John Broom (“Jon Frum,’’ he pronounced it) movement, the object of which was to sweep (or “broom”) the white people off the island of Tanna—Tanna for the Tan nese was their slogan.

I believe that this movement did origi nate in this way, and was first prompted by dissatisfaction with the Missions, and that it had no connection with Commun ism or other outside influence. The Tan nese, in my opinion, are »not the sort of weak-minded natives likely to be in fluenced by such teachings, and are quite capable of starting a movement of their own. directed primarily against the Mis sions, and only indirectly against some of the other whites.

Alexander Rentoul

Cremorne, 22/12/48