cargo

A case of cricket cargo

Melanesian Cargo Cults. By Friedrich Steinbauer. Published

by University of Queensland

Press. $25.

Dr Steinbauer, an anthro pologist and Lutheran mission ary, has spent many years

collecting and studying the

cargo cults of Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, and islands further east as far as Fiji. In all. he has gathered information about 186 cultic movements in the Melanesian zone, itself a labour of devotion and meticulousness.

In the present book. Dr Steinbauer presents short accounts of 39 of the move ments, followed by a system atic interpretation of their tendencies and characteristics.

It must be said, I think, that the attempt to describe such a large number of cults in under 100 pages of text tends to deprive them of the colour and

originality each displays, so

that at times the reader grows weary of the repetition of general facets of cult activity such as the establishment of depots to receive the antici pated but invariably non materialising artefacts of the white man’s industrial world.

Nonetheless, there is fas cinating material in these accounts, some of which of course have been recounted in greater detail by Peter Lawrence, Peter Worsley and other cult analysts whose con tributions are fully docu mented and acknowledged.

After all, any subject which combines such diverse and engaging elements as naive magic, political rebellion, free love, and ‘patrons’ as varied as President Johnson and the French Communist Party, can hardly be dull.

My favourite story comes from Fiji, where officials sought to capture cargo pas sions and redirect them into the thoroughly safe and approved channels of cricket, with unex

pected results: ‘Everywhere

S new cricket clubs were opened «... and a multitude of offices with high-sounding names were created, such as major general, lord high admiral, and secretary for foreign affairs. [Soon the play became serious.

The group elected its own governor, and a supreme court I judge. The cricket clubs I became the cells of a political I movement .. .’ : Friedrich Steinbauer well understands, however, that behind these often bizarre manifestations there lie serious

and profoundly moving crises

brought on by the attempt of Melanesians to comprehend,

I assimilate and adapt to rapid

j and drastic changes which have

■ vastly changed their lives and

■ upset the cosmology by which

I their ancient ways were ■ordered. Indeed, I believe that [Dr Steinbauer, in his introduc- Ition, is inclined to over-drama- Itise the current significance of [the cultic movements by claim ing that ‘they affect indeed the

[worldwide political, religious

! and intellectual spheres in which we are all involved’ and that ‘what takes place today in

the Pacific is of greater impor tance than was once thought’.

These are obviously truisms in one sense, but they tend to downgrade the overall ten dency over time for the cults to become transformed into or subsumed within movements with more modern aims and procedures, such as co operatives, welfare associa tions and even political parties.

Cults and cult manifestations will be with us for some time to come, and the aspirations and frustrations they express will surface in many different forms, but they themselves are

essentially transitional

movements which are in the process of being transcended.

Dr Steinbauer has elabor ated the most comprehensive and detailed typology of the cargo cults to date. Broadly, he divides them into three groups based on their predominant characteristics: 64% are

labelled magico-mechanical,

having the acquisition of

wealth as their mam aim; 18% are classed as religious in

nature; and a further 18% are viewed as primarily social political. The predominance of each type is related to a specific environment: magical cults are concentrated among mountain dwellers, religious cults among the more sophisticated coastal

populations bordering

Indonesia and Polynesia, and political cults among long established marine populations with a well-defined identity. Dr Steinbauer goes well beyond

this ordering, however, explor

ing such variables as bio climatic differences, the influence of drugs, and the characteristics of the leaders.

A full analysis of the Stein

bauer technique would require

a learned article to do it justice.

I can only say that, while I find his samples often too small to support his conclusions, and the data on many of the cult movements too sparse to justify firm type-casting, there is undoubtedly much in his approach to stimulate further specialist study in the field. The general reader may find this half of the book dense and

technical.

Rex Mortimer