In the 1950s, the phenomenon of "CULT OF CARGO", in various islands of the Pacific, but above all in Papua New Guinea. A cargo is any large vehicle intended exclusively for the transport of goods.
During World War II, the Americans created naval air bases in various islands of the Pacific Ocean in order to transport huge quantities of materials by air, including canned food, clothing, tents, weapons and medicines.
The goods parachuted from the cargo planes were also distributed to the indigenous tribes who helped the Americans to build rudimentary airstrips.
The natives, seeing for the first time those enormous metal birds carrying and unloading all sorts of goods, imagined that it was a supernatural phenomenon and that the delivery of those goods was the work of a divine entity.
When the war ended, the bases were dismantled and the supply of goods ceased.
To attract aircraft again and invoke new supplies. The local tribes instituted rituals and religious practices.
They began to worship wooden airplanes. And to perform ceremonies in which the behaviour observed by military personnel on the runways was imitated.
A true religion was born that called for the return of "miraculous" supplies and that eradicated every other local religious practice existing before the war. From the '80s onwards, the cult of cargo has declined until it almost disappeared.
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