Cargo Cults and Relational Separation

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Abstract
Colonial disruption of indigenous norms of equivalence has caused se vere cultural stress in Melanesia. Decrease of culture contact highlights Melanesian dependence on Westerners and increases the indigenes' need to explain the origin of cargo. It is hypothesized that the disruption entailed by a cargo cult (as distinct from a cargo movement) varies di rectly with the degree to which indigenes became separated from agents of Western culture directly prior to the cult outbreak. The hypothesis is supported by empirical analysis of twenty-one cargo cults. A relative absence of contact between a social unit and another social unit upon which it is dependent is here termed relational separation. In many social situations extreme relational separation promotes markedly erratic or atypi cal behavior. Collective relational separation seems a significant precipitant of cargo cults and possibly of other large-scale millenarian movements.

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