They Hope for Return of the Americans : Island Cultists Pray for Wartime Cargoes

TANNA, Vanuatu —  Each morning the men of Jon Frum Village, at the foot of the smoking and rumbling Yasur volcano, raise the American flag and pray for the Americans to come back to this primitive South Pacific island.

In a hut beside the flagpole is a crudely lettered board declaring it to be Jon Frum Custom Movement Headquarters.

“We believe the Americans will come and bring us cargo,” said Jonas Malman, a villager.

“Jon Frum is a spirit, he will bring the cargo.”

The islanders say Jon Frum is a spirit who appeared as an American soldier in World War II and handed out supplies to the people of Tanna, one of the chain of islands that make up Vanuatu. No trace of a Jon Frum has been found in U.S. military records.

The villagers live in grass huts, have no electricity or running water and few possessions. But they have never forgotten the Americans in World War II and the fabulous cargoes of clothing, vehicles, soft drinks, gum, candy, cigarettes and canned food they brought with them on their way to fight the Japanese.

The people of Jon Frum Village and thousands more on this densely jungled island of 17,000 Melanesians believe if they can find the right magic the Americans will return and bestow them with wealth, meaning cargo.

The Jon Frum movement is one of several so-called cargo cults that exist in Melanesia, a group of islands stretching from New Guinea to New Caledonia.

They believe the cargo they see arriving by ship and plane was sent to them by their ancestors. But white man’s magic has kept them from getting it.

Cults such as the Jon Frum Society are always on the lookout for help from a powerful man who may have strong magic.

One cult on Tanna worships the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, and believes he originally came from Tanna. They think he has the power to help get them cargo.

In New Guinea, a cult sought to buy President Lyndon B. Johnson because they had been told he was the most powerful man in the world. Since his name was on all the Johnson outboard motors they used on their canoes, they saw little reason to doubt the claim.

The Jon Frum movement is one of the oldest of Vanuatu’s cargo cults. Its origins are obscure. Some anthropologists say it may actually date back to the 1930s and could have arisen as a reaction to missionary efforts to abolish traditional customs such as polygamy and drinking kava, a potent local brew.

The movement got a powerful boost during World War II when many Tannese were sent to other islands to work for the Americans who used the islands, then called the New Hebrides, as a staging base in their Pacific campaign.

When the Tannese saw black American soldiers handling cargo and getting food and supplies like the white man they were impressed by their magic.

At this time, according to studies of the cult, the Tannese believe Jon Frum reappeared as a black medical corpsman.

The movement adopted the Red Cross as their insignia. They planted dozens of wooden red crosses at the foot of their volcano in the hope this would encourage the return of Jon Frum and the cargo.

After the Americans moved on, a Tannese declared himself king of America and built a crude airstrip in the jungle with a bamboo replica of a control tower and “radios” made of tin cans and string hoping to attract planes to land, as they had seen them land at U.S. air bases.

Others built copies of refrigerators, opening the doors several times a day hoping to find cold beer the way they Americans had done.

The British and French who jointly governed the New Hebrides until 1980 outlawed the cult and frequently jailed its leaders.