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History
Papua New Guinea was divided into German and British territories when it was first colonized in the 1870s. Germany ruled northern New Guinea, while southern New Guinea and Papua was ruled by Britain. Soon after the Australian government took power, World War II broke out, and the islands were temporarily occupied by Japan. After the Japanese surrender, Australia assumed authority again. Pressured by the United Nations, they prepared for the territories' independence.The so-called "Johnson cult" started when the Lavongai people of New Hanover voted for the American President Lyndon B. Johnson in the first election of Papua and New Guinea (still separate territories) in February 1964. Although the Australian authorities explained that they could not vote for President Johnson, the Lavongais refused to change their vote. They claimed they wanted the American President to represent them in their House of Assembly, because they wanted the Americans to rule over them instead of the Australians. Outsiders saw the Johnson cult as a cargo cult brought on by isolation, lack of education, poor economic development, and overall lack of understanding of the modern world. Dorothy Billings, who conducted anthropological research among the alleged "cultists", revealed that the Lavongai had, by voting for Johnson, consciously engaged in a theatrical act of shaming, seeking to draw attention to what they saw as poor colonial administration by the Australian authorities. They had never intended for Johnson to become their representative.
What Billings discovered was an elaborate soap opera, a piece of political theatre and a game of high stakes. She found New Hanover to have a rich history of using play-acting and bluffing as a negotiation ploy that could be used in order to embarrass a foe. [...] In 1964, the New Hanoverans were fed up with their Australian administrators. Angry with these unpopular rulers, their real purpose was to embarrass them into giving them more aid, as development of their tiny island had been neglected for years. According to Billings, the Australian authorities responsible for overseeing the island had taken the 'cult' story at face value and were clueless as to what was motivating the islanders' 'strange' fixation on Lyndon Johnson. It was a cultural misunderstanding. [...] Ironically, the political gamesmanship of these so-called primitive, irrational islanders was so complex, subtle and unfamiliar that it went over the heads of both the Australian administrators and the world media.[1]
Symbolic aspect
The cultists did not really expect Johnson to come; what they really wanted was the knowledge of the Americans, wishing to live happily and wealthy like them. New Hanover had been neglected by its past colonial governments. They believed that while the Australians and their predecessors had used the island’s resources and the collected taxes, they had not adequately dealt with the needs of the people. America, on the other hand, had provided the islanders with food, clothing and other goods during World War II, when some of the islanders worked for them on other islands. Moreover, the army treated all the people of different races equally. Empty promises of European governments generated opposition towards their authorities. The cult is a dramatic expression of this opposition against the Australian authority, based on the Lavongai culture and tradition.The cult reflected the aesthetic truth, an idea that was pleasing to them. The way the cult was performed is just as important as what it has done. To the cultists, a world ruled by their idealized view of America was more pleasing than a world ruled by the Australians. The cult replicated the authentic traditions of Lavongai culture. It was an expression obscure to outsiders, for they did not understand what the actions symbolized. One would be the preference of people to publicly announce their likes and dislikes. The people were quite individualistic in this way, whereas society usually requires conformation. Thus, the Australians telling them to do this and that was a personal humiliation on the Lavongai’s side. Another aspect would be the act of shaming someone through sarcastic gift givings. Publicly giving food, which is an act of showing respect, to someone who has been stingy made the receiver feel ashamed. It was thus an act of humiliation and mockery. Conforming to the Australian-setup election but voting for the President of America humiliated the Australians in a way that the Australians could not logically defeat. Lastly, dramatic communication was common in daily life. People liked to tell jokes, acting it out dramatically often in a public sphere. The Johnson cult itself was a dramatic joke, which spread throughout the island and was reenacted by others as a joke as well.
These symbolic aspects of the cult were generated through the Lavongai culture and the people’s opposition towards the Australian government, creating a political theater called Johnson cult. Thus, the Johnson cult can only be understood in relation to the culture. This resulted in the miscommunication between the cultists and the non-cultists outside New Hanover island, who could only make sense of the cult as a ‘crazy’ cargo cult.
Sources and further reading
- Billings, Dorothy K. Cargo Cult as Theater. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002.
- Bartholomew, Robert and Billings, Dorothy. "The Johnson Cult," Fortean Times. January 2005, FT Number 192 (online)
References
- Jump up ^ Bartholomew, Robert and Billings, Dorothy. "The Johnson Cult," Fortean Times (cf. sources)
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