Overview

Perhaps the most famous modern-day millenarian movements are the ""cargo cults"" of Melanesia, active especially during the 1930s and 1950s. Melanesians had long believed that the sign of the millennium would be the arrival of their ancestors in ships bearing lavish material goods, and they interpreted the advent of European vessels as the fulfillment of these expectations. As it became apparent that the Europeans meant to keep the goods and to colonize the people, scores of small-scale revolts known as cargo cults emerged as attempts to secure the cargo and thereby preserve the people's most cherished religious beliefs: native aspirations for individual and cultural redemption fastened on local charismatic leaders, of whom Mambu was the greatest. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions.The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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"""This is a book not just about cargo cults or even about millenarianism generally but about the ways humans strive to make sense of the most wrenching kinds of upheavals in their lives. What sets Mambu apart from the array of other works on these cults is Burridge's philosophical—one might almost say existentialist—perspective. No less fully than others does he describe in detail the political and especially the social conditions that undeniably spurred the emergence of the cults. But he is distinctive in focusing on the consequences of those political and social upheavals for the world view of the Melanesians.""—Robert Segal, Lancaster University"

This is a book not just about cargo cults or even about millenarianism generally but about the ways humans strive to make sense of the most wrenching kinds of upheavals in their lives. What sets Mambu apart from the array of other works on these cults is Burridge's philosophical-one might almost say existentialist-perspective. No less fully than others does he describe in detail the political and especially the social conditions that undeniably spurred the emergence of the cults. But he is distinctive in focusing on the consequences of those political and social upheavals for the world view of the Melanesians. -Robert Segal, Lancaster University

This is a book not just about cargo cults or even about millenarianism generally but about the ways humans strive to make sense of the most wrenching kinds of upheavals in their lives. What sets Mambu apart from the array of other works on these cults is Burridge's philosophical--one might almost say existentialist--perspective. No less fully than others does he describe in detail the political and especially the social conditions that undeniably spurred the emergence of the cults. But he is distinctive in focusing on the consequences of those political and social upheavals for the world view of the Melanesians. --Robert Segal, Lancaster University

Author Information

Kenelm Burridge is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at the University of British Columbia.

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