- On the island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of
Vanuatu, islanders have spent the last 60 years dressing up in homemade
US army uniforms, drilling with bamboo rifles and parading beneath the
Stars and Stripes.
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- On February 15 each year local men celebrate John Frum
Day by painting red crosses on their backs - a legacy of US army medics
who impressed them six decades ago with free treatment. They have even
hacked air strips out of the jungle and built crude wooden aircraft to
tempt the return of American wealth and co-operation, which they say fits
with their own beliefs.
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- Many of the 20,000 islanders of Tanna belong to the mysterious
John Frum movement and are among the last remaining "cargo cults"
of the South Pacific.
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- The cultists who live in so-called John Frum villages
are one of the strangest, most intriguing and longest lasting legacies
of the European colonisation of the South Seas.
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- However a shadow looms over their future as a breakaway
faction wants them to move with the times and embrace Christianity.
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- This feud came to a violent head recently when the Christian
faction led by "Prophet Fred" clashed with John Frum believers
thrusting this forgotten part of the planet back into the media spotlight.
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- In the bloody encounter involving 400 islanders armed
with axes and spears, dozens were injured, at least 25 seriously. Half
a dozen houses and a thatched Presbyterian church were burnt down.
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- "They wanted to kill us and we wanted to kill them,"
said Jack Yahlu, 27, a John Frum loyalist. "All the women and children
ran away into the bush. We used knives and slingshots, axes and bows and
arrow. One person had a broken arm, others were cut on the head,"
he was quoted as saying by the BBC.
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- His rival and a Prophet Fred follower Alfred Wako said:
"In the past we believed in John Frum, but now we believe in Jesus."
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- "The John Frum people don't go to church and they
don't send their children to school. They believe in the old rituals. They
are heathens," said Wako, 49, who was injured in the leg in last month's
battle. The two factions live in villages separated by 300 meters of dense
jungle in the shadow of Mt. Yasur, a volcano which regularly pours out
clouds of sulphurous smoke.
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- The John Frum cult first emerged in Vanuatu in the 1930s,
when the island was jointly ruled by Britain and France as the New Hebrides.
Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist who lived in Vanuatu for 17 years, said:
"Nobody knows who John Frum was, though it is irrelevant whether he
was a real person or a spirit. Movements like these were a way for traditional
people to come to terms with colonialism and Christianity. Vanuatu's culture
would have been entirely squashed if it wasn't for cults like John Frum."
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- The John Frum movement reached its zenith when American
soldiers arrived on the island during the second world war.
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- According to a website on the issue, John Frum was probably
an American G.I. who appeared to the indigenous population, showing them
the wealth and technology of western societies. It was a culture shock.
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- He quickly became a sort of local hero, a myth, preaching
some kind of antimissionary attitude and a return to custom. He promised
them that, one day, the prosperity of Westerners will finally be accessible
to the local black population.
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- He was responsible for the "magic" appearance
of all the material goods that once fascinated the indigenous like fridges,
ships, vehicles and medicine. Rebelling against the aggressive proselytising
of Presbyterian missionaries, dozens of villages on the island of Tanna
put their faith on the mysterious outsider they called John Frum.
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- The believed that he would drive out their colonial masters
and re-establish their traditional ways. Similar movements sprang up in
Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, but most have slowly withered and died.
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- There now remain a few dozen of these so-called John
Frum villages on the island of Tanna where locals dream of the arrival
of cars and refrigerators, roads and medicines.
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- Since the violent clash, the two sides have come together
in a reconciliation ceremony, in which pigs and promises of goodwill were
exchanged in front of chiefs who had gathered from all over Tanna. But
few on either side of the divide believe the feud is at an end, and there
are dark forebodings of further violence.
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- ©2004 The Asian Pacific Post. All rights reserved.
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