Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Cargo cults 50 years on

Scientific American has reprinted an article it wrote on Melanesian Cargo Cults in its May 1959 issue. Cargo Cults were written about, recently, in both Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell.

Smithsonian.com also has a good summary of what cargo cults are.

2 comments:

Alan said...

Absolutely fascinating! I had no idea such cults existed. Its remarkable and telling how consistently they formed in disparate communities.

Hume's Ghost said...

Yep. They provide invaluable insight into the development of religion.

I also find the Ghost Dance and other such related phenomena interesting.