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Glite Dictionary
cargo cult

cargo cult

1 9.9
A religious movement in the South Pacific where people believe goods will arrive by spiritual means and copy Western actions
  • noun
  • /ˈkɑrɡoʊ kʌlt/
translation icon : culto de carga
  • The cargo cult in Melanesia believes that material wealth will arrive through supernatural means.
  • cargo cult leaders
  • cargo cult beliefs

So the cargo cults were Pacific Islander.

Examples

  • Such notions fit comfortably with cargo cult beliefs and contemporary Melanesian anxieties concerning the year 2000.

    Academic text (1999)

  • This image of Christianity is reminiscent of the promises of wealth that are typical of Melanesian cargo cults (Worsley 1968).

    Academic text (2001)

  • So the cargo cults were Pacific Islander.

    Adam Savage’s Tested

  • If he said "plant coffee, make roads, and white man's wealth will come to the highlands," this is as close as he seems to have come to a cargo cult leader.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Maybe one day a belief in anything random or chaotic will seem as quaint as the simple faith of cargo cults.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • They're a relic of a WWII cargo cult.

    Blog text (13)

  • In an early article on social change and social movements, Brown (1966) described cargo cults as a form of social movement and social movements as "organized efforts to change social conditions" (1966:150).

    Academic text (1990)

  • Access to outsiders and their ideas has been a potent factor in the opportunities and programs of many modern leaders, including mediators, brokers, and cargo cult leaders.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Baako's analogy of the cargo cults reinforces his insight that this materialism is no modern, post-independence malady.

    Academic text (2008)

  • I have written about cargo cults and cargoistic beliefs among Louisiade Archipelago islanders in a similar vein (Lepowsky 1989b).

    Academic text (1991)

Synonyms

religious cult
vscargo cult
6 7.4

A small group that follows one leader or teaching and has strict, unusual beliefs and practices

focuses on belief that material goods will arrive supernaturally and imitates foreign practices

Surface Forms

cargo cult singular
cargo cults plural

Morphology

cargo + cult

A learner who knows 'cargo' (goods) and 'cult' (religious group) can infer that this refers to a religious movement concerned with or centred on material goods, so the basic concept is partly predictable from the parts. However, the specific anthropological meaning — Melanesian movements that ritualistically imitate outsiders to attract material wealth and the cultural/historical nuance — is not derivable from the constituents alone, making the expression only partially transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Cargo cult comes from a real story in the South Pacific after World War II. Islanders saw airplanes bring lots of cargo and began to copy the soldiers by building fake runways and holding ceremonies, hoping the 'cargo' would return, so today the phrase means copying only the outside of something without understanding how it really works.