On the island of Tanna in the Republic of Vanuatu, a group of islanders known as the Jon Frumms are of the belief that Western material produce comes from the land of the gods known as the USA. The Cargo Cult developed their beliefs during WWII as a direct consequence of economic and political conditions prevalent at the time.

Back then Vanuatu was called the New Hebrides and it was jointly ruled by the French and British in an insane form of governance known as a Condominium. It was like Siamese twins who hated each other’s guts, put in charge of an entire nation. Two customs and immigration formalities to pass through, two sets of postage stamps on the postcard home, two bureaucracies, two police forces, two judicial systems and two jails. There was, however, only one court, presided over by a Spanish judge who understood neither English nor French, thereby ensuring fair trials. 

To understand how this farcical rule over the indigenous New Hebrideans came about, you have to step back to the 1800s. The French were trying to turn their colonies into extensions of France by converting every islander into Catholics, teaching them the language and what it was to Be French. On the other hand, the Brits were ramming Protestantism down their throats and chopping down every sandalwood tree in sight (the wood smelled nice so they sold it for buckets of money). Neither refused to hand over the colony to the other country, hence, a schizophrenic farcical arrangement. Although the colonists did agree on one point: the slave trade to serve the Australian sugar plantations was vital and if they could not get the co-operation of the natives, then introducing plague organisms like smallpox and measles was Really Cool. So cool, it reduced the population from 2 million to around 40,000 by WWII. 

When the traders weren’t killing or enslaving the locals, the missionaries were stomping all over their 5,000-year old culture, which was not just a nice thing for twentieth-century anthropologists to study, but a means of existence that could not realistically be replaced by a Western culture rooted in mass exploitation.

Like cyclones, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, the indigenous population put up with the situation as another natural disaster befalling their lives. And from such things do religions grow, for what is a god except someone to appease and make your life less miserable?

The came WWII. With the Japanese tearing down into the Pacific, France having capitulated to Germany and England looking none to healthy, the bureaucracies in the colonies were more or less having to fend for themselves. Enter, the Americans, who flew in like a thousand Lone Rangers riding in their flying Silvers.

A British diplomat (whose name escapes me) once described America as a big, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over the furniture. Now in fairness to all concerned, there was a war going on and nobody was paying too much attention to a handful of islanders perched on a volcano.

Okay, so it was a little more than a handful and the effect was on considerably more than one volcanic island but that’s another story. And it was true that the cultures of these people had already been torn up and stomped on by western Missionaries. But the threat of fire and brimstone didn’t do anything for these people as they were already perched on the side of a very active volcano. Hence they were ripe, as it were, for a religion that made more sense.

So, as I was saying, in come The Americans. Lots and lots of ’em. LOTS of ’em, because the fighting might have all happened up in Guadalcanal but the Allies base of operations was the  80 islands of the New Hebrides. Over two million allies, mostly Americans, were stationed here during the final push into the Pacific. Anyone out there old enough to remember James A. Michener’s Tales of Bali Hai? Roger & Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific? Or the television shows McHales Navy or The Black Sheep? Yep, same place. Anyway, in come the Yanks. They disgorged from their silver planes in the thousands, and they Took Over. SeaBees built runways in a week for more silver planes. They talked into black boxes with string going up poles and called in yet more planes. And in the bellies of these great beast was sooooo much stuff, so very, very much stuff, goodies, cargo, that was just, well, THERE. And with them were African Americans of the same colour as the islanders, who were treated as equals by white-skinned their unformed companions.

Okay, we know that last part wasn’t strictly true, but it was a question of perspective and from the islanders’ point of view, it was true.

The Yanks, of course, had no idea—at least back in WWII—how to treat ‘colonial natives’. Instead of putting a bullet in them for stealing food, they’d employ them and give them things and go into their homes and villages and say, “Hey man, you can’t live like this!” and come back the next day with a truckload of beds and ice-boxes and gee, they can’t work properly because they’re not getting enough food or medical care, so we’ll give ’em food and free medicines from the Red Cross cupboard.

And from such things is worship born. The New Hebrides was never invaded by the Japanese, never attacked—well, there was one attack up north on the island of Espiritu Santo by a lost Japanese Zero who’s pilot machine-gunned a cow called Bessie to death, but that’s another story. So for the islanders it was a time of plenty, halcyon years surpassing their wildest dreams, all come to pass because of Johnny from America.

Then one sad day it all came to an end. The Yanks did not pack up everything and go home. They left all the goodies behind and went home. The French and British came back in their pith helmets and post-war inferiority complex, took one look at what the Yanks had left behind and immediately grabbed the lot. They went into homes and villages and took back all the ice-boxes and beds and closed down the medical dispensaries and said, “Hi everyone, we’re back, aren’t you glad to see us?”

On Tanna, the islanders had always figured that the French President and the British Queen were married, but because they didn’t get along, lived on the opposite sides of a big river. This, of course, explained the idiocy of Condominium rule because only a domestic squabble of such lofty proportions could possibly result in the Pandemonium that the little group of islands was colloquially known as. And they figured since De Gaul went across to Britain during the War, the Queen and her old man would be sweet again. Sadly, it was not to be.

So the Tannese decided there was a simple, logical answer to this. They’d set up black boxes and tie string to them and pray on this direct telephone line to the gods in the USA to come bring the planes with their cargo and make their lives happy again. They worshiped a Red Cross, flew the Confederate flag—some Georgia Yank’s idea of a farewell present, no doubt—carved muskets from wood, and made bandoliers of shells and binoculars from bamboo. And every Friday night they pray and sing hymns (When You’re Up, You’re Up being number one on the religious hit parade) and ‘dance’ by marching in platoons back and forth and salute the flag and wear Holden and Ford key chain rings on their breast pockets like medals.

They also worshiped the Queen’s consort as a god, hoping, perhaps that Prince Phillip would sweeten her up and make life easier for her subjects. And, as with all religions, they adopted certain figures as saints. Somewhere along the way, they predicted that the gods in the USA would land on the moon. They now worship a poster of Neil Armstrong. 

The same poster was my pin-up poster when I was a teenager. I really don’t want to delve too far into the deep meaning of that, so back to the Jon Frumms.

On 15th February every year they hold their annual celebration (well, we have Christmas) and the anthropologists flock in, and, not speaking a word of the language, make up stories that get themselves further grants for studies elsewhere. They ask the Jon Frummers, ‘How can you believe that Johnny from America will come back after all these years, and why haven’t they given up by now?’

‘Hey,’ they reply, ‘you guys have been waiting for Jesus for 2,000 years and look where that’s gotten you?’

Native wisdom—ya can’t beat it. To cap it off, in 1987 the worst recorded super-cyclone known to the Southern Hemisphere hit the islands in early February. The Australian government, in its wisdom as the great post-colonial benefactor, then sent to the island of Tanna a great silver plane known as a Hercules with its belly full of cyclone relief cargo, and distributed it freely amongst the locals, now known as ni-Vanuatu following Independence in 1980. This author was seen to jump up and down, abusing AusAID through the hallowed halls of the Australian High Commission for choosing to deliver the cargo on February 15th, the Jon Frumm’s Holy Day.

Needless to say, anyone wavering from the religion was instantly re-converted.

About the same time, back in the land of US, a man named Joe Michael Straczinsky was writing a story that would go to air in a few years as Babylon5. At the end of its third season on US television, TV tapes arrived in Vanuatu. This author was sitting breast-feeding her son, who shall become pivotal to this story, whilst watching this fascinating saga. However, having been left on a cliff-hanger in the most literal sense when the hero leaps off into the depths of Z’ha’dum, this same author went to bed muttering, ‘I’ve just invested three years of my emotions into this character, could they *really* have killed him off?’

After three sleepless hours and another feed to the baby, this author then reached for her space exploration collateral technology (don’t ask) gets on the Internet and learns that the hero has died but will be resurrected when the new season’s television tapes arrive. The lines of fate were now set on their fatal convergence, and there was no looking back. As a consequence of looking for the fate of the hero Captain John Sheridan, this author befriended a group of irreverent online wits known as the Warcouncil, who followed the show. Their mascot/landlord/spy/alter ego/ was a Psi Corps Chihuahua named Spiffy (really, just do not ask).

Now it is not the place of this paper to discuss the life, loves, machinations and twisted pathological motivations and actions of this mutt, Spiffy. However, this author encountered her first incantation of Spiffy in October 1999. Appearing as a guide dog puppy (no, I am not blind, don’t ask) it was, by chance, handed to me—well, forced upon me because he sure as hell didn’t want it—by the actor who portrayed the hero in that same television show. I also ended up with Bruce Boxleitner’s jacket.

It is a well-known fact that Spiffy’s khatra moves from place to place—hence the brief incarnation as a guide dog, which vanished soon after. What has this got to do with the Jon Frumms you ask? Ah! The plot now thickens. Come Christmas that year, a certain member of the Warcouncil who shall remain nameless to protect her from the Society for Prevention of Stuffing Up Religious Cults (don’t worry Mary-Lou, I’ll never reveal it was you) sent my now 3-year-old son a Christmas present. I nearly fell over when the box popped open and out emerged Spiffy, wishing me a ‘Happy New Year Amigos’.

This same son, had, as is common for a three-year-olds, directly associated his favourite toy-come-Taco-Bell-merchandising with the rocket ships and space and men who walk on other planets. Now it came to pass that this young innocent took his talking dog from the USA, a dog that had a direct connection to spaceships, into a village of Tannese Jon Frummer’s. He speaks the language… (puleeeze don’t ask, although I confess, so do I). It seems he pointed out to the villagers the connection between their framed photo of astronaut Neil Armstrong on the moon, Spiffy, and the only jacket that I owned (it’s surprising cold when you spend the night on top of the volcano, photographing it for Australian Photography.) Suffice to say, the impact was immediate and far ranging. In 1999 the latest hymn to hit the Jon Frumm religious hit parade was ‘Happy New Year Amigos’.

I cannot predict the long-term impact of Spiffy on this cult, however this author invites experts in the field to consider funding her further exploitation…eh exploration of the matter.

Cash only please, no credit cards.

– Christmas Eve, 1999.
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Update: March 2005
After his stint working for Taco Bell, in a fit of remorse for his impact on a hapless South Pacific Island culture, Spiffy returned to Mexico to seek his ancestral roots as a guide to the Aztec underworld, Mictlan. Here he jumped the Babylon 5 ship, as it were, met up with the team of SG-1, and played a pivotal role in the novel, STARGATE SG-1: City of the Gods. Spiffy was last seen in the possession of an Aztec girl, Two-water, on the planet that Colonel Jack O’Neill referred to as Yak Skin.

Disclaimers Babylon 5 (Copyright ©2000) names, characters and all related material are the property of J.Michael Straczinsky, Babylonian Productions, TNT, and Warner Bros, a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.

STARGATE SG-1™ & © 1997-2006 MGM Television Entertainment Inc./MGM Global Holdings Inc. STARGATE SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

Spiffy was a product of the warped minds of the long since defunct Geocities Warcouncil and being a slippery little mutt, belongs to absolutely no one, hence why this story makes no sense to anyone except those in the Warcouncil…and a film producer that read this story and flew to Tanna to document the cult.