Road Belong Cargo: A Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea

by Peter Lawrence

The 1940s and 1950s were marked by an efflorescence of Melanesian cargo cult activities--periodic movements in which native people deeply believed they could attain abundant European goods (and the status that these goods seemed to assure) by ritual means. Road Belong Cargo has long been the authoritative account of the cargo phenomenon in New Guinea. Written from Lawrence's own careful research, as well as from historical records and comparable studies in anthropology and ethnohistory, this theoretically sophisticated study describes how the villagers of the Madang District sought, through religious experiment and speculation, to change a world in which they felt themselves to be the underdogs despised by the colonial masters. An excellent history of culture contact and ethnic relations over nearly eight decades, this study of people living in a tiny segment of the frontier between the industrial world and that of the village, in a long isolated corner of the world, enables readers to see five short-lived religious movements, aggravated by the rigid rule imposed by a succession of Western administrations.

Genres: History, Anthropology

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is positively amazing, it is easily the best historical account of cargo cults in northeastern New Guinea and in my opinion one of the best histories of New Guinea, albeit focusing on just one region. Also a must-read for anyone traveling to Madang Province or nearby.

[Adam Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in Melanesia in general, Papua New Guinea in particular, or just in how other societies are organized and think, this book is a great place to look!

[Lgordo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a sandwich. The bookends discuss PNG culture and how this led to the rise of cargo cults. The middle is like a field report of the cargo cults and their development, with a special focus on the 5th iteration that grew up around a man named Yali who was initially thought by the western administration to be suppressing cargo cult activity.

As someone with an interest in anthropology and other cultures and PNG history, the bookends were the most intriguing to me. The filling details group of people desperately flailing to understand a world they are not remotely equipped to understand. At times it's way too detailed -- literally everything you never wanted to know about daily administration in Madang. Ultimately I got tired and skimmed the end, which felt repetitive in any case.