gain influence and resources by persuading large numbers of supporters to
put energy into making the cargo arrive by intense ritual activities. In
Hagen, while each local manifestation of the wind work practices had
someone at the heart of it who was a prime actor, no consistently influential
set of‘prophets’emerged to spread the rituals from group to group. Local
leaders in Hagen were, and are, deeply involved in public exchanges of
wealth through which they make peace, create alliances, and gain in pres-
tige. Nevertheless, some of these leaders stood indirectly to gain from the
wind work. The wife of the leadingfigure among the Yelipi was the sister of
a prominent local politician in a neighboring tribe (as noted earlier). She
and her husband solicited money contributions from supporters and much
of their money seems to have been‘banked’in the settlement area of the
politician, and when the cult failed, these monies were rumored not to have
been returned to those who had contributed them.
Undoubtedly money itself was the major focus of ritual interest in the
cult. Songs were created, with images of the wealth that was to come from
the‘work’. One of these songs contained an image that invoked the World
Bank, envisioned as about to break open with money over the head of the
singer, like money from‘heaven’.
If we review these elements of change we see that they all belong to the
sphere of vital cultural imagery, and all are set into the context of the
experience of specific changes in local politics and economy. Social struc-
ture as a whole was not a factor, because its existing patterns were simply
harnessed to mobilize support for the new cult.
At the culminating dance the boxes were found, after being opened, to
contain only the useless pieces of metal that had been placed in them. The
cult leaders melted away, and the rituals were never (to date) repeated. The
original impetus for writing about this ritual experiment was to demon-
strate that such cargo rituals could emerge in Highlands societies that were
seen by outside observers as based on rational and secular economic
practices which would make them impervious to such‘irrational’activities.
The example showed, per contra, that Highlanders were as susceptible to
imaginative images of possibilities as any others. It also showed, however,
that whereas the cults had often tended to replicate themselves again and
again in coastal areas, in Hagen, at any rate, this did not happen. Hageners,
instead, immersed themselves in ceremonial exchange, cash cropping,
national politics, and conversion to Christianity–enough to keep them
busy with efforts to achieve wealth and influence of the kind the wind work
cultists dreamed of.
16 BREAKING THE FRAMES