Cultures of Secrecy: Reinventing Race in Bush Kaliai Cargo Cults (New Directions in Anthropological Writing)

Book Description
After driving the Japanese out of Papua New Guinea during World War II, the U.S. military left their gearand the makings of a cargo cultto the native Kaliai. Cultures of Secrecy offers a close look at how, for fifty years, the bush Kaliai in Melanesia have worked these tailings of the western world into their indigenous culture. Andrew Lattas shows how cargo cults in general bring together past, present, and future in their curious blending of traditional myths, imported folklore, borrowed state practices and ideologies, and reworked Christian stories. The result is a richly interdisciplinary work that uses ethnography to explore questions of racial experience, gender relations, space, time, death, and the politics of human relations. A wonderful book: an original and compelling argument, a wealth of empirical detail analysed with great political sensitivity, and a break-through in understanding what cargo means to those people whom anthropologists have used cargo to define.Michael Jackson, Victoria UniversityWellington

About the Author
Andrew Lattas is fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia. He has been editor of two special editions of the journal Oceania.


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After driving the Japanese out of Papua, New Guinea during World War II, the U.S. military left their gear--and the makings of a cargo cult--to the native Kaliai. CULTURES OF SECRECY offers a close look at how, for 50 years, the bush Kaliai in Melanesia have worked these tailings of the western world into their indigenous culture. 20 photos.


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