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Flotsam Faith, or Tosaka's Cargo Cults: Religion, or Nuisance?
As I enter through past the sea-worn metal door, my eyes have to adjust to the darkness within. Illuminated only by a low, flickering light of a kerosene lantern, and a constellation of holes and gaps in the walls of this centuries-old wooden building, I see the carefully kept relics of one of the largest unique religions to the Tosakan islands. Surrounding me, encased in plastic boxes on sturdy steel tables, I can make them all out: an old wireless radio receiver, a early revolver, a small collection of gas tanks, even an antique telescope. My guide, a short dark man by the name of Kalepo Uta’i, smiles sheepishly, nodding and stretching his hand out towards the display.
“Well,” he says. “Here is our little shrine.”
Kalepo Uta’i, or “Kal” as he prefers to be called by his congregation, is one of perhaps a few dozen leaders of a religious practice known as
Shosho Jitt'ana, translated as "Flotsam Faith" and was once formerly described, and still colloquially known as, the "Tosakan Cargo Cults." Flotsam Faith is unique among world religions and faith traditions in that it reveres objects and practices that are from the modern era; industrial equipment and commercial goods are held as relics, and ritualized re-enactments of aircraft taxiing and radio communication play a vital role in their celebrations. This unusual practice is where both of the names for the religion come from: things that westerners might characterize as "flotsam" or abandoned goods are held in high regard by those who practice Flotsam Faith, and the term "cargo cult" was originally created to describe the reverence for "cargo," which is the catch-all term that practitioners of Flotsam Faith use to describe their modern relics.
"Cargo was what the
kaj'en, the foreigners who brought it to our islands, called these things that we believe possess a lot of mana," he explained. "So that is what we kept calling them. It's simple, accurate, and pretty much everyone knows what we mean when we say that we believe cargo has mana, so we don't try and make up new names for it."
But what is "mana," and why does it mean that these manufactured objects, that most of us consider to be mundane at best, deserve a place of respect and reverence and even worship? I ask Kal, and he responds,
"Mana is, like..." He laughs, shaking his head, and apologizes. "I've been doing this for thirty years, you would think I would have something memorized or written down to explain to foreigners by now." After pausing for a moment, he stops smiling, and continues. "Mana is a sort of spiritual energy. It is the name we give a kind of quality that describes the efficacy or power of something. Everyone, and everything has mana; you, me, the crab I ate for lunch, our ancestors, the gods, the ocean, the sky, you name it." Mana is a mainstream belief in many Tosakan islander traditions, and the high presence of mana in nature and among gods, heroes, and ancestors that are revered in these traditions is used to explain their actions, both in stories and in the present. But Flotsam Faith, and similar "cargo cult" traditions, Kal explains, believe this power applies to modern goods and technology as well.
"It allowed us to speak with each other from thousands of miles away to set up this interview, it allowed you to cross the ocean with ease by flying through the air, it allowed me to relax and have breakfast in a cool room when it was blazing hot outside," says Kal. "To just fold your arms and say 'No, this is man-made, it does not have mana, it should not be revered,' strikes me as just kind of, I don't know, short-sighted."
Shosho Jitt'ana has a long history in the Tosakan islands. As the islands underwent their first long-term settlement, starting in 3000 BCE, and ending only in the 200s AD, the islands pretty much shared the same technological level and method of economy.
"The culture was not stagnant in the way we typically mean when we say that word," explains Dr. Rafa Nuku, an anthropologist at Mateko University, "but for thousands of years, the material world of the early Tosakans was essentially unchanged." Gold working was the most advanced method of metallurgy available, catamarans were the only means of travel, and the most advanced weapon you could find was a bow and arrow. When the explorers arrived with their ships and guns and manufactured goods, however, everything changed.
"I mean, imagine you're a old Tosakan native, just barely out of the Stone Age, and you're confronted with a booming cannon," says Dr. Nuku. "It's hard not to imagine that this giant barrel of strange metal has some kind of power imbued into it, or that the strange things these people were doing to move their giant ships or to fire their guns weren't some kind of magic."
After the initial arrival of the first foreign ships to the shores of the Tosakan islands, the first traditions of what we now call Flotsam Faith took place. Old records taken by Urranese and Roman explorers describe native Tosakans making mock cannons, putting large square sails on small islands, even smoking dried banana leaves in pipes like they saw the explorers do with tobacco.
The popularity of
Shosho Jitt'ai declined precipitously during the phase of colonialism, however. Starting in the 1400s and continuing over the next few hundred years, the Tosakan islands found themselves colonized and their people either forced flee or to work on dangerous docks or on cash crop plantations, which served to both demystify and de-sanctify the technology that the explorers initially carried. Foreign and Maritime peoples mocked the practitioners of the "Cargo Cults," and often forced them to abandon their rituals and relics to convert to other faiths, such as Christianity, and left no time for such faith practices for their slaves. Centrals also viewed the faith tradition with suspicion and distrust, believing it to be fetishizing their enemy occupiers and believing that practitioners of Flotsam Faith were more likely to turn traitor than those who adhered to the more traditional ways of worship found in Island Faith. Neither group seemed to have much patience for the religion, and its practice essentially died out; substantiated proof of practices even tangential to what we now call Flotsam Faith only pop up a handful of times in the historical record during the next few centuries after the first plantations were established. Even after the Seagull Wars and the liberation of Tosaka, these faiths practiced in the shadows, their numbers dwindling.
However, the arrival of the Second World War, and the relative sea-change in technological advancement that came with the arrival of aircraft, electricity, and radio, sent Floatsam Faith roaring back to life. The fighting between great powers in the region, as well as the fighting of the Tosakan Civil War in and between the main islands, led to islands that had been left alone since the first colonial days being reintroduced to the modern world in a violent, and stunning manner. Airfields, fuel depots, electrical stations, and radio transmitters were suddenly everywhere to be found. Tosakan islanders, looking for faith in the midst of a time of extreme change and instability, came to believe that revering cargo and mimicking the methods of receiving or using this cargo (building mock runways to taxi mock planes, shouting into and using mock headphones at mock or abandoned radio towers) could impart a bit of their mana onto them, or use their inherent mana to help their people.
"While the old objects of cargo were found to have much more mana than anything that the islanders had ever seen," explains Kal, "it was really when electrical systems and airplanes came onto the scene that people everywhere really started to step back and say 'Woah, okay, this cargo really DOES have a ton of mana,' and people started to wonder what they should do about it."
Indeed, even today, people have not stopped wondering what to do about it. Practitioners of Flotsam Faith have butted heads with other Tosakans many times over the years, from disputes over leadership and community to accusations of theft, such as the infamous "Sextant Case," where a group of young Flotsam Faith practitioners were sentenced to five years in prison for the theft and subsequent destruction of the famous Captain Juan Paul Havier Garcia's sextant, which had been stolen from the Tosakan Museum of History and destroyed during a motorcycle crash in a subsequent police chase. Tensions between those who practice Flotsam Faith are also high with those who practice Christianity and traditional Island Religions, who see each other as wayward heretics and possibly community disruptors.
Kal himself has made national news in Tosaka for his efforts to defend sacred sites for those who believe in Flotsam Faith. In particular, Salvation Station, a radio tower on Uei-Uei Island once used to coordinate humanitarian aid efforts during the aftermath of the Second World War, has been a sacred site for Kal's congregation and many practitioners of Flotsam Faith since it was built and then abandoned. But the local government on Uei-Uei wants to tear it down, calling it a "navigational hazard."
"The so-called 'Salvation Station' radio tower certainly served its purpose in the past," said island Governor Mark Jocca on a phone call when asked about the situation. "But we want and need both Uei-Uei and Tosaka to move into the future. The tower has caused a number of near misses and even damaged a government helicopter. As sad as it is, it needs to go, and none of these cargo cults can stop that necessity."
When asked about the dispute, Kal shakes his head and sighs. "We preserve a whole bunch of sacred rocks, forests, and reefs for more 'acceptable' native religions, we have no trouble keeping old churches away from the wrecking ball," he said plaintively. "There is no reason at all why we can't do the same for our holy places. They hate and disrespect us because we are different, and that's human nature, but we can't let them do this."
Indeed, they are different. Tosakan Flotsam Faith makes up an unusual, and fascinating historical and religious tradition unique to the Tosaka isles, and they certainly deserve to be known and appreciated by the world. Leaving behind the strange collection of busted-up junk housed in Kal's shrine, I can't help but feel a little more pure and humble, like I have just left a place of holy greatness.
Written by Tula Mehike, 04 June 2020Comments 204
Comments: SandySunshine_2234 · 3 hours ago
Honestly, these people are an embarrassment. I don’t like the idea of foreign tourists showing up and thinking we all worship radios and planes, like some prehistoric weirdos. I wish they would just shut up and go away.
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