The Legends of John and Philip: A Story

Modern “cargo cults” illustrate how religions can be born and develop

At the end of the island where I live we are waiting for John to come back. At the other end, which we don’t ever visit, they are waiting for Philip. But we will see John back here long before they see Philip. John is a legend. I suppose Philip must be too, but our legend is better than theirs. That’s because ours is true and theirs is made up. I know this because my grandfather said so. He has actually seen John and knows he is real, but he hasn’t seen Philip. He thinks the people at the other end of the island made Philip up out of their own heads, just because we had John all to ourselves down here.

Grandfather is now a very old man, and it was when he was only a young boy that he saw John. It was at a time when huge ships, loaded with massive guns, went sailing past our island. Some people came from other islands and talked to our people about what was happening there.

It seems that on some of the larger islands people with much lighter skins than us arrived in big metal birds. They wanted to stay for some time, and they told the local people that they needed to attract much larger birds, but in order to do so they would have to clear away some of the forest and build a special track on which the birds…