Jeff Mullin

Commentary



So how’d you do yesterday, guys?

Jewelry? Very nice. Flowers? Way to go. Candy? A nice touch. A kitchen appliance? Enjoy sleeping in the garage, do we?

Nothing? What do you mean nothing? You forgot Valentine’s Day? You’ll be begging to sleep in the garage, pal.

But not to worry, just get her something today. Sure, today. Not only will flowers and candy be considerably cheaper today, but you can cover your posterior by telling her you were saving them for a more important occasion — Jon Frum Day.

Jon Frum first appeared to a group of men in the South Pacific island chain of New Hebrides, now called Vanuatu, one night in the late 1930s.

It seems the natives of these islands once were farmers and fishermen whose culture was based on polygamy, ritual dances and the consumption of kava, a moonshine-like beverage made from the roots of the kava plant.

Life was good in the islands until, in the early 1900s, Christian missionaries arrived and put a stop to all the fun. They banned polygamy, stopped the dancing and outlawed kava drinking.

In the 1930s a group of unhappy native men gathered secretly and drank mass quantities of kava. They were hoping to receive some sort of message from the great beyond. Their message came in the form of Jon Frum, a white-clad white man who urged them to stop going to Christian churches, to throw away their money and to return to their old ways.

So they tossed their money into the sea and began holding huge feasts in honor of Jon Frum. A cult was born, despite efforts of local colonial leaders to quash the movement.

In 1942 the Frum followers thought their prayers had been answered. Large ships full of foreign men in white clothes showed up in the islands. Large metal birds also dropped from the sky, bringing more strangers, who brought with them such wonders as chewing gum, chocolate and Coca-Cola. These strangers also lived side by side, black and white, which was foreign to the natives, who had been treated as inferiors by French and British officials. The Frum cultists thought they had found nirvana.

In a few years, however, World War II was over, and the United States military went home, taking all of its people and their wonderful stuff with it.

Ever since, a group of die-hard Frum followers have been drinking their kava and waiting for their “savior” to return.

On Jon Frum Day, his followers will offer prayers and flowers at a red cross, the movement’s most sacred symbol. There will be an American flag-raising ceremony and a military parade in which participants will wear mock American military uniforms and carry rifles made of bamboo.

Frum’s followers remain convinced he will return and bring with him boat loads of items like TVs, radios, refrigerators, medicine, trucks, boats and watches.

None of this has materialized, of course, but still they wait. Paul Raffaele, a writer for Smithsonian magazine, whose article about the Jon Frum movement appears in this month’s issue, asked a local holy man about why Frum’s followers continue to wait for his return.

“You Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to earth, and you haven’t given up hope,” he said.

It’s kind of hard to argue with that kind of logic.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle.