Jon Frum

The US's standing in the world may have plummeted under President George W Bush, but a bizarre cargo cult in the Vanuatu island nation holds America in god-like esteem.

The Jon Frum movement celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding yesterday with a lavish feast in which village men dressed up as US soldiers and marched in front of a giant Stars and Stripes flag on a bamboo pole.

Miniature American flags festooned trees lining the black sand parade ground which forms the focus of Lamakara village, the headquarters of the cult, on the jungle island of Tanna.

Older men dressed as officers marshalled the crowd of several thousand cult devotees, while 50 young men shouldered their bamboo rifles and came to attention in a perfectly orchestrated drill.

The letters USA were daubed across their chests and backs in red paint as they paraded beneath a relentless tropical sun, a drill sergeant barking orders in Bislama, Vanuatu pidgin English.

A tin band and small boys with bamboo flutes played The Star Spangled Banner against a background of roars from nearby Mount Yasur, a live volcano in which the spirit of Jon Frum is said to live.

The shadowy spirit figure they already believed in gradually assumed a name and a nationality – Jon Frum is believed to be a contraction of John From America, a reference perhaps to a soldier who showed particular generosity.

The movement was officially founded on Feb 15, 1957, to celebrate the release of cult leaders who had been imprisoned by the ruling Anglo-French authorities. For the last 50 years cultists have clung to the belief that by dressing up as GIs and venerating US symbols they can somehow tempt back the wartime cargo.

In a thatched hut in the centre of the village a cult shrine says: Jon Promise America – One Day He'll Be Returning.

---- Worldwide, there are several million Jon Frum Promise cultists, with similar symbols, beliefs, and dress-up rituals, usually referred to as Joe Blow or patriot, often found in America's Red(neck) States.