Puertegan Cargo Cults
Cargo cults are an indigenous millenarian belief system and a new religious movement found on many small islands in the territory of Puertego. A cargo cult is defined as a belief system where the practitioners imitate the rituals, symbols, and behaviors of more technologically advanced technology that they've witnessed before in their past with the primary reason for doing this seeming to be in the belief that if they continually preform these rituals they can make the more technologically advanced civilizations return. The term "cargo cult" was coined in the field of anthropology around 10 years after the end of the Second Great War though in recent times the naming has become controversial due to the use of the word cult which many anthropologists argue does not fit the movements that fall under the label.
Cause
One of the leading theories for the cause of the formation of cargo cults was the systems of many tribes before the arrival of technologically advanced civilizations, the societal structures of many of the tribes prior to contact with outside civilizations is that of a "big man" political system where members gained prestige through gift exchanges and the more wealth someone had to distribute meant more people were in his debt further increasing his prestige. Once these tribes were colonized they were faced with foreigners who seemed to them to have an infinite supply of good to distribute with the exchange making them all feel like a lower class to the foreigners. Due to modern manufacturing being unknown to many of these tribes they believe that manufactured goods brought by the more advanced civilizations are made through spiritual methods such as rituals or being given through the gods or through their ancestors.
Beliefs and Practices
The primary belief that defines cargo cults is the beliefs of more advanced civilizations gaining their goods through spiritual means and the belief that by replicating what they've seen more advanced civilizations do they can make them come back with their goods. However cargo cults are extremely varied in the more specific beliefs of their sects depending on what they witnessed foreigners doing on their island, which foreign power first colonized them, and various other factors. Some of the common rituals practiced by the cargo cults include making mock airstrips, airplanes, and airports, making radio towers and radios out of coconuts, trying to make various MRE's out of coconuts, fish, and various other local items made to look like the food in foreign MRE's, using christian symbols such as cross-shaped grave markers, and walking in formation with sharpened sticks to look like rifles and insignia marked on their chests to look like badges.
Examples
There are theorized to be a large number of cargo cults in modern Puertegan territory with most estimated putting the number in the medium 20's. Some of the more well known Cargo Cults include, The Nuna movement a sect first colonized by Cartadania and was planned to be used for an airstrip however construction was abandoned along with the island due to the very poor weather conditions surrounding it, The Heavenly Family sect which inhabits an island briefly inhabited by Urcean explorers before all the Urceans on the island were wiped out by native diseases leaving behind imagery of the Urcean royal family which the natives worship as divine beings along with keeping the skeletons of the explorers on alters, and the Nwambe sect which utilizes Imperial Cola in all of their rituals as well as believing the drink to have spiritual and medicinal properties, how they first came into contact with imperial cola is still unknown.