revitalization movement in Melanesia. They had placed great value on wealth and its redistribution as a means to gain "bigman" status. This preoccupation with wealth led them to be interested in the material possessions of the Germans, English, French, and Australian colonial powers. European material possessions (their wealth) were brought to the islands via ships and planes and were known as "cargo." Various movements emerged with the goal of acquiring the cargo through ritual means...aka "cargo cults." Melanesians thought Europeans did hardly anything to earn their wealth and that they were given these technologies (trucks, canned foods, radios) by the God. They thought when the Europeans needed new supplies or items they simply marked them on papers and placed them in envelopes or called for them by speaking into metal things and they'd arrive in a few weeks. So the Melanesians thought that if they conducted the same rituals the Europeans were conducting, the spirits would bring them what they wanted too. Numerous prophets of this movement appeared and each of them had visions of why the Europeans had the goods and they didn't...most of them saying the Europeans had been lying. Many Melanesians (and Garia of New Guinea) believed the missionaries would give them cargo if they followed their teachings about going to church, monogamy, worship of the true God, and cessation of pagan rituals, such as sorcery and dancing. However, no cargo arrived and they got angry and blamed the missionaries. In the 1930s and 40s 2 Garia prophets claimed the Jesus and God were truly Melanesian deities, not European...and that Jesus had been trying to deliver the goods to Garia, but he was held captive in Heaven. So they destroyed all their native wealth objects to show Jesus how poor they were and gain his pity...then he'd give the cargo to their ancestral spirits who would pass it on to their living descendants.