The Straw Airplane

"The Straw Airplane – Building runways to summon the gods of freight" investigates the fascinating phenomenon of "Cargo Cults" in the South Pacific. During WWII, American troops arrived on remote islands with magical supplies: canned food, jeeps, and radios. They shared this "cargo" with the locals. When the war ended, the soldiers left, and the cargo stopped coming. Anthropologist Simon Rite explains how the islanders, trying to bring the cargo back, mimicked the behavior of the soldiers. They built life-size airplanes out of straw, carved headphones from wood, and marched in formation, believing these rituals would summon the silver birds from the sky. "The Straw Airplane" is not a mockery of "primitive" beliefs, but a mirror for our own. It explains how all religions and corporate rituals begin: by mistaking correlation for causation. It asks what "straw airplanes" we build in our modern offices, hoping for success to land.