For nearly nine decades, followers on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu have held a remarkable spiritual belief: that an American serviceman named John Frum will one day return with prosperity and material goods. According to Boing Boing, the movement emerged in the late nineteen-thirties, possibly rooted in encounters with a local man named Manehivi who adopted Western clothing and the John Frum alias while promising his community wealth. The movement endures as a striking example of how cultural contact can birth entirely new belief systems.

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