It's more about misunderstanding cause and effect. Tribal people after WW2 started building runways on their islands because they thought that as long as they b

It's more about misunderstanding cause and effect. Tribal people after WW2 started building runways on their islands because they thought that as long as they built the runways the airplanes would show up bringing their cargo. They didn't imitate it "for the sake of it", they genuinely thought they would receive cargo by building runways. So while it's not about rain dances and shakalaka sticks the previous commenter was on the money about the term cargo culting.