I find this article very unconvincing. The info-dump style reminds me of bad video-essays and stands in contrast to Feynman's speech. He describes the relevant

I find this article very unconvincing. The info-dump style reminds me of bad video-essays and stands in contrast to Feynman's speech. He describes the relevant aspects of cargo cults in a couple sentences, and uses it to make an enduring and effective point. His talk was not about cargo cults, it was about science! Whereas I'm not sure what point this article is supposed to make. I guess the info-dumping is meant to communicate that Feynman's offhand two sentences are not a complete and accurate representation of a diverse religious movement, which I think most people could have figured out themselves. But if all this info is meant to show that the roots of the movement are more complex than Feynman indicates, I think it does terrible job without mentioning the gift economy aspect. I think this is partly a result of relying on older sources - but then again, study of reciprocity in Melanesian cultures is as old as modern anthropology, so...?? In a nutshell, these cultures relied upon reciprical exchange of gifts to define the social order. When the Japanese and Americans arrived and distributed valuable goods which the natives were completely unable to reciprocate, the entire community lost their collective social status. In order to cope with this, it was rationalized that these goods actually belonged to ancestor spirits and had been somehow co-opted by the Americans. This is the reason 'cargo cults' take diverse forms - they are just a reaction to the sudden appearance of foreign cargo within an existing socio-religious framework.