Pacific church members await the return of American pilot. UPI Special Report: Winds of Ch

	Pacific church members await the return of American pilot. UPI
Special Report: Winds of Change in the Pacific (940-picture)  adv
sun july 19 or thereafter

   By STEWART SLAVIN

   SULPHUR BAY, Vanuatu (UPI) _ In the shadow of a volcano on the
island  of  Tanna, members wearing  Rambo T-shirts  and U.S. Army
patches spend their days praying for the return  of  an  American
pilot named John Frum.

   Across  the  island  in a remote jungle village, bare-breasted
women in grass skirts and men clad only  in  "nambas,"  or  penis
sheaths,  worship  Britain's Prince Philip and sacred stones that
they believe can kill their enemies.

   The 25,000 people who live on Tanna, one of the more far-flung
islands in  the  archipelago  nation  of  Vanuatu,  have  largely
replaced Christianity   with  sects.    They  have  rejected  the
organized religion embraced by  their  ancestors,  who  practiced
cannibalism before missionaries arrived a century ago.

   "The  whole island had been converted to Presbyterianism early
this century and then John Frum showed up and ruined everything,"
said Tom Numake, 48, head chief  of  Tanna  and  a  former "witch
doctor" who abandoned black magic for Christianity 10 years ago.

   John  Frum  was  "a white man who wore an aviator's helmet and
had a chestful of American medals," said Numake.    The  American
flier  showed  up  on  Tanna  around  1935,  when he met Numake's
grandfather, Noklam Matua.

   "At first, my grandfather started to run away because  it  was
the  first  white  man  he had ever seen," Numake said. "But John
Frum waved and said, `Come back, I have a message to give you."'

   Frum's "message" was  that  the  Melanesian  islanders  should
"destroy what  the  missionaries  have  brought  you.   Burn your
clothes, forsake Christianity and return to  your  native  ways,"
Numake recalled.

   "My grandfather  shook  his  hand and became his disciple.  He
felt this was a real god in flesh and blood, unlike Christ,  whom
he had never seen."

   The  island's  Presbyterian missionary called Frum "the devil,
the anti-Christ."  But Noklam Matua refused to listen  and  spent
five years in jail along with other church members.

   He  was  released  at  the outbreak of World War II, when more
than 100,000  U.S.  troops  began  arriving  in  the  islands  in
preparation  for  a  drive  against Japanese forces to the north.
Matua and other villagers were recruited to unload  tons  of  war
supplies  from Navy ships, and received dog tags, military badges
and other U.S. souvenirs for their efforts.

   "John Frum told his  followers  to  look  toward  America  for
wealth  that would come in ships, and this seemed to be the first
proof," Numake explained. "John  Frum  came  and  went  from  our
island many times in planes and ships, saying he was going off to
fight some battle, but always promising to return.  But after the
war, he never came back."

	The sect's stronghold is Sulphur Bay, on the coast of Tanna in
the  shadow  of  the  Yasur  volcano, a 1,184-foot-high peak that
periodically rumbles to life and belches black ash,  cinders  and
rocks.

	Some  so-called  "cargo  sectists"  believe  the  pilot dwells
beneath the volcano with thousands of other GIs who some day will
rise through the cone to deliver  trucks  and  refrigerators  and
other conveniences of Western life.

   One  adherent,  Chief  Isaac  I, told a recent visitor, "I saw
John Frum this morning and he was telling me about a truck coming
to pick up one of our chiefs for a trip to the other side of  the
island."

   The  chief,  whose shirt bore a U.S. Army patch, said only the
village's high chiefs are able to  see  Frum,  a  privilege  they
earned  by  abstaining  from sex and from drinking kava, a potent
narcotic drink brewed from a pepper root.

   Sulphur Bay has a John Frum Church and a secret hut that  only
chiefs may  enter.    On  a table inside stands a simple American
vase holding five marigolds.

   "When we want to make a call to another village or island,  we
simply  pick  up  one  of  the  flowers  and  talk into it like a
telephone," said Isaac I. "John Frum has given us  the  power  to
speak through the flowers."

  Every Feb. 15, hundreds of church members with "USA" painted on
their naked backs and carrying long  sticks  representing  rifles
stage a  military-style  march.   They used to raise the American
flag, but the government banned that practice after  independence
in 1980.

	The Frum  sectists are not alone.  In deep jungle on the other
side of the island, a Prince Philip  sect  has  sprung  up  in  a
village whose 50 inhabitants trace their ancestry to the prince.

   "Thousands  of  years  ago," said the 25-year-old son of Chief
Naiva, "a member of our village went to England and married  into
Prince Philip's family."

   About  10  years ago, the village sent a wooden club to Prince
Philip, who had his picture taken with  it  and  sent  the  photo
back.  The photo is kept in a special box in the chief's hut, and
brought  out  only for ceremonies in which the villagers pray for
Philip to visit them.

   Numake said black magic, particularly the  use  of  supposedly
deadly sacred stones, is also still practiced on the 30-mile-long
island,  which  boasts  the  largest  native  population  in  the
82-island chain.

   "The last death  occurred  four  years  ago,"  he  said.  "The
offenders  used a sacred stone shaped like a heart and containing
several holes.  They put herbs in the holes and then  called  out
the victim's  name.    He  died  of  a heart attack three minutes
later."

   "We settled the case under tribal law," he said.  "His  family
was given pigs, some grass skirts and a 12-year-old girl from the
offending village to start a new family."