ABSTRACT
In the latter half of 1972 and the early months of 1973 there appears to have been a major change in Yali’s public position on the cargo cult aspects of his career and organization. He and fellow Sor villagers have issued a public statement dissociating his name from cargo cult. He himself wrote to me in September 1973: ‘Some of the things you heard in Kauris were not mine, they were just lies. This work that they have said will cause something to come up without effort [cargo], this talk has been going on for a long time. It is the talk of the Madangs proper and it is not my talk.’
