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'Prophet Fred' and cargo cult roil South Pacific nation

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Vanuatu hit by violent feuds among members of bizarre sects

It has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster - a smouldering volcano, a jungle battle, a bizarre cult and a self-styled messiah called Prophet Fred.

But the feud between two villages in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu is all too real for the dozens of men who are in hospital recovering from axe and spear wounds.

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And it has split one of the world's last surviving cargo cults, a strange legacy of European colonisation of the South Seas.

Rebelling against the aggressive preaching of Presbyterian missionaries in the 1930s, dozens of villages on the island of Tanna put their faith in a mysterious outsider called John Frum.

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They believed that he would drive out their colonial masters and re-establish their traditional ways.

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