The divinity of Prince Philip

Did anyone see the film on TV lateish last night about the cargo-cult on the island of Tanna, that worships Prince Philip as a deity, the son of their local volcano-god? If so, which channel was it on?

It was played wonderfully straight, with plenty to provoke thought. After the Royal Yacht, Britannia, had sailed past the island, a giant rope hawser was miraculously discovered in the flotsam, which was carried triumphantly back by the chiefs, to be recycled to provide rope for several villages. The last shot, of an empty beach in the gloaming, showed in the distance a furtive figure in naval uniform slipping unseen from the shore into the jungle, possibly Prince Philip’s ghost.

He would have loved it. I certainly did.

Wraith by name, wraith by special interest?

It’s a fascinating cultural phenomenon – see this article for recent coverage.

There are so many ways to take this phenomenon. [Imperialist] Primitive nonsense. [Academic] interesting anthropology. [Comic] What a brilliant leg-pull. [Cool] We have much to learn from our friends in Tanna. These are not necessarily disjoint positions. I liked the film because it did not force one position over another.

As for deference to Royalty, I can tell a tale about my late neighbour, Audrey. In her younger years she was a teacher at a girl’s boarding school near Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, and among her charges were children of Lady Devonshire. To celebrate a birthday, Audrey and her whole class were invited to tea at Chatsworth House. Judging from the frequency with which this episode was inserted into her conversation, I would say that it was a focus of Audrey’s life. She had been brought up to believe that she belonged to a superior stratum of society. I hasten to add that she was also as kind and considerate a person as you could hope to meet. So great was her fascination with nobility that, as a joke, a friend framed for her a collage of some of her old photographs together with pictures of the queen. In her senility, looking at the collage, she actually came to believe that the queen had once visited her house. So, in a sad way, the joke backfired, at least for the donor of the collage. Still, she had undoubted pleasure from it, whatever its original purpose. Honi soit qui mal y pense.