 Early theories of cargo cults began from the assumption that practitioners simply failed to understand technology, colonization, or capitalist reform; in this model, cargo cults are a misunderstanding of the systems involved in resource distribution, and an attempt to acquire such goods in the wake of interrupted trade.However, many of these practitioners actually focus on the importance of sustaining and creating new "social" relationships, with material relations being secondary.Since the late twentieth century, alternative theories have arisen.