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Why is their belief system referred to as a "cult"?

(We already know the answer, of course: A "cult", in the author's definition, is any belief system with no direct lineage to dominant super-cults -- or that it to say: "major established religions" -- of the modern era. Most of which are or have been at one time or another just as nutty and barbaric as the author presumes the beliefs of this particular seafaring community to have been).

Cult was originally just a “system of religious beliefs and rituals”. The dismissive meaning of cult is a relatively recent interpretation and not universal.