"I will die in chaparral."

You're going to die in California? Or maybe Baja, I guess?

There are two separate issues you're addressing here, both illustrating different odditys of the cargo cult phenomenon. [tangent- there are several books I've read which discuss cargo cults, but now I'm not recalling what books these might be. I know there is definitely a Palahniuk book where this is an important theme. Anybody recall?]

Issue one: the lack of knowledge involved with the practice of both everyday activities and the fields one specializes in. This, I think, is not very well illustrated by cargo cults, and your tree analogy only makes a little sense to me. Suffice it to say that I'd say that there is some sense in which you can totally master a subject; it may be that you can only master on subject in your lifetime, but I'd like to believe, at least, that it is possible to have all available knowledge about something. Probably not in fields like cosmology or history, but certainly in manmade fields like computers or something like language or semiology.

Issue two: the example of the cargo cult is really demonstrative of the existentialist's critique on modern society; that is, it serves to illustrate the modern (or eternally human?) tendency to simply live by the structures and tropes that have been already established for us. We worked this problem out throughout the 20th century though, at least in the field of philosophy: God is dead, and we have killed him. The preconceived notions of what life is or should be have been destroyed by our moving beyond them, and we are thus condemned to be free, and cursed by the freedom to choose or life's purpose, or lack thereof.

That being said, I don't think that imitating others to achieve a similar outcome is wrong or misguided, as long as the ends are sought for one's own purposes, and not the purposes of others. The paradox of the cargo cultist is that, objectively, they are clearly ridiculous, but given their situation, their actions are perfectly logical.