Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibalism, Colonialism and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art. Rockefeller made it to shore and was killed and ceremonially eaten by the Asmat. Not only that, the Dutch government and the Catholic Church knew and kept it a secret.
Here are the nine reasons I believe cannibals ate Michael Rockefeller:
1) For the Asmat, headhunting and cannibalism were essential sacred practices at the core of their identity
The art Rockefeller was seeking was a sacred byproduct of a complex culture of hunter-gatherers whose sustained contact with the outside world began just a few years before his arrival. Asmat culture was defined by constant warfare with neighboring villages, the taking of heads for initiation ceremonies, and the ritual consumption of the slain. Through cannibalism the Asmat believed they formed an intimate bond with a victim, taking his power, his name, and becoming him.
In their world, no death happened naturally; all death was at the hands of spirits. There was the world of the here and now and the world of Safan, the land beyond the sea. To push the spirits of the dead to Safan, where they could do no harm to the living, required elaborate ceremonies and the carving of beautiful mangrove poles of stacked ancestors up to 20 feet tall called bisj. The poles embodied the spirit of the dead. They carried his name, and were a promise to right the imbalance in the community caused by his death. Only when the poles were complete and a death reciprocated was the ceremony completed, allowing the spirits to move on to Safan and new life flow in the village. And for the Asmat, the proper reciprocation could be achieved by any death, even a woman or child. They were opportunists preferring victims alone, unprotected, and vulnerable. They might wait years for the right moment.
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On November 19, 1961, Michael Rockefeller vanished. The 23-year old Harvard graduate and son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller was in Netherla...Read more »
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