.png)
"It's ironic, in a way, the things that drew Michael to the Asmat are the things that killed him," explains author Carl Hoffman, who spent years researching the disappearance of the missing Rockefeller heir.
Arguably one of the most mysterious and perplexing missing person's cases of the 20th century, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller was the son of former vice-president Nelson Rockefeller and had a passion for exploring distant corners of the globe.
After working as a sound recordist for an ethnographic film Dead Birds, Rockefeller returned to Dutch New Guinea in November 1961, now West Papua, to learn more about the culture of the local Asmat people and collect pieces of their artwork.
Advert
Sadly, the adventure took a very dark turn.
It was during the expedition where Rockefeller and companion René Wassing would run into trouble after their canoe capsized.
Believing he could swim to safety, Rockefeller told Wassing: "I think I can make it," before setting out to shore. He was never seen or heard from again.
Advert
Following extensive searches of the region by the powerful Rockefeller family, Michael was declared legally dead in 1964 and presumed to have drowned.
However, Hoffman thinks there is more to the story. In his 2014 book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, And Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest, he argues that Rockefeller was killed and consumed by the Asmat people as a form of ritual headhunting.
.webp)
Michael Rockefeller: wrong place, wrong time?
Hoffman spent around three years researching the book - including several months spent living alongside the Asmat people - and believes that Rockefeller's death was a consequence of both colonialism and local cosmology.
Advert
"The Asmat did not kill Michael Rockefeller because they felt murderous. And they didn't kill him because they were hungry, and they needed a bite to eat," Hoffman explained during an interview with LADbible.
"They killed him for these complex historical and cultural reasons."
In the years prior to Rockefeller's disappearance, Max Lapré, Dutch government controller in Southern Asmat, was involved in an incident which led to the deaths of five prominent members of the Otsjanep village.
Hoffman explained that the deaths caused by Lapré and his men had left an 'unbalance' in the village, which in Asmat cosmology was something that had to be fixed otherwise their village would be haunted by 'spirits'.
Advert
It is through this understanding of the Asmat worldview which Hoffman believes led to the killing and consuming Rockefeller after he happened to make it ashore on 1961.
"[In Asmat cosmology] the world needs needed to be balanced and righted, and that balance came from the killing of Michael Rockefeller, yeah, it wasn't some blood thirsty thing for them," Hoffman explained. "It was just making the world whole, and that was going to reclaim their culture and their power."
He continued: "I mean, these were people who had been living separate from the world on their own for, you know, 1000s of years, and they had a whole three-dimensional complex civilisation, so much so that, you know, that's why Michael was there to collect their spectacular art, which today stands in the greatest museums of the world.
Advert
"This was a culture in which, you know, some in which head hunting was incredibly important, and cannibalism itself was just an is sort of an outgrowth of head hunting. And those things took place in a very sacred, ritualised context."
Carl Hoffman's book Savage Harvest is available to buy here.
Brenna Cooper