Even in the 20th century, New Guinea remained a kind of cannibal reserve. The famous Danish writer and traveler Arne Falk-Renne obtained real information about the life and customs of the tribes of this huge island in the 50-60s at the risk of his life. His wonderful book Journey to the Stone Age. Among the tribes of New Guinea”is still a kind of encyclopedia illustrating the life of the Papuans.
In his book, Falk-Rönne also summarized all the facts regarding the death of Michael Rockefeller. Before moving on to this tragic story, let's remember a little about the adventures of the Danish traveler himself. This will help us to imagine more realistically all the danger to which the young American, heir to a huge fortune, the details of whose death are still not known, was exposed to his life.
Photo by Michael Clarke Rockefeller
Once Arne Falk-Ronne went on a campaign with the warriors of one of the local tribes and witnessed a terrible scene that engraved in his memory for life. During the ascent along the slippery path to the ridge of the mountain, one elderly man became ill, he fell and was breathing heavily, unable to get up. Arne was about to help him, but he was outstripped by the famous warrior Siu-Kun. He ran to the old man, swung a stone ax and pierced his skull …
The European was even more shocked when he learned that Siu-Kun had killed his father … The translator explained this horrible act to him in the following way: “The son must help his father die. A real man is destined to die a violent death, best of all in battle. If the spirits are so displeased, the son must come to his aid and kill him. It is an act of love."
The manifestation of filial love did not end with the murder of the old man, it turned out that Siu-Kun still had to eat his father's brain … The desire to get a sensational picture of a warrior devouring his father's brain made Arne overcome disgust and take up the camera, but he was stopped in time by his translator: no one should not see how the son helps the father to go into the realm of the dead and eats the brain of the deceased.
Ten minutes later Siu-Kun returned, and the detachment continued on its way.
In response to a Danish traveler's perplexed question about the need for a burial of the deceased, the translator spoke about a local custom: “If someone dies on a hike, his body is left in the grass or jungle, provided that there is no housing nearby. Here they fear only one thing: lest the corpse fall into the wrong hands while the meat is still edible. If the places are uninhabited, you don't have to be afraid."
Promotional video:
Photo by Michael Clarke Rockefeller
A failed wedding or kisses with a mummy
Arne Falk-Rønne's stay in the tribe ended in a rather tragicomic way: his leader decided to marry a Danish traveler to his daughter … The shock and horror of the traveler from this proposal is clearly felt in the questions addressed to the reader of his book: “Could you fall in love with a girl who, following the laws of the tribe, does not wash to smell as strong as a woman? A girl who is daily smeared with rancid pork fat, and on especially solemn occasions with the fat of her dead relatives; a girl rubbing her thighs and butt with urine kept in a special room called the monthly hut where women go during their period?"
The whole horror of this proposal was that it was almost impossible to refuse it: Arne could have simply been killed … Gritting his teeth and shuddering with disgust, the Dane took part in a kind of "engagement": he had to crawl into the "monthly" hut and kiss the navel the mummy of a woman who distinguished herself in the tribe for the greatest fertility …
How did this whole story end? When the wedding was already inevitable, Arne gave the leader and four of his associates to drink cocoa and sleeping pills. Under cover of night, the Dane and his entourage fled the village. By the end of the day that had come, the pursuit nevertheless overtook the fugitives; under a hail of arrows, they managed to get over the suspension bridge across the river; having cut the vines, they brought down the bridge into the river and thus escaped the terrible revenge of the angry Papuans.
One of the exhibits collected by Rockefeller
Don't tell your name
After these eerie stories, I think it is quite clear to you how unsafe the expedition undertaken in the fall of 1961 by Michael Clarke Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, was. What did the young American lose in the wilds of New Guinea?
Michael Rockefeller was the brightest representative, one might even say, one of the symbols of the twentieth century. The son of a famous billionaire, Michael realized his ambitions on long and dangerous journeys. However, he did not just observe and investigate. He invaded the wild, pristine places of the planet, like a conqueror, like a "white beast".
In 1961, Michael devoted himself to expeditions to New Guinea, carrying out a seemingly noble mission to study the tribes living in primitive culture. These expeditions were ordered by the Harvard Peabody Museum and the New York Museum of Primitive Art.
The main task was to collect unique Asmat wood products, namely encores, that is, carved totems that served to attract the souls of the dead. However, Michael was more interested in kushi - human skulls decorated with magical symbols.
The fact is that among the local aborigines there was a terrible thousand-year tradition of head-hunting. Even in order to obtain the right to marry, each young man was obliged to provide his fellow tribesmen with the head of a slain enemy. The presence of kushi was considered an indispensable honor for every male house.
At the end of the 50s of the twentieth century, this tradition was so vigorously implemented by the Asmatians that the birth rate among them increased significantly. The baby boom was explained simply - the young men successfully confirmed their right to marry. Dutch police officers who followed order in New Guinea were forced to send special raids to the most belligerent villages, using machine guns to heighten the suggestion.
Michael Rockefeller, the pampered child of Western civilization, was delighted with the described tradition. So at the very beginning of 1961, he went to the primitive tribes of the Baliem Valley, where he organized a blatant bargaining. Announced a reward of 10 steel axes for a fresh human head.
The Asmat were inspired. The offered price was the ultimate dream for them. To say at least that the payment to the bride's family was equal to one ax, and stone axes were used in everyday life, and it was required to be a wealthy hunter in order to acquire at least a blank stone.
Little of! Michael began to provoke the Asmat to hunt heads not only with market incentives. He began to openly incite the hunters to clashes with neighboring tribes. He handed the ax in exchange for some valuable piece of wood and hinted that the new weapon must pass the test, to receive fresh blood. Why did he need it? He filmed deadly skirmishes on film. Michael can be considered one of the first true priests of the modern deity - television.
A parliamentary commission arrived at the site of the "research" from The Hague. It was she who reasoned Rockefeller Jr., forbidding him to remain in New Guinea. During the investigation, the parliamentarians found that thanks to the efforts of Michael in the Kurulu district, seven people were killed and more than ten were seriously injured.
The proud twenty-three-year-old American did not calm down. Soon, in November of the same 1961, he organized his own expedition, which caused the concern of the Dutch authorities and the impatience of the aborigines, who were waiting for him not only for the sake of acquiring axes.
Thin, fair-haired, with inexpensive glasses, Michael did not at all look like the son of a millionaire. He was considered a fairly experienced traveler, in the spring of 1961 he had already participated in the ethnographic expedition of the Harvard Peabody Museum to New Guinea, and the local flavor was quite familiar to him.
Michael made another mistake - he told the Asmats his name, and among the wild tribes of New Guinea at that time it was almost tantamount to a suicide attempt … The head is valued twice as much if the name of the victim is known. The Papuans could have formed the opinion that the village, which will manage to get into its men's house, a kind of repository of tribal relics, the head of such a powerful white, whose name they know, will acquire unprecedented strength and overcome all its enemies.
The catamaran takes to the sea
On November 18, 1961, Michael Rockefeller's small expedition, in which his Dutch colleague Rene Wassing and two guides, Leo and Simon, took part, set off on a catamaran along the coast to the village of Ats. The catamaran was quite antediluvian. It consisted of two pies, fastened together at a distance of two meters. There was a bamboo hut on the deck between the pies, where people were sheltered from the rain and wind, cinema equipment, supplies, and also goods for exchange with the Papuans lay here. The catamaran was driven by an 18 horsepower outboard motor.
The sea was rough, but the engine coped, and the travelers managed to keep the catamaran in the right direction. However, soon the low tide from the mouth of the Eilanden River began to catch up with the wave, the weak engine stopped coping, and the catamaran began to carry it further and further into the open sea. The pitching became stronger and stronger, the pontoons were flooded with water. Suddenly, a large wave completely swept the catamaran, the engine stalled, and the boat began to sink.
Dangerous attempt
It was about 2.5 km to the coast, but neither Michael nor Rene wanted to leave the catamaran, where the equipment and supplies were stored. They sent Leo and Simon for help. The guides took an empty canister as life belts and jumped into the water. There was no certainty that the daredevils would get to the shore, everyone was well aware of this. There were many sharks in the coastal waters, and very large crocodiles were found at the mouth of the river. Besides, everyone knew that along the coast there was a wide strip of marsh silt, too thick to be overcome by swimming, and too thin to support the weight of a person. It should be borne in mind that even overcoming all obstacles, Leo and Simon could stumble upon the Asmat, and this threatened them with death.
Long hours of waiting dragged on. In the evening, a huge wave rolled onto the catamaran. He could not stand it: the catamaran turned over, the deck collapsed, all provisions and equipment were washed overboard. There was only one pie left, and Michael and Rene were holding onto it. They spent the whole night in the cold water, in the morning Michael decided to swim to the shore, considering this the only chance for salvation. In his opinion, Simon and Leo either did not make it or were captured by some tribe.
Rene strongly objected to Michael's plan, he called it recklessness: the current near the coast is so powerful that even a strong swimmer will be carried back into the sea until he is exhausted. Michael was an excellent crawler, he believed in his strength, so, grabbing an empty red barrel from the outboard motor, he headed for the distant shore. The last words of Michael that Rene heard: "I think I will succeed."
The disappearance of Michael Rockefeller
Eight hours later, when Rene had already ceased to hope, he was discovered by a seaplane of the Dutch Navy, sent in search of the missing. He threw him a rescue rubber boat, Rene barely overcame 25 meters, which separated him from her, but it turned out that it was turned upside down. Rene spent another terrible night at sea, in the morning the plane appeared again, but did not find it. When the Dutchman was already saying goodbye to life, the plane appeared again, this time he shook his wings, which gave new hope for salvation. Three hours later, the exhausted Wassing was picked up by the Dutch schooner Tasman.
“Did you find Michael?” Rene asked immediately.
However, Michael Rockefeller disappeared, although the most careful searches were organized. Less than a day after his disappearance, Nelson Rockefeller and his daughter Mary went to New Guinea on a jet plane. On a small airplane, he flew as close as possible to the region of his son's disappearance, where, together with the Dutch governor Platteel, he led a search expedition to the country of the Asmat.
A mass of people was raised in search of the missing. Michael's father, New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, flew in from New York, and with him thirty, two American correspondents, and the same number from other countries. About two hundred Asmat voluntarily and on their own initiative ransacked the coast.
The search for the young Rockefeller involved patrol boats, missionary powerboats, crocodile hunter pies, and even Australian helicopters. An award was announced for knowing Michael's fate. But all these efforts were in vain and did not give any results. A week later, the search was stopped, without finding traces of the missing. Eight days later, Rockefeller lost hope of saving his son and returned to New York with his daughter.
What happened to Michael? Did he become the prey of sharks or crocodiles, or drowned, unable to cope with the current? Or did he make it to the coast, was killed and eaten by the Asmat? Rene Wassing was convinced that Michael did not get to shore. But with this conviction, Rene was in conflict with the fact that Leo and Simon were still able to reach the coast and escape, and they also informed the missionaries about what had happened.
Most likely, Michael still managed to get to the shore, it is believed that he got ashore much south of the mouth of the Eilander River. In 1965 the Dutch newspaper De Telegraph published information drawn from a letter from the Dutch missionary Jan Smith. His mission was closest to the Oschanep Asmat village. Smith wrote to his brother that he saw Rockefeller's clothes in the village of the Papuans and that he would even be shown the bones of an American. Unfortunately, by that time Smith was no longer alive, so it was impossible to verify this information.
Another missionary, Willem Heckman, claimed that Rockefeller was killed by soldiers from Oschanep as soon as he got ashore. The missionary said that the villagers told him what had happened, as well as that Michael's skull was in the men's house in the village. In 1964, refugees from Asmat territory made their way to the administrative center of Daru, in Papua, Australia. About 35 of them claimed that Michael Rockefeller was killed by Oschanep's soldiers, "cooked and eaten with sago."
One should also take into account the fact that three years before the tragedy with Rockefeller, a punitive detachment was sent to Oschanep in order to stop inter-tribal clashes: bullets killed many soldiers, including three close relatives of the leader Ayama. The leader vowed to take revenge on the whites, perhaps he took the opportunity and kept his oath.
Alas, three tribal leaders who could have solved the mystery of Michael's disappearance died in a tribal war in 1967. Amazingly, during the search expedition in 1961, a number of unforgivable mistakes were made, which were pointed out by A. Falk-Renne. For example, the search expedition then did not reach Oschanep, and the report of the police inspector E. Heemskerks, in which the Papuans said that Michael was killed and eaten by soldiers from Oschanep, for some reason was put aside. Maybe Michael's father, having made sure that his son was probably dead, decided not to dig into the nightmarish details of his death and consoled himself with the thought that his heir had died in the midst of the waves?
Perhaps Michael's skull, turned into kushi, is still kept in some secluded place. Will he ever find peace in the homeland of his ancestors? Unknown …
But there is still such information:
With the passage of time, the name of the deceased ethnographer disappeared from the pages of newspapers and magazines. His diaries formed the basis of the book, the collections he collected adorned the New York Museum of Primitive Art. These things were of purely scientific interest, and the general public began to forget the mysterious story that happened in the swamp land of the Asmat.
But in a world where a sensation, no matter how ridiculous it may be, means a sure opportunity to make big money, the story with the billionaire's son was not destined to end there …
At the end of 1969, an article by a certain Garth Alexander appeared in the Australian newspaper "Reveil" with a categorical and intriguing headline: "I tracked down the cannibals who killed Rockefeller."
“… It is widely believed that Michael Rockefeller drowned or became a victim of a crocodile off the southern coast of New Guinea when he tried to swim to the coast.
However, in March of this year, a Protestant missionary informed me that the Papuans living near his mission killed and ate a white man seven years ago. They still have his glasses and watch. Their village is called Oschanep.
… Without much hesitation, I went to the indicated place to find out the circumstances there. I managed to find a guide, the Papuan Gabriel, and up the river flowing among the marshes, we sailed for three days before reaching the village. Two hundred painted warriors met us in Oschanep. The drums rumbled all night. In the morning Gabriel informed me that he could bring a man who, in a couple of packets of tobacco, would tell me how it all happened.
… The story turned out to be extremely primitive and, I would even say, ordinary.
“A white man, naked and alone, climbed out of the sea, staggering. He was probably ill, because he lay down on the bank and still could not get up. People from Oschanep saw him. There were three of them, and they thought it was a sea monster. And they killed him.
I asked about the names of the killers. The Papuan said nothing. I insisted. Then he reluctantly muttered:
- One of the people was the leader Uwe.
- Where is he now?
- He died.
- And the others?
But the Papuan was stubbornly silent.
- Did the murdered have mugs in front of his eyes? - I meant glasses.
The Papuan nodded.
- Is there a watch on your hand?
- Yes. He was young and slender. He had fiery hair.
So, eight years later, I managed to find the person who saw (and maybe killed) Michael Rockefeller. Without allowing the Papuan to recover, I quickly asked:
- So who were those two people?
There was a noise from behind. Silent painted people crowded behind me. Many were clutching spears in their hands. They listened carefully to our conversation. They may not have understood everything, but the name Rockefeller was undoubtedly familiar to them. It was useless to pry further - my interlocutor looked terrified.
I'm sure he was telling the truth.
Why did they kill Rockefeller? They probably mistook him for a sea spirit. After all, the Papuans are sure that evil spirits have white skin. And it is possible that a lonely and weak person seemed to them a tasty prey.
In any case, it is clear that two murderers are still alive; that's why my informant got scared. He already told me too much and was now ready to confirm only what I already knew - people from Oschanep killed Rockefeller when they saw him coming out of the sea.
When he lay down on the sand in exhaustion, the three, led by Uwe, raised the spears that ended the life of Michael Rockefeller …"
Garth Alexander's account might seem true if …
… if only Oceania magazine, also published in Australia, had not published a similar story almost simultaneously with the Reveille newspaper. Only this time, Michael Rockefeller's glasses were "found" in the village of Atch, twenty-five miles from Oschanep.
In addition, both stories contained picturesque details that made connoisseurs of New Guinea's life and customs wary.
First of all, the explanation of the motives for the murder seemed not too convincing. If the people from Oschanep (according to another version - from Atch) really took the ethnographer who got out of the sea for an evil spirit, they would not have raised a hand against him. Most likely, they would simply run away, for among the innumerable ways to fight evil spirits, there is no fight with them face to face.
The version "about the spirit" most likely disappeared. In addition, people from the Asmat villages knew Rockefeller well enough to mistake him for someone else. And since they knew him, it is unlikely that they would have attacked him. The Papuans, in the opinion of people who know them well, are unusually loyal in friendship.
When, after a while, almost all the coastal villages began to "find" traces of the disappeared ethnographer, it became clear that this was a pure invention. Indeed, the check showed that in two cases the missionaries told the story of Rockefeller's disappearance to the Papuans, and in the rest the Asmates, gifted with a couple or two packs of tobacco, in the form of reciprocal courtesy told the correspondents what they wanted to hear.
The real traces of Rockefeller could not be found this time, and the secret of his disappearance remained the same secret.
Perhaps it would not be worth remembering this story anymore, if not for one circumstance - the glory of the cannibals, which, with the light hand of gullible (and sometimes unscrupulous) travelers, was firmly entrenched in the Papuans. It was she who ultimately made any guesses and assumptions plausible.
Among the geographic information of deep antiquity, human eaters - anthropophages - occupied a firm place next to people with dog-headed heads, one-eyed cyclops and dwarfs living underground. It should be admitted that, unlike the psoglavians and cyclops, cannibals existed in reality. Moreover, at the time of Ona, cannibalism was found everywhere on Earth, not excluding Europe. (By the way, how else, if not a relic of deep antiquity, can one explain the sacrament in the Christian church, when believers “eat the body of Christ”?) But even in those days it was rather an exceptional phenomenon than an everyday one. It is natural for man to distinguish himself and his own kind from the rest of nature.
In Melanesia - and New Guinea is part of it (albeit quite different from the rest of Melanesia) - cannibalism was associated with inter-tribal feuds and frequent wars. Moreover, it must be said that it took on wide dimensions only in the 19th century, not without the influence of the Europeans and the firearms they imported. This sounds paradoxical. Was it not European missionaries who labored to wean the "wild" and "ignorant" natives from their bad habits, sparing both their own forces and the natives? Did not every colonial power swear (and does not swear to this day) that all its activities are aimed only at bringing the light of civilization to godforsaken places?
But in reality, it was the Europeans who began to supply the leaders of the Melanesian tribes with guns and incite their internecine wars. But it was New Guinea that did not know such wars, just as it did not know the hereditary leaders who stood out in a special caste (and on many islands cannibalism was the exclusive privilege of the leaders). Of course, the Papuan tribes were at enmity (and still in many areas of the island are at enmity) with each other, but the war between the tribes does not happen more often than once a year and lasts until one soldier is killed. (If the Papuans were civilized people, would they be satisfied with one warrior? Isn't this convincing proof of their savagery ?!)
But among the negative qualities that the Papuans attribute to their enemies, cannibalism is always in the first place. It turns out that they, the enemy neighbors, are dirty, wild, ignorant, deceitful, insidious, and cannibals. This is the most serious charge. There is no doubt that the neighbors, in turn, are no less generous in unflattering epithets. And of course, they confirm, our enemies are undoubted cannibals. In general, cannibalism causes no less disgust among most tribes than we do. (True, some mountain tribes in the interior of the island are known to ethnography, who do not share this disgust. But - and all trustworthy researchers agree on this - they never hunt people.) Since much information about unexplored areas was obtained precisely by questioning local population,then on the maps appeared "tribes of white-skinned Papuans", "New Guinea Amazons" and numerous notes: "the area is inhabited by cannibals."
… In 1945, many soldiers of the defeated Japanese army in New Guinea fled to the mountains. For a long time, no one remembered about them - it was not up to that, sometimes on expeditions that got into the interior of the island, they came across these Japanese. If they were able to convince them that the war was over and they had nothing to fear, they returned home, where their stories got into the newspapers. In 1960, a special expedition set out from Tokyo to New Guinea. We managed to find about thirty former soldiers. All of them lived among the Papuans, many were even married, and the corporal of the medical service, Kenzo Nobusuke, even held the post of shaman of the kukukuku tribe. According to the unanimous opinion of these people, who went through "fire, water and copper pipes", a traveler in New Guinea (provided that he does not attack first) is not threatened by any danger from the Papuans.(The value of the testimony of the Japanese lies in the fact that they have visited various parts of the giant island, including Asmat.)
… In 1968 on the Sepik River the boat of the Australian geological expedition capsized. Only the collector Kilpatrick, a young guy who first came to New Guinea, managed to escape. After two days of wandering through the jungle, Kilpatrick came to the village of the Tangavata tribe, who had never been in those places recorded as the most desperate cannibals. Fortunately, the collector did not know this, because, in his words, "if I knew this, I would have died of fear when they put me in a net attached to two poles and carried me to the village." The Papuans decided to carry him, because they saw that he could hardly move from fatigue. Only three months later did Kilpatrick manage to reach the Seventh-day Adventist mission. And all this time he was led, literally "from hand to hand," by people of different tribes, about which it was only known that they were cannibals!
“These people know nothing about Australia and its government,” writes Kilpatrick. - But do we know more about them? They are considered savages and cannibals, and yet I have not seen the slightest suspicion or hostility on their part. I have never seen them hitting children. They are incapable of stealing. Sometimes it seemed to me that these people are much better than us."
In general, most of the benevolent and honest explorers and travelers who made their way through coastal swamps and inaccessible mountains, who visited the deep valleys of the Ranger Range, who saw a variety of tribes, come to the conclusion that the Papuans are extremely benevolent and sharp-witted people.
“Once,” writes the English ethnographer Clifton, “in a club in Port Moresby, we had a conversation about the fate of Michael Rockefeller. My interlocutor snorted:
- Why bother? Gobbled up, they have it not for long.
We argued for a long time, I could not convince him, and he me. And even if we had argued for a year, I would have remained with my confidence that the Papuans - and I got to know them well - were incapable of inflicting harm on a person who came to them with a good heart.
… More and more I am amazed at the deep contempt that the officials of the Australian administration have for these people. Even for the most educated patrol officer, the locals are "rock monkeys." The word that the Papuans are called here is "long". (The word is untranslatable, but it means an extreme degree of contempt for the person it designates.) For the Europeans here, "oli" is something that, unfortunately, exists. No one teaches their languages, no one really tells you about their customs and habits. Savages, cannibals, monkeys - that's all …"
Any expedition erases a "white spot" from the map, and often in places marked by brown mountains, lowland greens appear, and bloodthirsty savages who immediately devour any foreigner, upon closer examination, do not turn out to be such. The purpose of any search is to destroy ignorance, including the ignorance that makes people savages.
But, besides ignorance, there is also an unwillingness to know the truth, an unwillingness to see changes, and this unwillingness generates and tries to preserve the wildest, most cannibal ideas …
