How did Michael Rockefeller die? Riddle solved? The millionaire was eaten by cannibals?
Michael Rockefeller was about to be eaten by Papuan cannibals. The whole world was talking about this story. What really happened in 1961?
Michael Rockefeller, a recent graduate of Harvard University’s anthropology department, traveled to Papua in 1961 at the behest of his father. Nelson Rockefeller, the mayor of New York City, instructed him to assemble a collection of tribal art for the family-funded New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. After spending several months in the Baliem Valley, Michael traveled south of the island to the coast of the Arafura Sea. This was the territory of the Asmat tribe, who had a reputation as Oceania’s most sophisticated carvers, but also headhunters and cannibals.
Previously, the Rockefeller collection had included random works of art from Papua, collected by army officers, colonial officials, and a few missionaries. Determining the origin of these artifacts was often impossible. Therefore, Michael decided to do something that no one before him had done — get to the very source. He set out for the “heart of darkness.”
For several months he traveled through the Asmat villages, collecting and documenting art and wowipitsj (wood carvers). Then he sailed toward the Kazuarin Coast. On November 17, 1961, a few…
