Two young men drift on an overturned catamaran along the coast of southwest New Guinea. Twenty-four hours have passed since their motor died.
.jpg)
One of the men, Michael Rockefeller, 23, the son of New York Gov. and future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and scion to one of the richest families in America, decides to swim 10 miles to shore.
This is the last time Michael Rockefeller is seen alive.
The official cause of death would later be listed as drowning. The prevailing theory was that he was consumed by sharks. “Savage Harvest,” a new book by veteran travel writer Carl Hoffman, makes the compelling and convincing case for the true story behind his disappearance.
The series of unfortunate events that led to Michael’s death began auspiciously on Feb. 20, 1957, when Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the world, opened the Museum of Primitive Art at 15 W. 54th St. It was billed as “the first . . . of its kind in the world.”
Michael, 19 when the museum opened, became one of its board members. “It’s easy to imagine the power the event had over him,” writes Hoffman.
Michael wanted to gather artwork for his father’s museum, but without going through intermediaries. A natural adventurer, he would go right to the source. Aware of the untouched world of Asmat in Dutch New Guinea, a place known for its intricate woodcarving, Michael made plans to scout out a location there to do some art-hunting.
In October 1961, Michael traveled to Asmat with anthropologist Rene Wassing. Carrying bartering goods like steel or tobacco - which the Asmats had become addicted to - he visited 13 villages in three weeks, never spending more than three days in one location.
He gathered hundreds of items, among them bowls, shields, spears and the most prized possession, four sacred bisj poles, spiritual artifacts that are often dedicated to the deceased, which now hang in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
The scavenging trip was a success. But one trip wasn’t enough.
The Asmats, cloistered from the outside world since the first inhabitants arrived at least 40,000 years before, lived without steel, iron, paper or roads, relying solely on wooden canoes to traverse the Arafura Sea.
Unlike the remote peoples of the Amazon, they were not buttressed by the deep jungle. They lived right next to the coast along a main waterway, but since their lands offered little in the way of natural resources or substantial game, they were largely left alone.
The Asmats were agile, quick and muscular from paddling. They were naked except for a tight band of rattan just above their knees. Western taboos did not exist here.
Men had sex with men. They shared wives and practiced polygamy. They sometimes drank each other’s urine and covered themselves in human blood during bonding rituals.
This was a “complex spiritual world balanced by ceremonies, ritual and reciprocal violence,” writes Hoffman.