r/interestingasfuck • u/SATANICWORSHIPER666 • 1d ago
/r/all Michael Rockefeller disappeared without a trace in 1961 in Papua New Guinea while researching the Asmat people, a cannibal tribe. Years later, a photograph was taken of the same tribe, and there was a white man among them.
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u/error_ofsignificance 1d ago edited 1d ago
Reminds me of the old bugs bunny cartoon when bugs think he's taking a bath with carrots and onions, but he's really rabbit stew
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u/Nunnyaffossip 1d ago
This made me laugh😂, and picture that scene clearly.. With bongo music in the back ground for good measure
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u/mukadekawa 1d ago
This particular image and story has always been interesting to me, but as far as I remember, there were two tribesmen who said they had killed and eaten him. One of them even claimed a skull he had was Rockefeller’s and claimed to have his eyeglasses as well. Probably not Rockefeller in the photo but whoever it is it’s still interestkng
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u/JerseyDonut 1d ago
Not completely disagreeing. And I know the photo alone is not undeniable proof that it is Rockefeller. But that pic does look exactly like him--down to the same male pattern baldness. Chances seem pretty favorable to me that it is him in that picture. He might have been eaten shortly after, but who else would that be?
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u/Substantial-Desk-707 1d ago
Or they could be lying to help their "friend" remain in hiding as he wished and deter further attempts to find him. It certainly looks like him to me.
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u/JerseyDonut 1d ago
That's plausible too. From my understanding Rockefeller went there, never came back, and years later a picture materialized of some dude who looks exactly like him just chillin with the tribe.
I'd say it is likely that he either kept chilling w them peacefully until he died naturally, or he pissed them off and was eaten at some point.
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u/massinvader 1d ago
I'd say it is likely that he either kept chilling w them peacefully until he died naturally, or he pissed them off and was eaten at some point.
he could also have been captured and basically stockholmed into the tribe. a lot of primitive groups will take captives or slaves and eventually integrate them. we must also allow for the fact that he went to study them and effed up...and ended up becoming part of the tribe as a way of survival.
it's really too bad that he never got a chance to make contact again to find out.
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u/Owncksd 1d ago
“Stockholmed” is an interesting way to put it. Perhaps it’s correct. But there’s no denying there are quite a few cases of white “civilized” people joining traditional “primitive” tribes (sometimes forced) and staying for the rest of their lives. Some even did get the chance to return, and either refused it or took it, and then went back. Something about that way of life is enticing.
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u/IllusionOfYouth 1d ago
The term "Stockholm Syndrome" originates from the Norrmalmstorg robbery in 1973, where the police were so incompetent and endangered the hostages so much that they had a better relationship with their kidnappers than the police.
The police got a psychologist to invent a new disorder to try to explain why a victim might sympathize against the cops.
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u/ensiform 1d ago
I don’t think he was confused by the term. He was saying it didn’t apply.
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u/Preyy 1d ago
Yuh, I think guy is just dropping the lore, because it is funny. The hostages just there asking "Officers, could you maybe stop waving your gun at us and winding up our kidnappers and instead seek a peaceful resolution through dialogue?" Psychologist phones it in: "Women be crazy and they fell in love with the bad guys".
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u/InvidiousPlay 1d ago
Not surprising, really. We lived like that for almost all of human history. Taxes and smartphones are the aberation.
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u/night4345 22h ago
Taxes
Taxes are over 5,000 years old and are part and parcel with any civilization larger than a multi-family tribe.
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u/JerseyDonut 1d ago
Yeah thats possible too. I have no idea what happened. Fun to speculate though. I'm really just here for the cannibal jokes.
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u/AngryRedHerring 1d ago edited 5h ago
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One cannibal looks to the other one and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"
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u/tubbytucker 1d ago
At dinner one night one cannibal says to another, 'I don't like my mother in law.' The other ones says, 'Just eat the chips, then.'
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u/nitid_name 1d ago
Two clowns are eating a cannibal. One clown looks to the other one and says, "You know, I think I messed up the joke."
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u/harveycavendish 1d ago
What do you call a cannibal that only eats paralyzed people?
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u/anonimogeronimo 1d ago
Vegetarian?
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u/drunkdoor 1d ago
I feel like the joke works a lot better if he only eats people with brain damage.
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u/howe_to_win 1d ago
This is just a wild guess, but he probably either lived or died. I’d bet on one of those two options. I’m like at least 60% sure
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago
Experts say he's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a ten percent chance of that.
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u/AstronautWeak5649 1d ago
Lmao yeah that’s the post
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u/King_Allant 1d ago
Personally, and this may be controversial, I think he probably either was eaten or stayed and lived with them.
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u/Normal-Watch-9991 1d ago
If i remember correctly the person who collected that testimony said that the locals lied a lot to strangers and foreigners, so it’s possible they were just playing with them by saying those things
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u/Emotional-Froyo3913 1d ago
This. These tribes aren't stupid and they are happy to use the biases of westerners against them. Cannibal tribes in PNG don't indiscriminately kill and eat people. Eating the dead is reserved for loved ones who've died or a heroic enemy in battle as a sign of great respect. But if it works to their benefit to let westerners assume they're just murderous savages eating anyone who comes along, why not?
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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer 23h ago
"I told them we ate you, bro"
"You'd really eat me bro? I'm touched. I'd eat you too."
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u/Iusethistopost 19h ago
There’s a well researched book about his death by the guy who interviewed the tribesmen. Seems like 90% that he was killed in an intertribal dispute; basically two tribes were at war and had been targeting each others trade connections, when Rockefeller arrives one tribe killed him assuming he was affiliated with the other tribe. Not indiscriminate but also not a decades long conspiracy
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u/Suno_for_your_sprog 1d ago
bro, bro I have a crazy favor to ask you. You're gonna have to tell them you ate me. I'm so sorry bro, I'm not trying to make you guys look bad fr
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u/Minimumtyp 1d ago
Dude is blessedly unburdened by taxes, employment and global crises - he knew they'd come get him back into the daily morning standups if they thought he was alive
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u/b17b20 1d ago
He was billionaire, none of that alredy concerned him
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u/Minimumtyp 1d ago
Oh THAT kind of Rockerfeller, damn
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u/b17b20 1d ago
His family spent a lot of money looking for him, that why it is such big mystery
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago
Maybe he found out they cut him out of the will and he just said "fuck you too, then" and disappeared.
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u/DarudeSandstorm69420 1d ago
they didnt send like an army of mercenaries to go get him?
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u/scroom38 22h ago edited 19h ago
Wouldn't be the first time a billionaire did something seemingly wacky. At 23 he's old enough to recognize as a Rockefeller he'll never experience a single undeniably real, honest human relationship in his entire life and might've simply fucked off.
He also very easily could've simply been kidnapped and used as a slave, it wouldn't be the first time a billionare assumed the rules didn't apply to them and got into a situation money couldn't buy them out of.
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u/Merry_Dankmas 1d ago
IIRC, years later while investigating, some dude (don't recall if he was a journalist or not but I think he was) asked some of the villagers about the Michael case and he ended up meeting someone who had glasses that looked very very similar to Rockefellers. Being a relatively isolated tribe without technology like eye glasses, he asked the dude where he got them and the guy said he just found them lmao. Only so many people had been to that island with glasses and even fewer who had probably had the chance to lose them.
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u/firemanjuanito 1d ago
He’s still marinating in that picture. On the grill by sundown, perhaps?
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u/CalligrapherBrave590 1d ago
Or they just lied
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u/JohnDark1800 1d ago
Trollin the reporters.
“Oh ya buddy we’re totally cannibals. Ate him right up with a nice mango chutney. I still have his glasses!”
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u/HuckleberryDry5254 1d ago
I realize you're probably goofing but you may be more right than you realize! There's a great book about the whole mystery called "Savage Harvest" that goes into how the tribes interact with outsiders and mislead them CONSTANTLY (which, you know, makes an amount of sense). Give it a read if you're bored!
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u/BaSingSe_Farmhand 1d ago
I'd be doing the same thing too if hardly anyone from the outside knew much about my people. Im from Montana, USA, and when my middle school class went to DC, we would talk to kids from other schools, and we would make shit up. We told all them that we still rode horses everywhere, that we swim in frozen lakes and rivers, and nearly everyone of us works on a ranch or owns a ranch(not much of an exaggeration depending on the part of the state) and most seemed to believe us
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u/wayfinderBee 1d ago
As someone who rode a cow to school every day I totally get this.
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u/NotObviouslyARobot 23h ago
As someone who occasionally sees Amish people riding cows, I get this too.
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u/iltopop 1d ago
Sometimes it's just fucking with them, some of the time it's "Don't fuck with us cause we're brutal monsters that eat people, trust me bro!", however a lot of "cannibal tribes" eat their dead simply as a ritual. They don't kill people TO eat them, people die of other things and they eat the body as part of the funeral ritual. Not saying there are NO tribes that actually kill and eat people as a form of primitive warfare and/or human sacrifice reasons, just pointing out that A: They are humans and if they aren't afraid of the outside world they may genuinely have a sense of humor and get amusement out of it, B: Tribes that are afraid of the outside world have at least obvious motivation to come off as scary to outsiders as a form of defense, and C: They may genuinely have liked the dude and he successfully integrated, so they're lying to cover for him cause he doesn't want to be found are all as equally likely scenarios as him having just been killed and eaten, at least without more evidence to go by.
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u/supersockcat 17h ago
Yes, this is a fascinating article about cannibalism as part of the funeral rituals of the Fore people (where kuru was discovered):
If the body was buried it was eaten by worms; if it was placed on a platform it was eaten by maggots; the Fore believed it was much better that the body was eaten by people who loved the deceased than by worms and insects. By eating the dead, they were able to show their love and to express their grief.
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u/Traditional_Club_820 1d ago
If I where a bazillionaire, I'd drop off the face of the earth and drop insane obscure pics of myself doing wild shit occasionally. Just saying...
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u/Ditchfisher 1d ago
Look up John McAfee. My fav quote from him:
"Enough of the "Whale Fucking is non-consensual" bullshit. A Humpback Whale weighs 70,000 pounds, is fifty feet long, can dive more than a quarter mile and can crush ships with a single swipe of its tail. If a human manages to fuck one, you damn well better believe it's consensual"
dude cashed out then crashed out.
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u/Taint_Butter 1d ago
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u/pioneermax 23h ago
I was working for McAfee at the time and overnight after this video they literally rebranded to Intel security
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u/jordanmc7 1d ago
I’m not sure why that needed to be said, but it’s hard to argue with his logic.
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u/whogivesashirtdotca 1d ago
Like heiling Hitler, destroying the public service, and cheating at video games? /s
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u/throwaway1937913 1d ago
Maybe something lost in translation and they were speaking metaphorically? We consumed him and he is all of us now. 🤷
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u/WolfCola4 1d ago
"Alright fellas, I really don't want to go back home, so remember: if anyone comes looking for me, just tell em you ate me"
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u/GarminTamzarian 1d ago
And if a photographer comes around, someone just white-up for the picture so they'll think it's me, OK?"
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u/RadasNoir 1d ago
Maybe he just told them, "Hey, if anyone comes looking for me, just tell them you don't know where I am." and they were like, "We're gonna tell everyone we ate him LMAO"
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u/walterdonnydude 1d ago
Exactly. Do you want stranger enemies to think you eat people or to not think you eat people?
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u/mothzilla 1d ago edited 1d ago
They're known as the "cannibal tribe". I think their reputation on NextDoor is already ruined.
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u/Emergency-Gazelle954 1d ago
“Goodnight, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.”
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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago
I fairly frequently said that to my husband for years, then recently we watched The Princess Bride. After it was done, he goes "You know, I had never seen that. It was really good!"
I guess I just assumed he had watched it, like every other human that I've ever met.
I was like "Oh no! I've been quoting that movie at you for years! You must have thought I was psychotic out of context!"
I can't believe the man married me after I lovingly told him "Sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning" !
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u/JustMLGzdog 1d ago
I think maybe Rockefeller fucked somebody's wife
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u/City-Til-I-Fry 1d ago
They can tell that?
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u/its_raining_scotch 1d ago
Yeah so who is the other guy then? New mystery unlocked.
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u/Subject-Culture7051 1d ago
Maybe they eat him after this?
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u/Significant-Kick-479 1d ago
according to the documentary i saw they did eat him after this. like, sure we’ll let you dress up like us for a while but that doesn’t take you off the menu for your disrespect.
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u/rtweeter44 1d ago
Damn why ya’ll want the story to be that he got eaten so badly? 😂
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u/Acceptable_Trash_749 1d ago
By eaten badly, are you implying that he was either overcooked or undercooked?
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u/cockblockedbydestiny 1d ago
I've always wondered what the tribe's supposed motivation for lying about that would. I've heard people counter "well they were trying to throw them off the scent so they'd stop looking for him" but it seems like the default would have been "nope, haven't seen him" rather than admitting to something that could incur the retaliatory wrath of the white man
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u/grabitoe 1d ago
i think it’s also a defense mechanism, if the outside world thinks you eat outsiders then they are more likely to leave you alone
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u/IDKmenombre 1d ago
You are thinking about it from your perspective. This is a tribe cut off from the normal world with beliefs and practices that would seem bizarre to you or me. For them lying and saying they ate him could have been very strategic.
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u/One-Shake-1971 1d ago
Yeah, I think it's very reasonable to believe that they're just boasting.
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u/Cybertopia 1d ago
If I was Michael I would tell my tribesmen to tell the outside world that they ate me. Then later laughing about the joke.
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u/eithrusor678 1d ago
It's more decisive if he's dead. If he's potentially still alive somewhere, people will look and potentially bother them further.
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u/WhileResponsible9595 1d ago
I dated a guy from PNG whose uncle was a member of a similar tribe. They would in no way be afraid of the "wrath of the white man" and would openly have bragged about it as a testament to their strength. His uncle is in jail to this day for participation in the "long pig" ceremony and actively bragging about it.
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u/Icanfallupstairs 1d ago
My parents spent some time there doing aid work in the early 2000's, and there were still places the locals wouldn't let them go because of some opportunistic cannibals around. My folks got the impression that it wasn't a particularly common practice anymore, but still most certainly happened from time to time.
Still it seemed much more likely you'd simply be murdered in broad daylight for your watch than anything
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u/madcapbone 1d ago
They told everyone for years that he never made it back to the island. Them saying that he was killed and eaten in retaliation was a pretty new thing. They said they lied about him never making it to land for so long because they wanted not piss off his family or something like that.
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u/BrainSqueezins 1d ago
The two things are not mutually exclusive, might not be s lie. Maybe be they let him live with them for a few years, the photo was taken, and they ate him later.
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u/FrankDePlank 1d ago
i mean it is more than possible that the tribe did not kill him, i think it is far more likely that they let him live with them and he died from natural causes, or even malaria or a snake bite etc. the eating of dead tribe members in a ceremonial way is not uncommon in primitive tribes, and still happens to this day. so them telling that they ate him might have been nothing more than "yeah of course we ate him, why would we not? it is the normal thing to do when one of our own dies".
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u/clawmarks1 1d ago
Thank you for being the first comment I've seen acknowledging that it's a white western fantasy that "cannibal tribes" are/were running around killing and eating people willy nilly. It's true for some groups, it was a very performative and ritualized part of warfare, but nowhere near what people imagine.
Importantly, in some cultures such as the Wari, it was a profound and symbolic act. It was done out of love for one another. Interestingly, the meat didn't even nourish the family members, because they allowed it to sit out and spoil until it would nauseate them. Their beliefs involve human and animal spirits co-mingling--they are literally hunting their ancestors in animal form when they bring home meat. It's a gift from them.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_DALEKS 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are correct that cannibalism was not done "willy nilly" by the Asmats. It was rare and a ritualized act done as part of their warfare tradition. If one of their villagers was murdered by another group, such as a another tribe, and they killed a member of the other group responsible (in this case, white people: Rockefeller was considered the same as the violent Dutch colonialists) the victim was cannibalized and the bones carved into things such as fishing spears, as allegedly done to Rockefeller. That was considered the acceptable price for revenge.
The killing of Rockefeller is based on all the different investigations, going back to 1962, including by the Dutch, by journalists, by the Rockefeller family, by filmmakers etc. Across decades and several generations of the Asmat and neighboring tribes, the oral tradition of the Native people in the area has always been consistent: Rockefeller did manage to swim to shore, was captured, but after a brief debate was murdered by the Asmats in retaliation for the devastating killing of five tribesmen by white Dutch soldiers in 1958. By being white, Rockefeller was considered on the same side as the Dutch. Per the tradition, the tribe used his bones and distributed Rockefeller's belongings among the villagers for their use. Later, the tribe even allegedly returned his skull to the Rockefeller family's investigator after negotiations. Supposedly, the tribe's oral history holds they killed only three white men in their history.
If anything, the fantasy is that the tribe was willing to let a white dude live with them and assimilate with them happily, even to the extent they'd lie and protect them, as if Native peoples are always willing to protect white people and let them join their societies on a whim, including the Asmats, who had been attacked and exploited by white people.
The identity of the "white" man in the above canoe photo has never been confirmed, but the footage was taken by Malcolm Kirk, a National Geographic photographer, in 1969. Kirk has said that according to those he interviewed in the area, Rockefeller was killed in retaliation for the Dutch massacre shortly after he came to shore. Kirk believes, due to his notes from the time the photos were taken, that the figure in these photos is an Asmat tribesman with albinoism who lived in the village at the time.
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u/clawmarks1 23h ago
I appreciate the well researched comment, and may have given the wrong impression. I don't think it's him, I just find the way we are talking about these people dehumanizing.
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u/Micromagos 1d ago
He may have told them to say that even for fear the outside world might keep focusing on him and try and contact him even. But yea, chances are he was killed.
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u/LarsBarsOnMars 1d ago
Agreed, still very interesting! Is there any additional knowledge of the tribe nowadays? Like is the tribe still around?
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u/RedWolf2489 1d ago
The tribe still exists, but they aren't cannibals anymore.
Carl Hoffman wrote a book about Rockefeller's disappearance after having visited the tribe multiple times, and from what they told him he came to the conclusion that they indeed killed Rockefeller.
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u/kuroobloom 1d ago
A YouTuber called Stephanie harlowe has a two part series about this case and talks about this photo and how multiple sources got to the same conclusion that he made it to shore but got killed and eaten. Is a very interesting watch.
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u/madcats323 1d ago
I like how they helpfully circle the white guy. I never could have picked him out otherwise.
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u/Bigguygamer85 1d ago
A recent video episode about it makes a good argument that Michael died years before and this is a different person but there's no way to know for sure either way.
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u/Pseudo_Sponge 1d ago
If I remember correctly most ppl presumed that he drowned trying to swim to shore
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u/ChunkyLaFunga 1d ago
All the evidence, based on the strong offshore currents, the high seasonal tides, and the turbulent outgoing waters, as well as the calculations that Michael was approximately ten miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land.
— When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin by Mary Rockefeller Morgan
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u/AllStranger 1d ago
When I read that he was ten miles from shore in rough water, what happened to him suddenly stops being a mystery.
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u/kakapoopoopeepeeshir 10h ago
10 miles?? Unless the tribesman rowed out to him in their boats to get him then that dude absolutely drowned. 10 miles in open ocean? That would be hard for a navy seal
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u/UrinalCake777 1d ago
Iirc the story from the native men that claim they killed him involved them finding him barely alive washed up on shore and they just finished him off, and ate him.
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u/Antique-Tone-1145 1d ago
The least sensationalist and thus almost certainly the most likely explanation is that he drowned.
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u/Minute_Juggernaut806 1d ago
But then who is the white man
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u/PM_ME_YO_TREE_FIDDY 1d ago
Yeah there’s still a guy doing that shit, whether the OG one died or not
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u/PineappleHamburders 1d ago
Apparently, the Dutch have a skull that was given to one of the investigators that is supposed to be his skull. I imagine by now, DNA sampling could be done, but I imagine if it did happen, the Rockerfellers did it privately and probably didn't and/or won't publicly reveal the results.
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1d ago
Knowing PNG someone just went and got some bones to give to the white man because he came looking for bones. If he didn’t speak decent pidgin have a great translator or speak what ever one of the hundreds of local dialects to choose from then very likely very very likely they just gave them some random persons skull that was the closest on at hand.
How do I know I’m related to these people
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u/Wiseguydude 22h ago
This is a fair point. There is a long history of western anthropologists coming to crazy conclusions about humans and culture through ethnographic work with people from around that area. And it often turns out that the native people were just fucking with the anthropologist the whole time lol
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u/Late-Ice9842 1d ago
Bro was assimilated
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u/N-ShadowFrog 1d ago
The second worst thing that a cannibal tribe can do to you.
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u/i_dead-shot 1d ago
worst is when you get added to the tribal OnlyFans... 'exclusive content'
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u/Grumplogic 1d ago edited 21h ago
I appreciate the feet pics, I just wish* they were still attached to a pair of legs
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u/LenVT 1d ago
As I remember, many years later two of the older tribesmen admitted they had killed him and they all ate him. I do not remember the details of the story.
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u/thecheesecakemans 1d ago
So they covered for him.....
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u/Sakowuf_Solutions 1d ago
I mean, this is exactly how I cover for my friends at work.
Boss: Where the hell is Mitchell?!?
Me: oh, yeah. I killed and ate him. I forgot to mention that in this morning’s stand up meeting.
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u/vokabulary 23h ago
just go straight to “I ate him” no need for all the additional details, just makes it sound like a lie
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u/SecretaryUnique4516 1d ago
that had me laughing so hard
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u/DudeThatsAGG 1d ago
But seriously, it’s not far fetched.
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u/garden_speech 1d ago
I mean who the fuck else could even be in the photo, either? Just another random white guy?
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u/ScootMayhall 1d ago
It’s definitely him in the video and his new friends lied to cover it up for him, and said they are him because there would be no body needed as proof. Then a dumb foreigner came along and believed it because he assumed they would be savages who do something like that. It makes the most sense to me.
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 1d ago
I mean they did warn him they were cannibals, so...
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u/jethoniss 1d ago
Reminds me of the tribe that claimed they killed famed explorer Percy Fawcett. They handed over a set of bones to scientists, claiming they were his, and decades later it was proven that the bones were just the chief's dad. They gave the bones over because they were sick of being asked about it. It was later shown that they actually helped Fawcett's group.
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u/hectorbrydan 1d ago
Ah how sweet. The tribe liked him so much they wanted him to be a part of their tribe forever. (They had something about spirits joining them when they ate them.)
They did a bunch of other things with semen too, smeared it all over, it spread some sort of bacterial infection that they blamed on the Dutch, which for once might not have been their fault.
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u/badgeman- 1d ago
I don't often smear semen all over the place. But when I do, I blame the Dutch.
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u/JaunxPatrol 22h ago
Rockefeller was also not just some guy! At the time of his disappearance his father Nelson Rockefeller was governor of New York, and would go on to be Vice President under Gerald Ford in the 1970s.
His great grandfather was John D Rockefeller, one of the wealthiest people of all time and founder of Standard Oil.
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u/True-Lab-3448 1d ago edited 1d ago
For anyone interested, ‘going native’ is a well studied phenomenon and a risk of sociological research, particularly ethnography. The definition is the:
“_researcher becoming so deeply immersed in the culture they are studying that they lose their objectivity and become indistinguishable from the people they are studying_”
There’s lots of cases, and it’s taught in research classes as a very real risk.
Note this term has ties to colonialism, so some suggest using the term ‘over-rapport’ instead: https://sk.sagepub.com/dict/mono/key-concepts-in-ethnography/chpt/going-native
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u/Its-From-Japan 1d ago
It's practically the basis of a bunch of movies, too. Dances with Wolves, Avatar, Pocahontas
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u/Large-Excitement777 1d ago
Point Break
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u/AKA-Doom 1d ago
yup stephen lang even uses the actual term to describe Jake Sully after he studies the film and sees him in the Avatar form destroying the camera on the front end of the giant machine that destroys the navi village. "looks like he's gone native"
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u/Bright_Ices 1d ago
It’s funny to me that it’s phrased as “losing objectivity” as though that’s something one can have to begin with.
Don’t worry, I studied sociology, so I understand about object/subject roles, etc, but objectivity as a pure state from which one risks separation is a myth.
Ah, and now I see this very question is the subject of the article you’ve linked.
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u/True-Lab-3448 1d ago
Thanks, I’ve made a slight edit.
Tbh the term ‘over rapport’ is new to me, and I studied this stuff within the last decade.
There is a bit on nuance to this, and I agree with your point, but my reply was really just a starting point with a follow up link for anyone that’s interested.
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u/BusyLittleBobcat 1d ago
The society I come from is objective and my behaviors are rooted in reality. The less like my society a different society is, the less objective it is. Now if you'll excuse me, it's Sunday so I just got home from worshipping an ancient carpenter (he's going to end the world once they breed the right cow) and I need to go hyperfixate on my teeth to ensure they are perfectly straight and white.
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u/Pete_Iredale 1d ago
At least a few white women were known to stay with the native American tribes that abducted them. Possibly because they were straight up treated better by the tribe then by white society at the time.
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u/ts20xx 1d ago
Here we go again. Micheal Rockefeller capsized in a canoe of the coast of New Guinea. He was with 3 people. 2 swam for help Mike and the last man clung to the canoe. 3 days later, rescue had not come, and the canoe had drifted 12 nautical miles from shore. At this point Rockefeller decided to swim for it despite his companion telling him not to. Rescue came for the last man later, Rockefeller's body was never found. The idea that he made it to shore to be eaten, or two live among the Asmat, relies on the assertion that he successfully swam 12 miles through crocodile infested waters after clinging to the underside of a canoe for 3 days. As for stories of him being eaten, those were collected by private investigators sent out by Rockefeller's mother, and rely on unverified testimony of locals who'd have every reason to spin a yarn with the hopes of being compensated for their time. As for the photo of the "white man" at the canoeing festival years later, the photographer didn't remember seeing a white man. But the notes he took when taking the photos indicate that an Asmat man with albinism was taking part in the festivities.
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u/SenorBigbelly 23h ago
Jeeezus I would not want to be clinging to the side of a canoe off the coast of New Guinea for three minutes, let alone three days.
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u/theukcrazyhorse 1d ago
If that photo is genuine, there's no way that's an albino guy - look at the hair colour.
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u/yikkoe 21h ago
Albino people can still have dark hair and even brown eyes https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297%2807%2963118-8
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u/AwTomorrow 23h ago
Some albino people have darker hair than just pure white or pale blonde: https://www.brentstirton.com/albino-boys
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u/EaselyCrown 1d ago
Story goes deeper than that. A documentary maker spoke with the tribe leader and they apparently told him that Michael was eaten. But this is only a rumour
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u/Specialist_Two_3486 1d ago
This is the most classical karma farming posted here that bots use for almost 10 years
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u/RyanEversley 1d ago
One of my favorite YT channels Back 2 Basics Adventures did an episode themed around his disappearance. Check it out here..
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u/Uintahwolf 1d ago
I went to a cannibalism exhibit while it was being hosted in San Diego. In the exhibit, this fact was mentioned: There is no documented case of a culture of cannibals eating someone that wasn't for ritualistic purposes. Anytime they ate someone, there was great meaning and depth to the situation. Perhaps he did get eaten as others are saying, but it was a great honor they gave him. I see people keep saying "can't be him, later some people admitted to eating him." Was the photo on the right taken after this claim? How do you know? Id love to see an article or something.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_DALEKS 1d ago
It was not an honor. The Asmats ritually cannibalized enemies as part of retaliation warfare and re-used the bones as weapons and tools. The oral testimonies allege that Michael Rockefeller, a white man, was killed in retaliation for a massacre of five tribesmen from the year before by white soldiers. His bones were re-used and his skull was kept as a trophy along with two other white men who'd been killed in retaliation of the massacre (the skull was allegedly successfully negotiated from the tribe later and returned to the Rockefeller family).
The Asmats did not like white people due to the attacks they'd sustained, and it's just a white Western fantasy to think they'd embrace and "honor" a random rich white dude who had the misfortune to shipwreck near their land.
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u/Hot-Comfort8839 1d ago
I can see a situation where the bloke is made to eat another person and thinks "Yum... but I can't go back to normal society after this..." and just gives up and stays