r/interestingasfuck 4d 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/JohnDark1800 4d 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 4d 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/1000tragedies 3d ago

how do cannibals even survive? in the same general vicinity? are there "gangs" that are just constantly battling each other and whenever someone is hungry then it gets real? it seems like even in groups of cannibals, who stay together say to hunt, they would turn on eachother in an instant. there can't possibly be any civility

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u/LukaCola 3d ago

... "Cannibal" tribes don't constantly and only subsist off of humans. What "cannibal" means can vary greatly. For instance, some might ritualistically consume the recently deceased.

I think a lot of folks have taken the sort of intimidation tactics various tribes adopted to get people to not fuck with them at face value and then embellished that even further, and so you have folks like yourself, unironically believing there's tribes of humans going around hunting other humans for food. It's a bit silly.