Michael Rockefeller

Michael Clark Rockefeller (May 18, 1938; disappeared November 19, 1961) was an American anthropologist and art collector and member of the Rockefeller family. He was a son of New York Governor and later U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of American financier John D. Rockefeller Jr., and a great-grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller Sr.

In 1961, Rockefeller disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Dutch New Guinea, which is now a part of the Indonesian province of South Papua, with conflicting views of his fate. Rockefeller's twin sister, Mary Rockefeller Morgan, wrote in a 2012 memoir that she believes her brother drowned. In 2014, Carl Hoffman published a book that included details from the official inquest into the disappearance, in which villagers and tribal elders stated that Rockefeller had been killed and eaten, after swimming to shore in 1961. No remains of Rockefeller or physical proof of his death have been discovered.<!-- . He then graduated cum laude from Harvard University with an A.B. in history and economics. He also served for six months in 1960 as a private in the United States Army.

Following his military service, Rockefeller went on an expedition for Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to study the Dani tribe of western Dutch New Guinea. The expedition filmed Dead Birds, an ethnographic documentary film produced by Robert Gardner, for which Rockefeller was the sound recordist.

<blockquote>"It's the desire to do something adventurous," he explained, "at a time when frontiers, in the real sense of the word, are disappearing."</blockquote>

Rockefeller spent his time in New Guinea actively engaged with the culture and the art while recording ethnographic data. In one of his letters back home, he wrote:

<blockquote>I am having a thoroughly exhausting but most exciting time here ... The Asmat is like a huge puzzle with the variations in ceremony and art style forming the pieces. My trips are enabling me to comprehend (if only in a superficial, rudimentary manner) the nature of this puzzle ...</blockquote>

Disappearance

thumb|[[Nelson Rockefeller holds a press conference in Merauke, Indonesia, about the disappearance of his son Michael]]

On November 17, 1961, Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist René Wassing were in a dugout canoe about from shore when their double pontoon boat was swamped and overturned. Their two local guides, Simon and Leo, swam for help, but it was slow in coming. and he was declared legally dead in 1964.

Speculation

thumb|Location of Otsjanep, Asmat Regency, South Papua, Indonesia

It was originally reported that Rockefeller either drowned or was attacked by an animal, such as a shark or saltwater crocodile. The boat was an estimated from the shore when Rockefeller made the attempt to swim to safety, supporting the theory that he died from exposure, exhaustion, or drowning.

However, because headhunting and cannibalism were still present in some areas of Asmat in 1961, and still are, there has also been widespread speculation based around local testimony that Rockefeller was killed and eaten by tribespeople from the Asmat village of Otsjanep.

Two Dutch missionaries, who were fluent in local languages and who had been living in the area for years, accumulated a large amount of testimony from witnesses. Neither cannibalism nor headhunting in Asmat were indiscriminate, but rather were part of an eye-for-an-eye revenge cycle, so it is possible that Rockefeller found himself the victim of such a cycle. Under the Asmat belief system, several of the killers, named Fin, Ajim, Pep, Jane, Samut, would have had "sacred obligation to avenge the deaths of the men killed by Lepré".

In 2012, Michael's surviving twin sister Mary published a memoir, titled Beginning with the End: A Memoir of Twin Loss and Healing, about coping with her grief after the death of her brother. The book was issued in paperback in 2014 as When Grief Calls Forth the Healing.

In 2014, Mary Rockefeller Morgan wrote of her twin brother's disappearance:

2014 book on his disappearance

In 2014, Carl Hoffman published the book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art, in which he discusses researching Rockefeller's disappearance and presumed death. During multiple visits to the villages in the area, Hoffman heard several stories about men from Otsjanep killing Rockefeller after he had swum to shore. The stories, which were similar to testimonials collected in the 1960s, center around a handful of men arguing and eventually deciding to kill Rockefeller in revenge for the 1958 incident. When translated, the man was quoted as saying:

<blockquote>Don't you tell this story to any other man or any other village, because this story is only for us. Don't speak. Don't speak and tell the story. I hope you remember it and you must keep this for us. I hope. I hope. This is for you and you only. Don't talk to anyone, forever; to other people or another village. If people question you, don't answer. Don't talk to them, because this story is only for you. If you tell it to them, you'll die. I am afraid you will die. You'll be dead; your people will be dead, if you tell this story. You keep this story in your house; to yourself, I hope, forever. Forever.

Memorial

There is a memorial stained glass window for Michael Rockefeller, designed by the artist Marc Chagall, installed at Union Church of Pocantico Hills. Rockefeller's twin Mary became a therapist in later life and following 9/11 led a bereavement support group for survivors who had lost their twins in the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

In media

Rockefeller was referenced in the 2007 film Welcome to the Jungle.

References

Sources

External links

Asmat Art in the Michael C. Rockefeller Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Michael Rockefeller photographs on display at The Peabody Museum
Outside magazine: "Lost Scion: Was Michael Rockefeller eaten by cannibals?"