In 1961, heir to the Rockefeller family, Michael Rockefeller, an anthropologist and art collector set out on an expedition in Asmat territory of Dutch New Guinea o document the Dani Tribe.
Michael never returned.
His twin sister thought he likel drowned, but there was a conflicting explanation from tribal elders who claimed Michael was killed and eaten when after swimming ashore.Rockefeller and another anthropologist, Rene Wassing set out on a 40-foot dugout canoe that overturned. Their guides went for help. Rockefeller thought he could make it to shore, gathered a compass and knife and two floating cans and swam toward shore. Rene said he saw him making it toward the shore.
The next day, Rene was retrieved from the water, but extensive searches never showed evidence of Michael. He was declared dead in 1964.
The mystery has continued for over 6 decades. Dutch missionaries claim that, after talking to locals, Michael made it to shore in just his underwear. He was non-fatally stabbed in the abdomen and later died along a river.
In December 1961, four locals told minister Hubertus von Peij that Rockefeller's remains and personal effects, including his head, long bones, ribs, shorts, and glasses, had been divided amongst 15 Asmats
(Wikipedia) The first public report that Rockefeller was killed and dismembered, and his long bones turned into weapons and fishing equipment, was published by the Associated Press in March 1962. A second investigation later that year by a patrolman named Wim van de Waal on behalf of Dutch colonial government came to the same conclusion. Van de Waal was given a "skull bearing no lower jaw and a hole in the right temple—the hallmarks of remains that had been headhunted and opened to consume the brains" which he turned over to Dutch authorities, who never asked him to write a written report and never asked him to verbally report his conclusion. The information was apparently deemed politically sensitive, in part because of the fragile state of the Dutch empire in the Indonesian archipelago and in part because of Nelson Rockefeller's political celebrity in the United States. The findings of van de Waal's investigation are restated in the written memoir of Anton van de Wouw, a successor missionary to van Kessel.
In 2000, a documentary had Asmat villagers claiming they found him along a river and ate him. Apparently, the Dutch authorities messing with the local tribes created a revenge scenario and Michael may have been caught in the middle.
Ultimately, reviewing that Michael was 10 miles from shore, it is most likely he drowned. But, these tales continue to make New Guinea a chilling location.
