Latest news with #MichaelRockefeller
Fox News
29-06-2025
- General
- Fox News
Rockefeller heir vanished in tribal waters after eerie last words
Over 60 years after an heir of one of America's wealthiest families vanished off the coast of a remote island inhabited by cannibals, questions still swirl over what may have caused his untimely disappearance – or death. Michael Rockefeller, the youngest son of then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, was just 23 years old and a recent Harvard graduate when he departed for a months-long trip to the island of Dutch New Guinea, a region inhabited by the Asmat, to collect indigenous art for a Museum of Primitive Art exhibition. The Asmat people were particularly talented in woodcarving, decorating elaborate spirit masks and ancestor "bisj" poles. Despite their artistic beauty, they were also known for headhunting and cannibalism, rooted in their spiritual beliefs. In 1961, Rockefeller and anthropologist René Wassing were seven months into the excursion when their catamaran overturned in rough waters, leaving the pair and two local teenagers clinging to the wreckage. In an attempt to save their lives, the young art collector decided to swim to shore in search of help and was never seen again. "When people vanish, it is incredibly unsatisfying and there's no closure," Carl Hoffman, author of "Savage Harvest," told Fox News Digital. "Just as Amelia Earhart remains fascinating to people, so is the death of Michael Rockefeller." Hoffman, whose novel dives into the tale of Rockefeller and the lives of the Asmat, spent years pouring over archival materials and meeting with villagers in the region before coming to his own conclusion regarding what may have happened in the 23-year-old's final moments. After the travel party's homemade catamaran flipped, leaving the group to drift in the ocean for over 24 hours, Rockefeller strapped empty gasoline cans to his waist and swam for help. "Michael said, 'I'm going to do it, I am going to swim,'" Hoffman said. "And his last words, as Wassing reported them, were, 'I think I can make it.'" While Wassing was rescued by the Dutch government, a two-week search failed to find Rockefeller. Different theories surround his disappearance – such as an untimely brush with a shark or crocodile – with the vast majority of speculation landing on the belief that the young adventurer drowned as he swam for his life. "The most sensational rumor was that he had encountered men from the Asmat and they had killed and eaten him," Hoffman said. "It was always this great mystery." Hoffman's research revealed two priests in the region who heard rumors that Rockefeller had encountered members of a nearby tribe upon arriving on the island. "[They] immediately started hearing stories that men from one particular village – the village from Ochenep – had been at the mouth of a river," Hoffman told Fox News Digital. "[They] had encountered an exhausted [Rockefeller] swimming up to them, and they had killed him, taken him to a very specific place and performed the sacred Asmat rituals on him in order to restore balance." According to Hoffman, the priests documented their findings, but the reports were only ever shown to the Dutch government and the apostolic vicar – the highest Catholic official in the Netherlands. The Rockefeller family was reportedly made aware of the rumors, resulting in them reaching out to Dutch officials, who allegedly swept the claims under the rug. The young Rockefeller's passion for indigenous art is reflected in the newly renovated Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wing showcases 16 galleries of art, including works from Oceania, Africa and the ancient Americas. "Opened to the public in 1982, the addition was named after Nelson Rockefeller's son, Michael C. Rockefeller, who was greatly inspired by the cultures and art of the Pacific and pursued new avenues of inquiry into artistic practice during his travels there," according to the Met's website. "Among the wing's signature works are the striking Asmat sculptures he researched and collected in southwest New Guinea." The Met did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. While the mystery surrounding Rockefeller's disappearance may never be solved, his legacy will live on through the artwork of the people who may have been the ones to end his life. "There was nothing primitive about the Asmat at all," Hoffman said. "They were this fantastically rich, complex culture that had 17 tenses and produced this art that was a direct view into archetypes and of the human unconscious, the human mind – and that's a fantastic thing. It's mind-opening, and it's mind-expanding, and it's inspiring."
New York Post
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
The Met's new wing honors a vanished Rockefeller — who may have been kidnapped and eaten by cannibals
Dissatisfied at being remembered merely as oil barons, real estate tycoons, political bellwethers, and lavish philanthropists, at some point the Rockefellers began to specialize in dramatic exits. Politician Nelson, at least as Johnny Carson would tell it, died doing what he loved best: his aide and alleged mistress Megan Marshack. But it was Nelson's son, Michael Rockefeller, whose tragic ending added 'eaten by cannibals' to the family lore. Advertisement 7 Young Michael Rockefeller died on an expedition to New Guinea in 1961. It's unknown if he drowned or was captured and consumed by tribesmen. ASSOCIATED PRESS His story has again captured the imagination of New York with the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a refresh that took four years and $70 million. First opened in 1982, the 40,000-square-foot wing now displays 1,726 artifacts — including the collections of the former Museum of Primitive Art — with the latest scholarship and technology. Advertisement 'We have the finest surveys of art from these three areas of the world – sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the ancient Americas in a U.S. museum,' Alisa LaGamma, the curator in charge of the wing, told The Post. The wing also houses more than 400 items Michael collected on his travels — though whether or not it contains pieces created by the very tribe that might have brought about his death is still open for debate. In March 1961, Michael — a newly minted Harvard history and economics cum laude and the son of the Governor of New York at the time — joined the Harvard-Peabody Expedition to New Guinea. Its mission was to study the Ndani people of the Baliem Valley in the remote western portion of the island. But the 23-year-old Rockefeller had an ulterior motive: The stripling anthropologist was on an adventure to trade fish hooks, axes and pouches of tobacco for great masterpieces of tribal art. 7 His story has again captured the imagination of New York with the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a refresh that took four years and $70 million. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement The art would be sent back home to his father's innovative Museum of Primitive Art — a groundbreaking effort to extol the fetishes, tools and handicrafts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania in a townhouse mansion at 15 West 54th Street. At a time when these objects of cultures were rotting in museum ethnography cabinets, the new home would place them at eye level with Western fine art. In September 1961, the young Rockefeller returned to New Guinea accompanied by Dutch anthropologist René Wassing. This time he would venture deep into the jungle swamps of South Papua inhabited by the Asmat people, famed for their well-endowed bisj pole woodcarvings — and for their cannibalistic headhunting. On November 19, 1961, while sailing the coast of Asmat, their boat overturned. Wassing could not swim, but shore within sight, Rockefeller decided he could make it with an improvised floatation device. He was never seen again. 7 The 40,000-square-foot wing now displays 1,726 artifacts. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement Of course, the official explanation for Michael's disappearance was drowning, and, in 1964, a Westchester County judge declared the descendent of John D. Rockfeller legally dead. '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 10 miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land,' Michael's twin sister Mary Rockefeller Morgan writes in her 2014 book, 'When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin.' But the stewpot was the better story. Almost immediately after Michael's disappearance, rumors spread that he was alive and had gone native — or that his skull had been found in the clutches of headshrinkers. In 1962, missionaries claimed to have met villagers who confessed to his killing in the village of Otsjanep. 7 Michael travelled to New Guinea shortly after graduating from Harvard. This is supposedly the last picture of him ever taken. AP 7 Michael's father, Nelson (sitting down), was the governor of New York at the time. His immediate family also included mother Mary Todhunter Clark, twin sister Mary and brothers Rodman and Steven. Getty Images 'It was cocktail party lore all through the 60s, 70s and 80s,' publicist R. Couri Hay, whose family had a house near the Rockefeller's retreat in Maine at the time, told The Post. 'I was a kid but I still remember. Nobody could believe it. It became kind of a funny threat. My father would say that if I wasn't good he would send me away to be eaten by cannibals like Michael Rockefeller.' In 1977, the documentary filmmaker Lorne Blair wrote in an article in the girlie mag Oui, claiming that he had found the man who had consumed Michael. Advertisement A slippery private sleuth named Frank Monte told anyone who would listen that he found Michael's skull and was paid royally by the Rockefeller family for it. National Lampoon had a heckle. Leonard Nimoy hosted a TV special in 1978 called 'In Search of Michael Rockefeller.' Dozens of books, podcasts, documentaries and magazine articles have tried to prove the cannibal theory. Novels, short stories, rock songs and even an off-Broadway show have mined the incident for subject matter. 7 Journalist Carl Hoffman makes the best-researched argument that Michael was indeed likely killed and ceremonially eaten by three Asmat tribesmen in his 2014 book 'Savage Harvest.' 7 Michael is pictured on a small motorboat in New Guinea in 1961. The photo was brought back by a companion on his Harvard expedition. AP Advertisement Journalist Carl Hoffman makes the best-researched argument that Michael was indeed likely killed and ceremonially eaten by three Asmat tribesmen in his 2014 book 'Savage Harvest.' 'In a perverse way,' he writes, 'it seemed to level the playing field that this scion of American power could have been not just killed but consumed, cooked and digested and shat out by his opposite — wild men who had nothing, no power, no money, no influence.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The Mysterious Disappearance and Lingering Legacy of Michael Rockefeller
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." More than 1,800 works from five continents are showcased in the reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is set to reopen on May 31 following a multiyear renovation. Among them are pieces that the late Rockefeller personally collected from Dutch New Guinea 64 years ago, when he was 23 years old. Rockefeller, the youngest son of then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, never returned from that trip to a continent 9,000 miles away. Michael Rockefeller disappeared on Nov. 19, 1961, after swimming away from his overturned catamaran several miles off the coast of New Guinea, seeking help for himself and an anthropologist companion. Land was visible but far away—it could have been as far as 10 miles. Rockefeller's last words to that friend were 'I think I can make it.' After an intense search by multiple governments joined by thousands of people, not a trace of Rockefeller was found. On Feb. 2, 1964, a Westchester County judge declared Michael Rockefeller 'died by drowning … while on exploration off the coast of Dutch New Guinea.' That conclusion has been questioned ever since, with theories ranging from Rockefeller being eaten by sharks or crocodiles, willfully escaping from Western society to live in New Guinea, being captured and held prisoner by indigenous tribes, and being murdered and even consumed by tribes that practice headhunting and cannibalism because of a grievance against Dutch police. The questions about Rockefeller's fate have not died away but seem to be growing ever-louder, fueling an army of podcast episodes, YouTube videos, documentaries, and a New York Times bestseller, Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest, by journalist Carl Hoffman. For some, the disappearance without a trace of a handsome young man with a famous last name has become a nostalgic scandal in our modern era of true crime documentaries and Internet sleuthing. In the photos that survive of Rockefeller in New Guinea, he looks as if he's mesmerized by his surroundings, lending a sense of foreboding to the images. He was 'routinely described as kind, gentle, hardworking, and without pretense,' Hoffman wrote in Savage Harvest. However, being so young and coming from one of America's richest families may have not equipped Rockefeller with the perception and caution needed in a place that could be dangerous. When Rockefeller traveled among New Guinea's Asmat people, seeking objects to acquire for his father's new museum of then-called 'primitive art' near the Museum of Modern Art, 'he seemed unconscious of his own role in distorting the local economy and disrupting village ceremony, or of the contradictory nature of his entire enterprise. Here was the heir to one of the largest fortunes on earth plundering sacred objects for pennies—the most privileged person on earth dabbling in the world of the most marginalized,' Hoffman wrote in Savage Harvest. In a recent interview, Hoffman says, 'The legacy of Michael Rockefeller is a conversation we can have about the collecting of indigenous art. We can use his story to talk about him and about the practices of collecting art now that we know better' than in 1961. Michael Rockefeller was raised in New York City. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in history and economics. But art always called to him. Michael was 'the most purely aesthetic member of the family,' according to The Rockefellers, an American Dynasty, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. He showed enthusiasm about art from a young age, which was a tradition in the Rockefeller family. Nelson Rockefeller's mother, Abby Aldrich, was the driving force behind the founding of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. 'On his honeymoon, Nelson collected the first object (a Sumatran knife handle in the shape of a shrunken head) in what would become the best primitive art collection in the country,' according to The Rockefellers. At the age of 31, Nelson was the president of MoMA. As a child, Michael enjoyed accompanying his father on weekend art dealer visits and being around great works of art. He wanted to study architecture but was pressured to major in economics, according to books about the Rockefellers. After a six-month stint in the U.S. Army Reserve, Michael heard about an exciting opportunity: an expedition by the Film Study Center at Harvard's Peabody Museum. A group of anthropologists and a film crew were planning to study tribes in the Baliem Valley in Dutch New Guinea 'untouched by Western culture' in order 'to step back into the Stone Age.' Michael was hired as a sound man and photographer for the film. 'He had a great eye for beauty and craftmanship,' Hoffman says. Michael was transformed by the trip, taking many photographs and writing letters that reflected his fascination. He was particularly drawn to the Asmat tribe in the coastal area of New Guinea, writing, 'The Asmat is filled with a kind of tragedy. For many of the villages have reached that point where they are beginning to doubt their own culture and crave things western.' Michael deeply wanted to understand and honor these cultures. The Asmat were famous for their elaborate woodcarvings, particularly ancestor poles (called bisj poles) and spirit masks. However, the Asmat also carried a reputation for headhunting, which was embedded in their spiritual beliefs and complex rituals of revenge against rivals. While the Dutch later assured the Rockefellers that headhunting had been eradicated in the area, many authorities agree it was still going on in the 1960s. Michael flew home to New York after the Peabody film was finished and he had completed his subsequent trip to see the Asmat. In the last weeks of his trip, he'd purchased a number of bisj poles and some shields. According to Hoffman's reporting, Rockefeller paid for the Asmat people's work with tobacco, axes, fishing lines, and hooks. While back in New York, his parents announced a decision to divorce, which upset all the children. Michael decided to return to New Guinea as soon as possible in order to collect the art of the Asmat. According to some sources, he was determined to turn away from a finance career and seek a graduate degree in anthropology. When Michael went to New Guinea for his second trip, he bartered for poles, canoes, drums, shields, and other carved objects—hundreds of objects. Rockefeller was traveling among the Asmat communities when rough waves overturned his catamaran and, after 24 hours clinging to it, he decided to swim to shore, assuring his anthropologist friend he was a strong swimmer. Michael Rockefeller had a twin sister, Mary, who accompanied their father Nelson to fly to New Guinea after Michael was reported missing. She wrote in her book, When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin, '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 10 miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land.' No conclusive evidence of another fate besides drowning has ever been introduced to a legal authority. However, following Michael's disappearance, rumors began to spread of a killing and were collected by the Dutch priests who lived among the Asmat as missionaries. In his book, Hoffman, who traveled to the Asmat region twice and learned the Indonesian language spoken there, investigated these persistent rumors. He uncovered some of the initial reports made to Dutch officials and, to immerse himself in the community, briefly lived in the home of a man believed to be related to a member of the group that may have killed Michael. One theory is that Michael was killed not because of personal animosity toward him but because he, as a white man, represented white authority. Five Asmat men were shot in a Dutch police altercation several years earlier. 'It was a struggle between the powerful and the conquered,' Hoffman says. Rockefeller was caught among colliding forces, Hoffman believes. While trying to honor the Asmat, Michael's collecting reflected 'colonialism and the acquisition of the treasures of the conquered.' It's beyond debate that Michael Rockefeller was drawn to the beauty, complexity, and mystery of the bisj poles. He wrote that the poles showed 'a revenge figure …. Whose placement usually preceded a headhunt in former days. The figures represented people who have been headhunted and will be avenged.' In the reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller wing, visitors will see those Asmat woodcarvings and soaring poles, illuminated by filtered daylight from Central Park through a custom-designed, state-of-the-art sloped glass wall. The wing's galleries are devoted to three major collections: the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania. Among the monumental statues and exquisite metalwork displayed today, objects that span five continents and hundreds of cultures, the art of the Asmat has a valued place. In 1962, when Rockefeller's collected objects were first shown in New York and people could see the bisj poles, drums, shields, and ancestor figures, the New York Times said it was "a collection that has no counterpart on this continent." Art is not Rockefeller's only legacy. In 1965, his family created a memorial fellowship at Harvard. The fellowship enables recipients to "seek, as Michael did, a deeper understanding of our common human experience and their part in it, through the respectful exploration of a different culture." Since then, more than 200 Rockefeller Fellows have traversed the globe. Michael Rockefeller's life was cut tragically short. He left footprints that can be seen, and shared, many decades later. You Might Also Like 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game
