Savage Harvest

by Carl Hoffman

  Around midnight, women began streaming in, bearing huge bowls of rice, piles of pale yams, sago, even two bowls of green vegetables. The men divided them into five piles, one for each section of Pirien, and ate. Bif placed a pile by me. “For Kokai,” he said. It was a huge moment of respect and acceptance. I was Kokai’s representative.

  Their stamina was amazing. Without alcohol or drugs, they went on and on, and around three I finally collapsed, climbing over and around the sleeping bodies of women and children when I got to Kokai’s house and falling fast asleep to the rhythmic voices echoing through the darkness and over the swamp.

  I HAD BEEN in Pirien a month, and Wilem was set to arrive anytime. It felt strange to be leaving. Time had passed so slowly at first, but then it had stopped existing at all. The days had passed into a blur of heat and rain and smoke and sameness, the river rising and falling and always flowing by. Ber popped in for a visit, and over my last coffee and smoke I looked at him and Kokai and said: “Why are the men in Otsjanep so afraid to talk about killing Michael Rockefeller?”

  Kokai looked at me, his eyes dark, his face as expressionless as a face could be. Ber shook his head. “We don’t know anything about that,” said Kokai. “There is a story in Asmat that Michael Rockefeller died at the Kali Jawor and all the Asmat people say that he was speared by Fin and Pep, but I don’t know anything about it.” That’s all he would say. Ber too.

  We were staring at each other when the sound of an engine cut the silence. Bouvier, Kokai’s son-in-law, burst in. “Wilem is here!”

  The intimacy that I’d slowly built over the last month evaporated into chaos. Wilem leapt off the boat, along with Amates, who’d just arrived back in Agats as Wilem was preparing to fetch me. Villagers swarmed from every direction, crowding into Kokai’s house, filling the porch, leaning in the door and window. They’d left at five a.m. and battled high waves and wind while crossing the mouth of the Betsj, where Michael and Wassing had floundered. “I was so scared!” said Amates. “I kept yelling, ‘Wilem, we must go into shore!’ Just last week, a boat broke right there, and seventeen men and women and children died. Only one man lived.”

  “We have to wait an hour,” Wilem said. “For the wind to die down. Then we must go.”

  Kokai’s wife brought out sago, and we ate and talked and laughed, surrounded by bodies. Then Kokai said, “We must go to Jisar. You must give money to the jeu.”

  I grabbed 300,000 rupiah, about $30, and Kokai and I and Wilem and Amates, trailed by a throng, walked through the morning sunlight to Jisar. Sauer, the kepala perang, and a half-dozen other men were there, the fires smoldering. It was the first time, as far as I knew, that Kokai had been to the jeu. Sauer stood, and I handed him the bills. The men broke into song, a powerful chant, punctuated with grunts and shrieks. Sauer said that I was welcome to come back anytime. I spoke as eloquently as I could in Indonesian, thanking them for a warm welcome, for always making me feel at home, for letting me share sago with them, and apologizing that my Indonesian was so bad. They chanted again, and Amates said, “They are saying a prayer for you, Mister Carl, so that you will travel safely on the sea.”

  We shook hands, leathery and warm, and I took my last breaths of the jeu, always rich with the smell of bodies and smoke and grass.

  We walked back to Kokai’s, and it all happened so quickly I couldn’t slow it down. Men grabbed my bags and threw them in the boat, and Wilem jumped in after. “Photo,” I yelled. “Of the family!” Kokai and his brood stood like statues in the hot sun while Amates snapped a few pics of us, and then Kokai took my hand, said, “Adik” (younger brother), rubbed my hand along his hot, scratchy cheeks, and turned away. The last time I’d left Pirien I had been feeling frightened, relieved to escape, under the inscrutable glare of wooden faces. This time everyone was yelling and screaming and calling good-bye and waving as Wilem drifted into the current, gunned the engine, and took me away.

  I was feeling overwhelmed, sad to be leaving, elated to be heading for a bed and toilet and hot shower and as many green vegetables as I could eat. I still had so many questions—more all the time, really, the more I learned. The children exchanged between Omadesep and Otsjanep. More specifics about the split between Otsjanep and Pirien, and its role in Michael’s death. Whether Sauer, the kepala perang of Jisar, who had replaced his father, Samut, after Lapré’s raid, had been present at the killing. But I could turn over rocks forever, and once again I was out of time. I’d already overstayed my visa.

  As we sped toward the sea, I pictured Kokai sitting on his mat, singing in a voice that might have been issuing from the depths of the earth, rocking back and forth as the river flowed past. The world had been one way when Michael Rockefeller came to Asmat, another by the time he was dead. Kokai spanned both worlds, had lived in both, though I couldn’t help but feel that he wasn’t quite fully in either. And I wondered. That very morning, which itself already seemed like another era, I had been sitting with Ber and Kokai, the son of Dombai and the son of Fom, both named as having been present at Michael’s murder by van Kessel, and both were kepala desas, patriarchs, leaders, repositories of I couldn’t imagine how many songs and stories and memories—the whole history of Pirien and Otsjanep. Both men had fed me sago, had brought me into their homes and their lives, had sung songs for me. Would they really lie about what had happened to Michael? Did they really know nothing? If their fathers had done it, why not just admit it and tell it to me? Could they, after so much time, look me in the eye and pretend they knew nothing, remembered nothing?

  BACK IN AGATS, I showed Amates the eight minutes of video I’d shot of Marco during the drumming and singing in Ber’s house. What I filmed after he told the story was a stern warning to the men gathered around him:

  “Don’t you tell this story to any other man or any other village, because this story is only for us,” said Marco. “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. I hope and I hope. If any man comes and has questions for you, don’t you talk, don’t talk. Today. Tomorrow and for every day, you must keep this story.

  “Even for a stone ax or a necklace of dogs’ teeth, do not ever share this story.”

  Acknowledgments

  Savage Harvest wouldn’t exist without Erik Thijssen. The letters, cables, telexes, reports, journals, diaries, tide tables, and other information from archives in the Netherlands are its foundation, and Erik, my researcher in Amsterdam, unearthed it all. Over nearly two years, he doggedly poked his nose everywhere, made telephone calls, found documents and translated them, and even interviewed several people for me. Without him, I would never have found two of the most important sources for the story, Hubertus von Peij and Wim van der Waal, not to mention Cornelius van Kessel’s widow, Mieke van Kessel, and others. Not only that, but he put me up on his sofa in Amsterdam. I can never thank him enough.

  A huge thank-you to my friends who spent long hours reading early copies of the manuscript: Keith Bellows, Christian D’Andrea, Iwonka Swenson, Scott Wallace, Spencer Wells, and Clif Wiens. Their suggestions and comments made the book stronger in every way, and I’m equally thankful for their counsel, laughter, and friendship, which I could never have survived without.

  Iwonka Swenson also deserves an extra thanks for everything.

  A special thanks to Liz Lynch for her friendship and photos.

  I owe a huge debt to Peggy Sanday. Her questions, doubts, insights, experience, patience, and wise counsel were incredibly important to my thinking and perception of the Asmat, Asmat cannibalism and cosmology, and its intersection with Michael Rockefelle
r. Even better, she became a friend, and I appreciate her deeply.

  My second trip to Asmat was profoundly important, and I never would have been able to afford the journey without the generous support of so many people who contributed to my Kickstarter campaign, specifically: James Angell, Tim Buzza, Juli Hodgson, Diane Hoffman, and Alida Latham. And there never would have been a Kickstarter campaign without Kris Arnold, who spent hours filming and editing the all-important video, not to mention providing good friendship.

  A huge thanks to Uppy Zein Yudhistira for teaching me Bahasa Indonesian, letting me pay her what I could, and spending so many hours and afternoons patiently working with me. My stay in Pirien would never have been possible without Uppy’s help.

  Everyone needs a veteran sea captain to pester with questions, which I did to David Erickson, who never failed to answer my queries and whom I have to thank for the distance-to-horizon tables and a host of answers to questions about tides and currents.

  I owe a huge debt to Jennifer Larson at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Visual Resource Archive in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Thanks to her and the Met, I have Michael’s field notes, letters, accounts, photos, and a host of other details.

  A thanks to Alain Bourgeoise, who granted me access to the papers of his father, Robert Goldwater, at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

  A huge thanks to Amy Fitch, archivist at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

  Incalculable help was provided by Wim van de Waal, who did more than just tell me his story. He patiently answered my many, many questions over dozens of emails, showed me photos, confirmed facts and spellings, and told me to look for certain documents and a host of other details that only someone who was there would know about. It’s hard to imagine trying to write this book without him.

  Thank you to Jasper van Santen, who translated René Wassing’s lengthy report from his first journey to Asmat with Michael Rockefeller, and to Tanya McCown for her help with the papers of Eliot Elisofon in Austin, Texas.

  My children, Lily, Max, and Charlotte, are inspirations every day, and now they even pick me up at the airport. I love you and thank you. Thanks to my sister Jean for her unfailing support, and to my mom, who doesn’t like it when I go away.

  Where would I be without my agents Joe Regal and Markus Hoffmann? Joe’s encouragement and insight and friendship, all above and beyond the business wizardry he and Markus do, have been a huge part of my career for more than a decade now. A special thanks to Joe’s edits, which were hard to find time for but which tightened the book immensely. I owe Joe and Markus and everyone at Regal Literary a huge thank-you.

  Every writer should have an editor and supporter as smart and enthusiastic as Lynn Grady. She always made me feel in good hands. Thanks, too, to everyone else at Morrow, especially Sharyn Rosenblum and Kimberly Liu.

  Thanks to Terry Ward and Chris Jackson for their warm hospitality in Bali, to Carla van de Kieft for hospitality in Amsterdam, and to Daniel Lautenslager for his translations.

  I owe big thank-yous to Tim Sohn for sharing his thoughts about travel in Asmat, and to Blair Hickman for her web services.

  Thanks to Leticia Franchi.

  And thank you to everyone in Asmat who helped me, put up with my questions, kept me safe and fed, in particular: Amates, Wilem, Kokai, Harun, Ber, Sauer, and Bif.

  A Note on Sources

  This is a work of nonfiction. Anything between quotation marks was taken from documents or letters or was told to me by an eyewitness in an interview. I spent almost two years researching the story and made two trips lasting a total of four months to Asmat, Indonesian Papua, including living for a month in the village of Pirien in the house of a key Asmat informant. In a few cases I have used my most informed guess to reconstruct a scene, based on my close observations and experiences in the exact spot where the original events took place or on anthropological and ethnographic reports documenting Asmat cultural practices. Complete information on sources is in the notes.

  Notes

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

  1. NOVEMBER 19, 1961

  3 It was eight a.m.: Netherlands naval communication, November 22, 1961, National Archive of the Netherlands, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, The Hague, Netherlands.

  3 The tide was high: Tide tables for Dutch New Guinea (Getijuen Stroomtafels voor Nederlands New Guinea), 1961, Hydrographisch Bureau, Archief Dienst der Hydrografie, Koninklijke Marine, Ministerie van Defensie, The Hague, Netherlands.

  3 white cotton underpants: Author’s interview with Hubertus von Peij, Tilburg, Netherlands, December 2011. Also, Wassing’s description of Michael removing his pants and shoes prior to making the swim is detailed, among other places, in Mary Rockefeller Morgan, Beginning with the End (New York: Vantage Point, 2012), p. 24.

  3 He had two empty gasoline cans: Netherlands naval communication, November 22, 1961, National Archive of the Netherlands.

  3 a hazy line of gray: René Wassing is widely quoted as saying he estimated they were three miles off the coast, but that seems too close, given the time they’d been drifting and the position where the catamaran was found that afternoon. What does seem certain is that they could see the shore, at least faintly; otherwise, Wassing would never have made the three-mile statement and Michael would never have swum away from the vessel, since he wouldn’t have known which way to swim. The coast is low and flat, and trees onshore are no more than fifty feet tall. Based on distance-to-horizon tables, that would put them no more than nine and a half miles from the coast.

  4 the tides weren’t evenly spaced: Tide tables for Dutch New Guinea.

  4 he would speed along the Maine Turnpike: Milt Machlin, The Search for Michael Rockefeller (New York: Akadine Press, 2000), p. 154; Morgan, Beginning with the End, p. 221.

  5 “Stewardship” was the word: Morgan, Beginning with the End, p. 223.

  5 he and his Harvard classmates had rolled their eyes: Author’s interview with Paul D’Andrea, Harvard class of 1960, February 2013.

  5 Luckily the wind: Author’s interview with former Dutch patrol officer Wim van de Waal, who was at sea that night looking for Michael Rockefeller, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, December 2011.

  5 Heat lightning flashed: During the four months I spent in Asmat, if it wasn’t raining, lightning flashed along the horizon every night.

  6 the sky lit, white: Author’s telephone interview with Rudolf Idzerda, the pilot who dropped the flares, January 2012. Also described by Ben van Oers, who saw the flares from the shore; see HN magazine (December 1996), National Archive of the Netherlands.

  2. NOVEMBER 20, 1961

  7 They saw him: Report of Cornelius van Kessel to Herman Tillemans, January 23, 1962, archives of the Order of the Sacred Heart (OSC), Dutch Heritage Monastery Life Center (Erfgoedcentrum Nederlands Kloosterleven), AR-P027, archive inventory of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (Archiefinventaris Missionarissen van het H. Hart), St. Agatha, Netherlands (hereafter “OSC Archives”).

  7 It was six a.m.: This is a reasonable, approximate time. Van de Waal saw them leave Pirimapun for the trip back to Otsjanep on the evening of November 19; every report and account of Michael’s death—including van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962, OSC Archives; Hubertus von Peij, report to Tillemans, December 1961, OSC Archives; and author’s interview with Beatus Usain, Agats, Papua, March 2012—places the men from Otsjanep at the mouth of the Ewta in the morning. According to the Dutch tide tables of 1961, high tide was at eight a.m., so the men would have wanted to be paddling the three miles upriver before the outflowing tide turned against them.

  7 “Look, an ew!”: Author’s interview with Hubertus von Peij, Tilburg, Netherlands, December 2011; author’s interview with Beatus Usain, Agats, Papua, March 2012; Cornelius van Kessel’s
letter to Cor Nijoff, December 15, 1961, and his report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962, both in the OSC Archives.

  7 The men reached: Ibid.

  8 Michael was swimming: Ibid.

  8 “No,” said Fin: Ibid.

  9 “Now is your chance”: Ibid.

  9 Ajim was the head: Author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Pirien Village, Papua, March 2013; see also van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962, OSC Archives.

  9 He had killed more people: Van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962; see also Kees van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat: A Historical Review” (unpublished memoir), 1970.

  9 He howled and arched his back: Author’s interview with Beatus Usain, Agats, Papua, March 2012; my observations of many Asmat telling stories about men being speared.

  9 A few miles south: Author’s interview with Hubertus von Peij, Tilburg, Netherlands, December 2011; van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962, OSC Archives.

  10 The cockatoos ate fruit: The detailed descriptions of Asmat headhunting and cannibalism come from Gerard Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea,” American Anthropologist 61, no. 6 (December 1959): 1020–41. Other good sources include Tobias Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell (New York: Grove Press, 1988); The Asmat of New Guinea: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller, edited, with an introduction, by Adrian A. Gerbrands (New York: Museum of Primitive Art, 1967), pp. 11–39.

  10 “This is my head!”: Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea.” We’ll never know exactly how Michael Rockefeller was killed, but if he was killed by Asmat, they would have followed the sacred traditions laid out by Zegwaard, on whose account the remainder of this chapter is based.