Savage Harvest

by Carl Hoffman

  3. FEBRUARY 2012

  17 As for sharks, despite their fearsome reputation: Author’s interview with George H. Burgess, Coordinator of Museum Operations and Director, Florida Program for Shark Research and International Shark Attack File, Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL, August 2012. See also the International Shark Attack File’s website, which maintains the best statistics on shark attacks: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/attacks/perspect.htm.

  18 maintained a gravesite: Morgan, Beginning with the End, p. 62.

  18 His twin sister, Mary: Mary Rockefeller Morgan’s book Beginning with the End is about her efforts to heal from the loss of her twin brother.

  19 At night, to me, it was dark and locked tight: Author’s interview with Father Vince Cole, Agats, Papua, March 2012.

  4. FEBRUARY 20, 1957

  22 Temperatures in New York City: Farmers’ Almanac, weather history results for New York, NY, February 20, 1961, www.farmersalmanac.com.

  22 black tie: Copy of original invitation, Robert John Goldwater Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

  23 John D. was the richest man on earth: Joseph Persico, The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography of Nelson A. Rockefeller (New York: Washington Square Press/Pocket Books, 1983), p. 10.

  23 Down East patrician drawl: “Rocky as a Collector,” New York Times, May 18, 1969.

  23 “exuded an exuberant self-assurance”: Persico, The Imperial Rockefeller, p. 2.

  23 “Not a social arrogance”: Ibid., p. 3.

  23 guests began arriving at 8:30 p.m.: Original invitation, Goldwater Papers, Smithsonian Institution.

  23 which one critic said was “so tasteful”: “The Fetish and the Water Buffalo,” The Reporter, May 2, 1957.

  23 There was Rene d’Harnoncourt: Guest list, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson A. Rockefeller, February 20, 1957, Rockefeller Archive Center, NAR Personal Papers, project series, folders 1642 and 1664, Sleepy Hollow, NY.

  23 Henry Luce, who founded Time and Life magazines: Ibid.

  23 Henry Ochs Sulzberger: Ibid.

  24 A carved paddle from Easter Island: Museum of Primitive Art, Selected Works from the Collection (catalog), Spring 1957, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Visual Resource Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (hereafter “MMA Archives”).

  24 atop stark white cylinders and cubes: Photos in the collection of the MMA Archives.

  24 As the guests nibbled on canapés: Esquire (July 1957).

  24 “It is our purpose to supplement their achievement”: Museum of Primitive Art, press release, February 20, 1957, MMA Archives.

  25 one of those cabinets in 1599: Shelly Errington, The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 9.

  25 Every seed, leaf, and plant collected: Ibid., p. 12.

  25 the collection of Sir Hans Sloane: Ibid.

  26 His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., loved porcelain: Suzanne Loebl, America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), p. 8.

  26 “If you start to cultivate your taste and eye so young”: “Rocky as a Collector,” New York Times, May 18, 1969.

  26 In 1930 Nelson and his new bride: Persico, The Imperial Rockefeller, pp. 18–19.

  26 “widely varying expressions of individuals”: Loebl, America’s Medicis, p. 310.

  27 “had the ambience of a museum after hours”: Persico, The Imperial Rockefeller, p. 2.

  27 “Everywhere,” wrote Carl Sandburg: Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 26.

  28 “Far more striking than any common denominator”: “Month in Review,” Arts (May 1957): 42–45.

  29 “The ancestor’s spirit lives in the shield”: Tobias Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell: An Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea (New York: Grove Press, 1989), p. 52.

  29 Nelson himself told an interviewer: Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, eds., Representing Africa in American Art Museums (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011), p. 125.

  30 It’s hard not to wonder if: Nelson Rockefeller, letter to Robert Goldwater, Goldwater Papers, Smithsonian Institution.

  5. DECEMBER 1957

  31 Pip, Dombai, Su: Author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Basim, Papua, February 2012.

  32 Moving south with them were 118 other men: Various accounts of this journey can be found in many places. It first appears in Max Lapré’s patrol report of February 17, 1958, to the governor of Netherlands New Guinea, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957,” at the National Archive of the Netherlands. Additional details are available in “Oral History Project Collection: Memories of the East: The Lapré Interview,” tape-recorded interview with Max Lapré, 116.2a (track 11– ) and 116.2b (tracks 1–2), August 1997, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV), Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, Netherlands. See also van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962; and van Kessel’s unpublished journals, all in OSC Archives. The story is well remembered in Asmat today, and additional details come from interviews with Kosmos Kokai, Basim and Pirien, Papua, February 2012, and with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012.

  33 “Seabird coming”: These are traditional Asmat songs sung while canoeing, provided by Kosmos Kokai and Amates Owun, translated by Owun.

  35 David Eyde believed that all Asmat warfare: David Bruener Eyde, “Cultural Correlates of Warfare Among the Asmat of South-West New Guinea” (PhD dissertation), Yale University, 1967, p. 304.

  35 In a study of cannibalism: Peggy Reeves Sanday, Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 15.

  35 Desoipitsj was older and unable to hunt: Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea.” All of the story in the following paragraphs comes from Zegwaard’s article.

  38 In parts of Asmat, men had sex with each other: The amount of homosexual contact between men in Asmat has been controversial, in part because it was hidden from Catholic priests and government officials until a gay man, Tobias Schneebaum, first wrote deeply about it. Though some claim that Schneebaum overemphasized its prevalence and role, I tend to side with Schneebaum. For more, see Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell: An Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea (New York: Grove Press, 1989), and Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000); and Bruce M. Knauft, South Coast New Guinea Cultures: History, Comparison, Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

  38 they sometimes drank each other’s urine: Story told by a group of men in Pirien Village, February 2012, translated by Amates Owun.

  38 acts of deep intimacy and submission: Cornelius van Kessel, “A Few Notes About the Casuarinen Coast” (unpublished), OSC Archives.

  39 “monsters and hell creatures”: Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (New York: Knopf, 1990), pp. 76–78.

  39 Pip and his jeu mates weren’t savages: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1999), pp. 38–40.

  39 They knew that a red sunset: Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea,” p. 1038.

  40 That was, after all, how they had come to be: Adrian A. Gerbrands, ed., The Asmat of New Guinea: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller (New York: Museum of Primitive Art, 1967), p. 21.

  40 “There is a bird on the sea”: Traditional Asmat songs provided by Kosmos Kokai and Amates Owun, translated by Owun.

  40 bound for the village of Wagin: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957”; van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962; van Kessel’s unpublished journals. Additional details come from author’s inte
rviews with Kosmos Kokai, Basim and Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012; and with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012.

  40 but they had been lured into a trap: Author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012; also described in van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962.

  41 “Hello, my brothers and sisters”: Author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012.

  41 “There are many dogs’ teeth in Wagin”: Ibid.; also author’s interview with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012.

  41 This particular doorway had a guardian: Author’s interviews with Kosmos Kokai, Basim and Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012; and with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012.

  41 Faniptas and his mates from the jeu Desep: Ibid.

  6. FEBRUARY 2012

  44 Francis Chichester, who, passing Cape Horn: Sir Francis Chichester, Gipsy Moth Circles the World (New York: Coward-McCann, 1968), pp. 179–80.

  7. DECEMBER 1957

  55 The warriors stayed well offshore: Author’s interview with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012. This story has many variants. Birojipts said that 500 men in fifty canoes had gone to Wagin and stayed a year before returning, and that 250 men had been slaughtered, but that doesn’t make sense; the Asmat also tend to exaggerate dates and numbers. The contemporaneous reports of Lapré and van Kessel say 124 men, so I’ve gone with that.

  56 In the driving, chill rain, Emene: Ibid.

  56 One man from Omadesep died and four from Emene: Ibid.

  56 In the morning they found their canoes destroyed: Ibid.

  56 In Baiyun six died, three from Omadesep: Ibid.

  56 Pip took a steel ax blow to his abdomen: Ibid.

  56 “Father,” he said, staring at the dead man: Ibid.

  56 “No, he’s dead,” said Birojipts’s father: Ibid.

  56 He wasn’t dead: Ibid.; author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Basim and Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012.

  56 At the Ewta, Pip encountered his kinsmen: Ibid.

  57 they drummed and sang: Ibid.

  57 Two hundred men in twenty canoes: Ibid.

  57 The Portuguese touched the island in 1526: Gavin Souter, New Guinea: The Last Unknown (Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson, 1963), p. 18.

  57 In 1595 the Netherlands sent an expedition: Howard Palfrey Jones, The Possible Dream (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), p. 27.

  58 the southwest coast even more so: Knauft, South Coast New Guinea Cultures, p. 26.

  58 When Jan Carstenz landed in 1623: Souter, New Guinea, p. 7.

  58 “Their Arms were ordinary darts”: Gerbrands, ed., The Asmat: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller, p. 83.

  58 When that first contact was over: Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell, pp. 59–60.

  58 In 1902, under pressure from British authorities: Knauft, South Coast New Guinea Cultures, p. 33.

  59 The Japanese briefly established a post: Gerard Zegwaard, “1953 Data on the Asmat People,” in An Asmat Sketchbook No. 6, edited by Frank Trenkenschuh (Hastings, NE.: Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress, 1977), pp. 20–21; van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” OSC Archives, p. 2.

  59 Raids could happen at any time: Van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat”; see also Zegwaard, “1953 Data on the Asmat People”; Eyde, “Cultural Correlates of Warfare Among the Asmat of South-West New Guinea.”

  60 Far preferable were sudden ambushes: Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea.”

  60 Even among warring villages: Ibid.

  60 Village ambushes were associated with ceremonies: Ibid.

  60 For the Asmat, ancestors are involved: Ibid.; van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat”; Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell.

  61 To the west lies Safan: Ibid.

  61 Raids usually took place just before dawn: Zegwaard, “Headhunting Practices of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea.”

  62 ten canoes of a hundred Asmat came ashore: Frank A. Trenkenschuh, ed., An Asmat Sketchbook Nos. 1 and 2 (Hastings, NE.: Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress, 1982), p. 26.

  62 By 1947, the raiding and warfare in Asmat: Zegwaard, “1953 Data on the Asmat People.”

  63 “There is a tendency to minimize”: Ibid.

  64 In the village of Sjuru in 1947 and 1948: Ibid.

  65 Anything outside of that tangible immediacy: Van Kessel, “A Few Notes About the Casuarinen Coast.”

  65 Upon a death in the village, women rolled: Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell, p. 45.

  65 An airplane was opndettaji: Van Kessel, “A Few Notes About the Casuarinen Coast.”

  66 Yet they also carried out papisj: Trenkenschuh, ed., An Asmat Sketchbook Nos. 1 and 2, p. 22.

  66 He had a deep wanderlust: Interview by author’s researcher Erik Thijssen with Mieke van Kessel, widow of Cornelius van Kessel, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, October 2012.

  66 “The mission had no motorized vessel”: Van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” p. 7.

  66 “In each village I left”: Ibid.

  67 He was deeply pious: Erik Thijssen, interview with Mieke van Kessel, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, October 2012.

  67 He believed unequivocally in heaven: Ibid.

  67 He loved cigars: Ibid.

  67 He didn’t think religion could: Ibid.

  67 He was reprimanded for not baptizing: Ibid.; see also “Subject: Behavior Father Van Kessel,” letter 13/54, National Archive of the Netherlands.

  68 In October 1953, a group of Chinese: Van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962.

  68 “I could have mown them down”: Ibid.

  68 “We were welcomed most heartily”: Ibid.

  68 “The village became wildly enthusiastic”: Ibid.

  68 In September 1956, Omadesep killed another four: Ibid.

  69 Van Kessel traveled to Amborep: Van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” p. 10.

  69 In the village of Ajam, in May: Ibid.

  69 Van Kessel kept a list of the violence: Ibid., pp. 97–99.

  69 Von Peij, too, had heard the calling early: Author’s interview with Hubertus von Peij, Tilburg, Netherlands, December 2011.

  70 “So, I leave”: Ibid.

  70 And so, on that day toward the end of 1957: Ibid.

  71 As the last stragglers from Omadesep: Author’s interview with Everisus Birojipts, Omadesep Village, Papua, February 2012; author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Basim and Pirien Village, Papua, February 2012; van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962.

  71 Van Kessel called it the Sylvester Massacre: Van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” p. 24.

  9. FEBRUARY 1958

  76 On February 6, 1958: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  76 Accompanying him were eleven Papuan policemen: Ibid.

  77 Mauser M98 bolt-action rifles: Author’s interview with Wim van de Waal, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, December 2011.

  77 Lapré felt afraid: Van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962.

  77 three canoes of warriors from Atsj: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  77 he was determined to teach the natives a lesson: “Oral History Project Collection: Memories of the East: The Lapré Interview.”

  77 Max Lapré’s relatives had been: Ibid.

  77 His father was a soldier: Ibid.

  77 When he was three, the family moved: Ibid.

  77 “There was this Japanese store”: Ibid.

  78 “You go teach them a lesson”: Ibid.

  79 He would say in later interviews that he didn’t: Ibid.

  79 After meeting him, van Kessel lamented: Van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” p. 19.

 
; 79 Soon after Lapré arrived in Asmat: Ibid.

  79 an action that van Kessel called “unproportionate”: Ibid., p. 20.

  79 Dias and a force descended on Omadesep: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  79 Otsjanep wanted nothing to do: Ibid.

  80 “Maybe they saw it as an opportunity to smack”: “Oral History Project Collection: Memories of the East: The Lapré Interview.”

  80 Lapré would say: Ibid.

  80 “They are the best people in the world”: Sale, The Conquest of Paradise, p. 100.

  81 The violent savages’ response: Tobias Schneebaum, Keep the River on Your Right (New York: Grove Press, 1970), pp. 65–69.

  81 used to reading footprints: Edward L. Schieffelin and Robert Crittenden, Like People You See in a Dream: First Contact in Six Papuan Societies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 79.

  82 “We jumped with surprise”: Ibid., p. 73.

  82 They screeched and “bawled”: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  82 On the sixth of February, he dispatched: Ibid.

  83 Lapré grabbed the tiller himself: “Oral History Project Collection: Memories of the East: The Lapré Interview.”

  83 The villagers, men and women, were: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  84 On the left a group approached: Ibid.

  84 An Asmat named Faratsjam was hit in the head: The details of the shooting of Faratsjam and the other men in Otsjanep come from the author’s interview with Kosmos Kokai, Basim Village, Papua, February 2012.

  84 “Stop shooting!” Lapré yelled: “Oral History Project Collection: Memories of the East: The Lapré Interview.”

  85 Lapré’s explanation to van Kessel: Van Kessel, report to Tillemans, January 23, 1962; see also van Kessel, “My Stay and Personal Experiences in Asmat,” p. 92.

  85 Lapré spent the night offshore: Lapré, “Patrol Report Otsjanep, re: the headhunting on Omadesep Ultimo December 1957.”

  85 Lapré had left five dead: Author interview with Kosmos Kokai, Basim Village, Papua, February 2012. Lapré’s reports variously list three and four killed; van Kessel mentions four. The men in Pirien/Otsjanep today have clear memories that four men and one woman, Ipi, were killed, and another man wounded.