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88 reviews for:
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art
Carl Hoffman
3.46 AVERAGE
88 reviews for:
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art
Carl Hoffman
3.46 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
Savage Harvest🍒🍒🍒
By Carl Hoffman
2014
"I think I can make it" were the last words by Michael Rockefeller, as he swam away looking for help after his catamaran capsized while crossing a river, with his friend Wassing. Wassing was eventually rescued. Sunburned and dehydrated, but he was still alive. Michael and/or his remains have never been found.
Travelling through the rivers and jungles of New Guinea, Michael Rockefeller was obsessed with collecting primitive art and artifacts from Agat and Asmat, tiny island undeveloped. He learned alot about the primitive legends and cultures of these people. Known to be violent and cannabalistic headhunters they had never seen a white man before Michaels expedition. These people have long been rumored to here captured Michael and still have his skull, but nothing can substantiate this. His family believes he drowned before reaching shore and refuse to discuss his death. They do not believe the cannibalism theory.
Whether he drowned.....was eaten by sharks...encountered cannibals......is still a mystery today. All we know, for sure, are his last words....."I think I can make it".
Well written and researched, this was a very interesting and engaging book. Recommended.
By Carl Hoffman
2014
"I think I can make it" were the last words by Michael Rockefeller, as he swam away looking for help after his catamaran capsized while crossing a river, with his friend Wassing. Wassing was eventually rescued. Sunburned and dehydrated, but he was still alive. Michael and/or his remains have never been found.
Travelling through the rivers and jungles of New Guinea, Michael Rockefeller was obsessed with collecting primitive art and artifacts from Agat and Asmat, tiny island undeveloped. He learned alot about the primitive legends and cultures of these people. Known to be violent and cannabalistic headhunters they had never seen a white man before Michaels expedition. These people have long been rumored to here captured Michael and still have his skull, but nothing can substantiate this. His family believes he drowned before reaching shore and refuse to discuss his death. They do not believe the cannibalism theory.
Whether he drowned.....was eaten by sharks...encountered cannibals......is still a mystery today. All we know, for sure, are his last words....."I think I can make it".
Well written and researched, this was a very interesting and engaging book. Recommended.
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Michael Rockefeller was born in 1938 to Nelson and Mary Rockefeller. Michael attended Harvard University, graduating with honors. He served briefly in the United States Army. Once his military service ended, he decided to go to New Guinea on an expedition for the Peabody Museum, which is part of Harvard University. Michael worked as a sound recorder on this expedition. When it was over, he returned to New Guinea to study a different tribe. On this trip, Michael went missing. The circumstances surrounding his disappearance were subject to speculation for several reasons, but the fact is...he went missing. Michael has still never resurfaced.
This book was wonderfully researched and well written. The descriptions of the areas in New Guinea were very detailed, and the way the author pieced together the circumstances surrounding the vanishing on Michael Rockefeller was page turning. I really appreciated the way that this book held my attention while I learned about something I had never heard of before. This was, in a way, a history meets true crime book, which I really enjoyed.
This book was wonderfully researched and well written. The descriptions of the areas in New Guinea were very detailed, and the way the author pieced together the circumstances surrounding the vanishing on Michael Rockefeller was page turning. I really appreciated the way that this book held my attention while I learned about something I had never heard of before. This was, in a way, a history meets true crime book, which I really enjoyed.
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
The beginning of this book is a complete turn off. I almost gave up, but continued because it was a bookclub selection. It ended up being ok. In general I don’t find stories about billionaires putting themselves in harms way and then being harmed interesting. I think stealing art from people only to turn around and make millions of dollars off of it, giving the actual artists no credit, and in turn none of the profit, is disgusting. I don’t really care about what happened to Michael. The only redeeming parts of the book were when the author tried to genuinely understand the Asmat culture. I would have greatly preferred a book about that unrelated to the Rockefeller incident.
dark
informative
medium-paced
dark
informative
medium-paced
I read this book in bits and pieces over the course of six weeks. While I wouldn’t describe the book as a “mesmerizing whodunit” - I thought that Hoffman’s description of the culture of the Asmat people and their interactions with Dutch priests and Indonesian government officials in the mid twentieth century and the 2010’s was well done. It’s challenging to reconstruct Michael R’s experience through his own diary and photos, along with the writings of religious leaders and other non-native people who lived in New Guinea in the 1960’s - but Hoffman took his best shot. Hoffman himself lived in New Guinea and with the Asmat people for four months during two trips - including one month immersing himself with a man named Kokai and his family. Hoffman paints himself as being more sensitive to the culture of the Asmat than Michael R - at least that’s the impression I had. We really don’t know how Michael treated the people he met. However, his (MR’s) insistence on buying sacred bisj poles to put on display at his father’s museum in New York City struck me as insensitive. From a culture that has a long standing oral history, the story behind each bisj pole must be known, that to carry even one away is to take away a piece of culture - and Michael R had purchased 20 of them.
Hoffman was in the area 50 years after Michael’s death. Numerous Western influences, including Roman Catholicism, had been introduced and gained a foothold in those intervening years.
Hoffman was in the area 50 years after Michael’s death. Numerous Western influences, including Roman Catholicism, had been introduced and gained a foothold in those intervening years.
This book was very repetitive, going back to the same theory over and over. In the end, the introduction turns out to be the main theory that the author has for Michael's fate and he spends the rest of the book giving the history of the Asmat and trying to prove his theory with very little to go on. There is virtually no pay off in this book at all.
It did bother me though that the intro was SO graphic and then about halfway in you learn that Rockefeller's family wanted nothing to do with this book. That left a really bad taste in reading this. The author almost goes out of his way to provide the most graphic, violent demise of these people's loved one and OH BY THE WAY THEY DON'T WANT TO DREDGE IT ALL UP AGAIN AND THEY TOLD ME SO. At the very least, it shouldn't have been the first thing in the book, but oh well. I guess it sells more books.
It did bother me though that the intro was SO graphic and then about halfway in you learn that Rockefeller's family wanted nothing to do with this book. That left a really bad taste in reading this. The author almost goes out of his way to provide the most graphic, violent demise of these people's loved one and OH BY THE WAY THEY DON'T WANT TO DREDGE IT ALL UP AGAIN AND THEY TOLD ME SO. At the very least, it shouldn't have been the first thing in the book, but oh well. I guess it sells more books.
I first heard about this story from a Smithsonian article I read about two years ago. Before this, I had never heard of Michael Rockefeller or his demise and my knowledge of headhunters was limited to The Far Side.
Hoffman surprised me by describing Michael's grisly end (which was absolutely sickening and made me lose my appetite for the rest of the day and want to give up the book for good - suddenly these cartoons weren't so funny anymore) in the first few pages; I thought for sure that would be the climax of his tale. But once we got that out of the way I was glad I decided to press on and was rewarded with fascinating information about such an exotic culture that is the Asmat of West Papua. By no means did Hoffman condone the ritualistic killings and cannibalism that these people used to do regularly, but he painted an important lesson that cultures and their practices that are so different from our own should be respected and understood before they are tread upon.
It was apparent that Hoffman really tried to leave no stone uncovered, and his conclusions seemed entirely logical, but he can't claim with 100% assurance that this is the truth. I believe it though. He was a bit repetitive and that was annoying, but the last few chapters of his experience living with the Asmat were powerful. Thoughtful read, but definitely not for the faint of heart.
Hoffman surprised me by describing Michael's grisly end (which was absolutely sickening and made me lose my appetite for the rest of the day and want to give up the book for good - suddenly these cartoons weren't so funny anymore) in the first few pages; I thought for sure that would be the climax of his tale. But once we got that out of the way I was glad I decided to press on and was rewarded with fascinating information about such an exotic culture that is the Asmat of West Papua. By no means did Hoffman condone the ritualistic killings and cannibalism that these people used to do regularly, but he painted an important lesson that cultures and their practices that are so different from our own should be respected and understood before they are tread upon.
It was apparent that Hoffman really tried to leave no stone uncovered, and his conclusions seemed entirely logical, but he can't claim with 100% assurance that this is the truth. I believe it though. He was a bit repetitive and that was annoying, but the last few chapters of his experience living with the Asmat were powerful. Thoughtful read, but definitely not for the faint of heart.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
While the story of and theories about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller are undoubtably interesting, this was not a good telling of it. The author jumps around a lot between Rockefeller and his own adventures with the Azmat. He also has clear confirmation bias that Rockefeller was head hunted and cannibalized. While this is a possibility, it is clearly the only viable possibility in the author’s mind. I found the opening in which the author dramatized the (speculative) murder of Rockefeller to be incredibly distasteful. The author also comes off as a bit of an arrogant ass, essentially as he writes about Rockefeller’s family in a very disrespectful way. He really criticizes them for not doing more, not seeking out the answers that he, a random stranger, is taking the time to do. He seems to imply that he somehow cares more about Rockefeller’s disappearance than his immediate family members who presumably loved him deeply. That was just very yucky to me. I find true crime and disappearances interesting but would never presume I know the mind of those personally impacted by the case. I recommend Stephanie Harlowe’s three part YouTube series on the case over this book. It’s both more organized and more respectful.