The Asmat tribe, which is made up of 12 different groups inhabiting the Indonesian region, demonstrated their manhood and tribal loyalty by killing an enemy so that the community could feast on his head
The people who inhabit an unexplored area of dense jungle in New Guinea strike terror into the hearts of their neighbors as they are notorious for hunting the heads of their enemies and consuming them as part of their gruesome ritual beliefs, the Mirror reports. .
The Asmat tribe, which consists of 12 different groups inhabiting the region of Indonesia, demonstrated their masculinity and tribal loyalty by killing an enemy so that the community could feast on his head. To prepare the head for consumption, the Asmat men they scrape off the skin before baking it in an oven.
While the gruesome ritual served as a show of dominance and terrorized other tribes, the community also believed that the human head was something… sacred and likened it to the fruit of a tree.
The decapitated body part was also used during coming-of-age ceremonies, where it was placed between a boy’s thighs, as it was believed that the dead man’s power could be transmitted to the young man and propel him into manhood.
The tribe, who built their settlements near the river in order to be in an advantageous position of attack, took the lower jaw along with other parts of the spine, and adorned the grim medallions as trophies. These were supposed to prove their manhood to others within their own community and to potential enemies.
Before these practices ceased in the 1980s, the skulls of both enemies and other members of the tribe were worshiped and considered a sacred object.
After the death of another member of the tribe, the mourners cut off the head of the deceased, before removing the brain and eyes. The Asmat believed that by plugging the nostrils and nasal areas, they could prevent evil spirits from entering the body. Other funerary superstitions included the idea that if someone suffered an untimely death, either from natural causes or malevolent action, the clan must take revenge on its enemies.
Michael Rockefeller – the fifth child of former US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller – disappeared in a jungle area where the Asmat people were known to still practice cannibalism in November 1961. Theories say he was the victim of a cycle of revenge ‘tit- for-tat’ after several tribesmen were killed by a Dutch patrol in 1958. Some argue that the villagers may have seen him as a member of a ‘white tribe’.
In a widely disputed 1979 book written by Paul Toohey, Rockefeller’s mother allegedly hired a private investigator to find out what was going on in the jungle. Toohey claimed that the private detective traded a boat engine for three skulls, which the tribe said were the only white men they had ever killed.
The investigator supposedly returned to New York with the skulls and was convinced that one of them belonged to the missing heir.
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