The story of a man who ‘ate his friend’ was captured by a filmmaker who travelled to visit a ‘cannibal tribe’.
Investigating cannibals and their ways of life seems to be an all-around bad idea and if history has taught us something, it’s to avoid these tribes at all costs.
The tribes follow rituals that were formed thousands of years ago (Youtube/Journeyman Pictures)
Michael Rockefeller is perhaps the most famous example of people who got too close to cannibals, as his whereabouts are still unknown since going missing in 1961, though it has been theorised that he himself joined the tribe, while others believe that he was killed when he came into contact with them for a second time.
The son of former US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller was not the only eager world explorer that has an interest in tribes that follow ancient rituals, as many others have contacted these groups for a deeper understanding of their beliefs.
In July 2006, explorers ventured into West Papua, the same place where Michael Rockefeller went missing, to speak to what is believed to be some of the last remaining cannibals in existence.
Known as the Korowai, they have lived by the same customs for 10,000 years with no intention at all to change. The province is in the far east of Indonesia, taking up the West coast of the island of New Guinea.
Here, filmmakers from Journeyman Pictures ventured to find out more about their customs, adding to the production’s repertoire of making documentaries about some of the world’s most intriguing subjects.
They claim to make ‘the world’s most provocative, incisive factual TV‘, including this horror story of a ritual carried out by the Korowai.
The tribe believes that when someone dies, a witch-hunt starts to find the person ‘possessed’ by evil spirits to kill and eat them, with nobody safe, as a six-year-old boy is under suspicion after his parents suddenly died, as his uncle admitted that he might be killed when he hits puberty.
But while speaking to one of the members of the tribe, the filmmaker asked if he knew him before killing him, to which he chillingly replied: “Yes, he was my friend, and he was part of my family.
The tribesman kept the skull of his victim (Youtube/Journeyman Pictures)
“It’s normal. I don’t feel sad or anything,” he admitted.
That’s not where the horror stops though, as that night, the tribesman brought the filmmaker the skull of one of the people he killed and ate, as shortly before his cousin died, he told him that this person was the ‘sorcerer’, possessed by the evil spirit.
Following the tradition, he killed and ate him following his cousin’s death, keeping his skull as a trophy for his proudest kill.
