Michael Rockefeller

In November 1961 Michael Rockefeller, son of the millionaire philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared, presumed drowned, after his boat capsized at the mouth of the Betsj River in West Papua. Some of the material he collected on this, his second and final trip to the Asmat region, is now on display in a dedicated wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Among the most spectacular exhibits in the collection is a wall of nine bisj-poles, traditionally carved from the buttress of a mangrove tree to honour recently killed warriors in some Asmat communities. But, unlike Rockefeller, after whom this wing of the museum is named, the ancestors these poles commemorate are now nameless.

The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship was founded by Michael Rockefeller's family and close friends. Michael had a zest for exploration -- for new ideas, places, and people. His sense of adventure, combined with his sensitivity and goodwill made him an extraordinary friend to many. It was a natural choice to keep his memory alive through a fellowship that would affirm these same qualities in other young men and women. The Fellowship would enable them to seek, as Michael did, a deeper understanding of our common human experience and their part in it, through the respectful exploration of a different culture.