Charles Budd Robinson's Fatal Misunderstanding

In 1913, Canadian botanist Charles Budd Robinson traveled to Ambon Island (in what is now Indonesia) to collect plant specimens. He asked locals in broken Malay to "porong kelapa" ("cut down a coconut"), but the villagers heard "potong kepala" ("cut off a head"). Unable to fully explain himself, Robinson was mistakenly perceived as threatening to behead a child, which triggered the villagers' fear tied to local tales of headhunters, leading them to panic and kill him.

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