Man, okay, so this is a wild one.
As a sailor around the turn of the 19th century, suffering shipwreck in the middle of nowhere
was practically a death sentence.
So when Carl Emil Pettersson’s ship sank in the Pacific Ocean, how lucky was he that
he washed up on the shore of an island.
Well… the island was inhabited by a tribe among whom cannibalism wasn’t uncommon.
Tough luck.
So, imagine the surprise when years later Pettersson returned to his native Sweden,
alive, and not just that, but as the legitimate king of the island and all those that lived
on it.
-intro-
On the 10th of October 1875, Carl-Emil Pettersson was born in a rural municipality, named Sollentuna,
a bit north of Sweden’s capital, Stockholm.
During these years Sweden was rapidly expanding its naval business and ocean trade.
The Baltic sea allowed for Swedish merchants to sail all over the world.
This included the South Seas and Oceania, a place scrambled with islands (such as Indonesia,
which has 18,307 islands!).
Pettersson too decided to test his fortune and board a merchant ship to travel, work
and earn a living around 1892.
He found a job at the German Neuguinea-Compagnie, centred in the Pacific, and as such, Petersson
embarked on a journey that would most certainly be life-changing.
Now, the story goes that that was the last that was heard from Pettersson for a long
time.
Fifteen (!) years later, in 1907, he turned up again.
The story he told was quite an extraordinary one.
Pettersson had worked on board of several merchant ships that sailed through the Pacific
ocean, more specifically the Bismarck Archipelago.
Named after the unifier of Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
Over centuries the Dutch, British and French had been wreaking colonial havoc in the region.
Anyway, that’s beside the point - New Guinea, closeby this archipelago, was known for its
tribes that had a tendency to practice cannibalism.
Throughout his travels, Pettersson had suffered multiple shipwrecks.
When in 1904, his ship sunk once again, he washed up on the shore of Tabar Island.
It could very well have been the end of him.
Perhaps it was luck, perhaps Pettersson was charming to a degree that transgressed language
and cultural barriers.
He washed up on the shore of what would turn out to be Tabar island.
Lying there, he was discovered by a group of inhabitants, the Tabar Tribe.
Thing is - this tribe was known for being cannibals.
Pettersson, a tall, Swedish man with blue eyes and blonde hair aroused curiosity rather
than hunger among the tribe members.
Next thing we know, Pettersson has his own coconut palm plantation, named Teripax, on
the Tabar Island where he would remain for multiple years.
The Tabar people started referring to him as ‘Strong Charly’, which can only be
an allusion to his physical capabilities.
He eventually became friends with the local chief, named Lamry, whose daughter, Singdo-Misse
fell in love with this tall blonde Swede.
Yeah, the daughter of the cannibal chief fell in love with him.
Pettersson returned Singdo-Misse’s affection and the two became a couple.
But it gets even more interesting - we’ll get to that in a second.
I mentioned that he returned to Sweden in 1907 but sources are a little bit contradictory
on this.
The earliest Swedish newspapers I could find that wrote about Pettersson’s curious story
are from 1914.
Some sources say he returned home, albeit briefly, in 1907, only to return to Tabar
island.
What we do know is that he married Singdo Misse somewhere between 1907 and 1908, all
the while expanding his coconut plantation and traded copra, the dried meat of the coconut,
to earn a very decent living.
Singdo-Misse and he all-together had 8 children.
Somewhere before 1914 Lamry, the local chief, passed away - since he only had a daughter
it was only logical her spouse would succeed him, none other than Pettersson.
As such, Carl Emil Pettersson became the Swedish king of the Tabar tribe.
In 1914 Pettersson’s story breaks through in Sweden.
He didn’t even turn up on his mother’s doorstep with a story such as this one, although
it would certainly have been just a matter of time until the press would run with it.
No, Count Birger Mörner, also a Swede, happened to travel in the Pacific area and documented
all of his adventures in a book of which I am not going to attempt to pronounce the title.
He happened, maybe by chance, to run into Pettersson and his family on the Tabar Island.
Documenting their story, taking photographs and publishing his book about his travels
once he got to Sweden, he gave lectures and Swedish newspapers ran with the story.
The photo you’re seeing right now is the actual photo taken by Mörner.
It is Pettersson, together with Singdo-Misse and their children.
Interestingly enough, Mörner seemed more interested in Singdo-Misse’s story, though
the Swedish newspapers that picked it up were more interested in this shipwrecked sailor
that managed to not just survive his encounter with the Tabar tribe, but become their king.
In a short amount of time ‘Strong Charley’ became a celebrity in Sweden.
He himself maintained a relatively frequent correspondence with Swedish editors, ensuring
a decent public profile even though he was on the other side of the world.
His life on the Tabar island took a tragic turn in 1921 however when his wife died during
childbirth of their 9th child.
Pettersson returned to Sweden to find a suitable wife to marry and take back to his island
and coconut farms.
Swedish newspapers wrote about him as if he were actual royalty - King Carl the First
and Prince Pettersson weren’t infrequent headlines.
He found a new wife, Jessie Simpson, who was dubbed Queen Pettersson.
In 1923 the couple returned to Tabar Island.
But the coconut imperium was crumbling and to top it all off, both fell ill with malaria.
It seemed at one point this misfortune was compensated by Pettersson discovering an abundance
of gold on his lands.
To give you an idea about the size of this gold deposit he discovered: to this day the
gold deposit of the Tabar islands is one of the largest of the world.
Nevertheless, in 1935 Jessie died of cancer, back in Stockholm as she had to return for
medical treatment.
Pettersson himself, two years later, having kept the gold reserves initially a secret,
passed away of a heart attack in Sydney, Australia.
That’s the tragic end of Pettersson and his action-packed life.
I meant, washing up on the shore of an island with cannibals, pretty incredible if you manage
to become the king, right?
A fictional sailor that, depending on your age, might remind you of Pettersson is Captain
Ephraim Longstocking, the father of Pippi Longstocking.
And well, that isn’t too odd.
Astrid Lindgren, the writer of Pippi Longstocking, based Ephraim on Pettersson himself.
Ephraim too eventually became king of the island where he washed ashore.
Swedish author Joakim Langer tried to get to the bottom of exactly how Pettersson inspired
Lindgren.
Lindgren was very ill by the point Langer started his research, back in 2001.
She passed away the next year.
Lindgren’s sister however confirmed that she was not just inspired by Pettersson but
developed the story and its protagonist attempting to cheer up her own young daughter, who suffered
from pneumonia.
Publishing over 15 books about Pippi, once the second world war ended, many children
have grown up with the tales and adventures of Pippi and her search for her shipwrecked
father, Ephraim.
Langer and a colleague eventually published a book about the ‘real life father of Pippi
Longstocking’, and once again I have to apologize for not being able to pronounce
these Swedish titles.
(Kung Kalle av Kurrekurreduttön.
En resa i Efraim Langstrumps fotspar.
| Langer: Kapten Kalle pa de sju haven).
Nearly 100 years after Pettersson washed ashore on the Tabar island, he is still the centre
of lively discussion in Sweden, at least among some.
I think that’s very special - his life certainly was.
Thank you for watching this video and what is a person or event with a curious life story
that you would like to know more about, and perhaps see a video of?
Let me know your thoughts in a comment!
Don’t forget to subscribe, see you next time.