Mbah Gotho, The Indonesian Who May Have Been The Oldest Person To Ever Live
YouTubeMbah Gotho was a heavy smoker, but allegedly outlived his siblings, wives, and children.
In 2016, Mbah Gotho told reporters: “What I want is to die.” The following year, Gotho got his wish, when he was allegedly 146 years old.
Born in Indonesia, purportedly in 1870, Gotho outlived four wives, 10 siblings, and all of his children. He was a heavy smoker and was known in his village for telling stories about fighting the Japanese and the Dutch colonizers.
The key to his long life, he told the BBC at one point, was having “people that love me looking after me.” But was he truly 146 when he died?
NurPhoto SRL/Alamy Stock PhotoMbah Gotho showing off his ID card, which indeed marks 1870 as his birth year.
Officials in Indonesia have claimed that Gotho has paperwork that proves that he was born in 1870. However, as the BBC notes, Indonesia only started officially documenting births in 1900. What’s more, officials have made mistakes in the past. That makes Gotho’s actual birthdate difficult to verify.
Regardless, Mbah Gotho finally got his wish to die in 2017. After a brief, undefined illness, he passed away peacefully and was buried under the gravestone that he’d bought for himself decades earlier.
