Jungle Secrets

In Jungle Secrets, Waiãpi Indians perform and narrate four tales about cannibal monsters. "We have made the video," say the Waiãpi, "to teach people to be more careful with monsters they never heard about. Even a white man can be eaten as he goes into the forest."

"Kanha Makui" – the secret of the invisible. A monster gives a man a secret powder that can make him invisible, but once he drunkenly reveals the monster's secret, the powder loses its magic. In "Akukusian," a cannibal monster takes revenge on some hunters who have been greedily killing howler monkeys, but their relatives kill Akukusian in return. "Aja Tapie" tells the story of a shaman who accidentally revives a monster from death; in return the monster gives him a magic arrow that can track game. "Anyrao" is about a monster that steals and eating children.

Through the use of video cameras, costumes, props, masks and special effects, the Waiãpi real create real movie versions of the monsters their ancestors saw and feared.