Aurora Starchild
A woman who was raised by monkeys in the jungles of Colombia says she was forced to learn how they communicate. In an exclusive interview with LADBible, Marina Chapman detailed how she came to be an orphan raised by a tribe of capuchin monkeys.
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Marina Chapman Claims She Was Raised by a Tribe of Capuchin Monkeys
Marina Chapman told LADBible that she recalls strong hands coming up behind her and dousing her with a strong chemical, which may have been chloroform. She was then brought on a lengthy journey in a vehicle and remembers children behind her crying. Despite the horrifying predicament, she didn’t want her abductors to abandon her in the jungle.
Alone, small, and terrified, eventually a monkey approached her. Chapman says the monkey was poking her repeatedly but didn’t hurt her. After some time, the monkey returned with more monkeys. Chapman studied them to figure out what they were eating. She also learned how to climb trees so she could sit with them. All of this cohabitating required that she learn their language to some extent.
“It took me a while,” said Chapman on learning the capuchin monkey sounds. “But each sound means… The screechy one you have to really be careful. You have to hide away. The danger one is the screechy… is the louder one. And then the whistle one is the food one.”
“It took me a while to get used to it. I just learned from watching what they were doing.”
Marina Chapman recalled a moment when one of the monkeys jumped on her shoulders while she was sitting in a tree and remembered how it was comforting to be touched.
Chapman Mostly Chose Her Food Based on What the Capuchins Ate
Marina Chapman also learned how to communicate with the monkeys with body language. This included knowing when to move if there was danger, and how to simply hang out together.
Chapman says she didn’t know what to eat until the monkeys showed her. There was one monkey who discovered an Indian dwelling where they started to steal food like bananas while the people were sleeping. They would bring the food back to share with the group.
On another occasion, she made the mistake of eating fruit from a tree that the monkeys weren’t touching. She said it tasted good, but it eventually caused excruciating abdominal pain. She remembers standing and crying in pain.
An older capuchin monkey, who she called “Grandpa monkey,” looked at her with a strange facial expression, pushed her, and then made her sit in a pond of water. Chapman says she eventually vomited and felt better. At that point, the monkey’s facial expression changed, and he left her alone.
Marina Chapman is the author of The Girl With No Name. She was allegedly abducted around the age of 4 from her home in Colombia and dropped off alone somewhere in the jungle. After several years in the jungle living with the capuchin monkeys, Chapman claims she was discovered by hunters and sold to a brothel. Then she was enslaved to a Mafia family. At the age of 14, a neighbor allegedly adopted her and sent her to live with family in Yorkshire, England.
