Marina Chapman, who was kidnapped as a child and spent five years being raised by monkeys in a Colombian rainforest, has described the shock of first seeing her own face in a mirror. She said the experience was the most profound of her extraordinary time in the jungle.
Raised by capuchin monkeys
Chapman was just four years old when trafficking gangs kidnapped her and abandoned her inside the rainforest. There she became friendly with a group of black and white capuchin primates who ignored her at first but slowly began to interact with her by climbing on her shoulders or playing with her hair.
Asked whether the monkeys were like her family, she said: “I felt like I was part of them because of the hands. They behave like a human. I was shocked when I found a piece of mirror. It was a shock of my life because I didn’t realise about my face.”
“It was the first time I saw my face. For me, I just thought, I am not like a monkey. I felt like I was related to them. I was beginning to feel a little bit confused. I don’t think I speak any language. I think I forgot my own language because I began to recognise the noises.”
A monkey saved her life
Chapman said the monkeys brought her immense comfort at a time when she was completely abandoned and waiting for someone to rescue her. She was able to eat off their scraps and learned to interpret the differing sounds they made.
Speaking about the time one monkey saved her life, she told OMG Stories Up Close: “I was just looking at this old monkey and I was really crying out and I was feeling very desperate. So he just walked towards me and he grabbed me forcefully and he pulled me into the water straight. It was a puddle of water, it wasn't very deep. He put me there and he held me and I was just trying to push back.”
“I drank so much water and I was quite sick after until I looked at his face. He was staring at me. I realised something about his eyes, he didn’t want to kill me. I just thought there was something special about when I looked at his eyes. I felt he was a good monkey. He didn't want to kill. But I felt better in my stomach after a while.”
Life after the jungle
After a number of years, Chapman was captured by hunters, who took her to Cucata where she was put inside a brothel, but she managed to escape. She then lived off the streets and slept in parks.
One night, the police took her and gave her a bed for the night before bringing her to get breakfast the following morning, which she said was “very special”. However, when she asked about her parents, she said she had no idea who they were and explained that she came from monkeys.
She recalled: “The person laughed, really laughed in my face. It was just very offensive and the way they did it because I said I come from the monkeys and I never wanted to tell anybody that. I became quite frightened about it and I ate my breakfast and they let me go again.”
Chapman was eventually taken in by a couple from Bradford who then moved her to the UK, and her real parents were never located. She said she could not even open doors or eat using cutlery and felt “completely useless” at trying to be a human.
She went on to write a book about her experiences called The Girl With No Name, married, and now has two daughters and two grandchildren. She has spent years trying to find the forest where she was taken but has had no luck. She said she hoped the kidnappers who took her away from the forest saw her interview so they could tell her which jungle it was.
The mother said she would not inform the police of them if they were still alive today, adding: “One day they might come and say ‘this is the jungle we took you out of’ or something. I won’t do anything to them. That’s my wishful thinking that it could happen.”
