Occupying several small hamlets in the dense primary forest of the West Sepik area in Papua New Guinea, are the 900 Umeda people.

The major event, and great social occasion of their calendar, is coming together to participate in the ritual drama of Ida' — a fertility ritual, embodied in the metamorphosis of the Cassowary, emblem of the wild, into a 'New Man', the epitome of Umeda cultural values.