The Abúhuwa are the cannibal demons of the Cubeo forest, misty nocturnal beings of the realm of darkness whose name is drawn from a word for whiteness or the foam of the rapids. They embody disease, death and all that is evil, and they keep company with the spirits of dead poisoners, murderers and male adulterers. Like the ogres common across Amazonian myth they are hairy and foul-smelling, with an extra face set in the back of the head and bodies so sticky that no one caught in their embrace can pull free. An abúhukü kills by cutting a hole in the skull and sucking out the contents of the body, or by rolling its victim in palm leaves to tenderise the flesh, and in either case leaves the empty skin hanging from a branch. They can be held off, however, by the acrid smoke of burning capsicum peppers. They stand outside the genealogies of the creator-beings, a formless negation at the edge of the ordered world.