In the Land of the Head Hunters (also called In the Land of the War Canoes) is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, written and directed by Edward S. Curtis and acted entirely by Kwakwaka'wakw native people.

In 1911 he created a stage show with slides, a lecture, and live musical accompaniment, called The Indian Picture Opera.

Curtis hoped the film would be successful enough to fund the completion of The North American Indian, a multi-volume history of every indigenous tribe on the continent he had been working on since 1906.

[4] Bill Holm and George Quimby obtained a 16mm copy in 1965 and completed a re-edited version of the film in 1974,[4] having added a soundtrack by Kwakwaka'wakw musicians, and released the result as In the Land of the War Canoes.

The score had been filed at the library of the Getty Research Institute, but without a title that tied it to the film.

The film combines many accurate representations of aspects of Kwakwaka'wakw culture, art, and technology from the era in which it was made with a melodramatic plot based on practices that either dated from long before the first contact of the Kwakwaka'wakw with people of European descent or were entirely fictional.

[4][6] Some aspects of the film do have documentary accuracy: the artwork, the ceremonial dances, the clothing, the architecture of the buildings, and the construction of the dugout, or a war canoe reflected Kwakwaka'wakw culture.

[9]The following plot synopsis was published in conjunction with a 1915 showing of the film at Carnegie Hall: To gain power from the spirit forces, Motana, a great chief's son, goes on a vigil-journey.

But though the tribal law forbids the thought of woman during the fasting, his dreams are ever of Naida; her face appearing in the coilng smoke of the prayer-fire he builds high upon a mountain peak.

He sleeps upon the Island of the Dead, then hunts and kills the whale; and raids the clustered sea-lion rookeries, a whole day's paddle out to sea.

Motana and his father, Kenada, and their clan resolve to rid the region of the head hunters.