This documentary explores the allegations, first brought to light in the book Darkness in El Dorado, written by Patrick Tierney, that anthropologists studying the Yanomami Indians in the 1960s and '70s engaged in bizarre and inappropriate interactions with the tribe, including sexual and medical violations.

Scientists accused in this film are among others James Neel, Napoleon Chagnon, Kenneth Good and Jacques Lizot.

Almost all of the lengthy allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly rejected by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan in November 2000.

"[5] The American Anthropological Association has since rescinded its support of the book and acknowledged fraudulent and improper and unethical conduct by Tierney.

The association admitted that "in the course of its investigation, in its publications, in the venues of its national meetings and its web site, [it] condoned a culture of accusation and allowed serious but unevaluated charges to be posted on its website and expressed in its newsletter and annual meetings" and that its "report has damaged the reputations of its targets, distracted public attention from the real sources of the Yanomami tragedy and misleadingly suggested that anthropologists are responsible for Yanomami suffering".