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The present-day makeup and composition of the Aparai and Wayana is the result of the integration of several other groups with whom they have maintained close relations, above all from the 18th Century on. The Wayana assimilated the Upurui, Kukuyana, Opagwana and Kumarawana, among other peoples; while the Aparai incorporated the Apama, Pirixiyana and Arakaju peoples. Although they recognize this primordial diversity and even point to certain individuals as “pure” descendants of some of these groups, the Aparai and Wayana emphasize today that all are “mixed". In fact, it is not possible to know whether all these names, mentioned both by the historical sources and the groups themselves today, refer to distinct peoples, thus corresponding to ethnonyms; or whether they designate smaller units of a single population, referring to subgroups.

The first references to inter-marriages and to the supposed “fusion” between the Aparai and Wayana date from the 18th century. From then on, travelers and researchers have pointed to an advanced situation of socio-cultural amalgamation in Brazilian territory, despite the linguistic differences between the peoples. At the end of the 1970s, the Swiss anthropologist Daniel Schoepf gave them the name "Wayana-Aparai", a designation which was rapidly adopted by the public and official agencies and has remained until today. The Aparai and Wayana, however, do not recognize this more general designation, and assert their separateness in different contexts. To do so, they resort to various distinctive elements which they articulate, such as linguistic differentiation, distinct historical origins and trajectories, diverse customs and practices (mythical narratives, songs, cosmological conceptions and aesthetics values). For example, the Wayana supposedly have a broader repertoire of decorative graphic motifs, while the Aparai supposedly have greater technical skill in applying these motifs; Aparai ceramics are painted, in contrast to Wayana ceramics; Aparai had the custom of cremating their dead, while the Wayana prefer to bury them and so on. In short, the social and cultural amalgamation of this population does not correspond to a single identity. The processes of rapprochement and fusion in course are accompanied by movements of distancing and fission in various contexts.

In this same sense, individuals who descend from mixed marriages are customarily identified as “mixed” or “crossed”, sometimes in accordance with the paternal group, which will depend on the play of political forces. Despite the fact most are bi-lingual, they tend to give preference to using the language spoken in their village. Each village is identified with one or the other group, according to the language spoken by its founder. There doesn’t result from this, however, any immediate association between the identity attributed to the village and the language spoken on a daily basis by its members. Moreover, there are still several other contexts in which the differentiation between the Aparai and Wayana is (re)produced. Disputes among families, fights between affines, as well as various sorts of misunderstandings are, whenever possible, attributed to and explained by the participation of individuals belonging to any other group. In the Apalai village (also called Bona), for example, the dispute between two prominent leaders, both appointed by government assistance agencies, also tends to take advantage of this distinction, each leader claiming, on the basis of his origins, to represent one of the “ethnic groups” for the assistance agencies.

In short, the construction and appropriation of the ethnic denominations "Aparai" and "Wayana" by this population result from the process of interaction with the State, and respond to demands for new forms of representation before the surrounding non-indigenous society. These collective designations have come to regulate much, but not all, of the relations between the groups and contact agents. However, they do so by concealing their internal diversity and by establishing limits which are, in fact, fluid. In effect, these ‘ethnonyms’ refer to a multiple reality, comprised of complex elements which are varied and interdependent, aggregating families, villages, (sub)groups and various other socio-political units.