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According to the historical sources and their own reports, the Aparai and Wayana have distinct origins. The Aparai come from the south bank of the Amazon River, having migrated to the region of the lower and middle courses of the Curuá, Maicuru, Jari and East Paru rivers, and from there to the area they presently inhabit. The Wayana, in turn, have inhabited for a long time the region of the upper and middle course of the East Paru River, its tributary the Citaré, the upper Jarí River, besides the Litani, Paloemeu rivers and tributaries.

In the 16th Century, the Aparai inhabited the right bank of the Amazon River, to the south, and, to the southwest, the region where the cities of Macapá and Belém are located today. Other groups, which were later assimilated, lived not very far from the Amazon River, in the region of the lower East Paru and Jarí rivers.

At the end of the 17th Century, the Aparai were supposed to have relations with the Apama and Aracaju, possibly Tupi-speakers and inhabitants of the area near Almerim, who were settled in the Mission of Paru, and little by little integrated to the local population. A small Apama group is supposed to have succeeded in remaining isolated in the region of Maicuru until the 1960s, maintaining close relations of trade and inter-marriage with the Aparai.

In the mid-18th Century, historical sources mention Wayana settlements on the middle Maroni River, although the greater part of the population was still found in Portuguese territory, in an area delimited to the south and west by the Citaré river, to the north, by the Matawaré stream (on the upper East Paru River) and to the east by the upper Jari River and tributaries. The territory of the Aparai, in turn, included the contiguous region to the south, below the Citaré river, on the middle and lower courses of the Paru, Curuá, Cuminá, Maicuru and Jari rivers. This period was marked by the intensification of relations of exchange, wars and intermarriage among the indigenous peoples of the region. There were notable conflicts among the Aparai and Wayana, on the middle courses of the Paru and Jarí rivers; among the Wayana and Tiriyó, to the north of these rivers; and among the Wayana and Wajãpi, to the east, on the border regions of the territories of these two groups.

In the 1950s, the Aparai were still found settled on the East Paru, Jari, Maicuru and upper Curuá rivers of Alenquer; while the Wayana inhabited the middle and upper courses of the East Paru and Jarí rivers, beyond the Litani (French Guiana) and Paloemeu (Surinam) rivers. Until 1960, there were several settlements near the region of Anatum, at the juncture of the Mopecu stream and the lower East Paru. In 1984, only one Aparai village was situated near the confluence of the Jari and Ipitinga rivers.

Today, the Aparai and Wayana are distributed in three territorial groups defined by the coordinates of the East Paru River, in Brazil; the Marouni River, in French Guiana; and the Tapanahoni River in Surinam. While the great majority of the Aparai is found in Brazilian territory, the Wayana are also distributed in villages in French Guiana and Surinam. This distribution into three distinct territorial groups is the result of their long history of contact with non-Indians, marked by migrations, processes of fission and fusion with other indigenous peoples. In any case, spatial distance does not represent an obstacle to the interaction among these territorial groups, which takes place, basically, through kinship ties and formal trade partnerships.

In Brazil, the Wayana and Aparai are distributed in nearly sixteen villages, all of them situated on the upper and middle course of the East Paru River, inside the Tumucumaque Indigenous Park and the East Paru Indigenous Land. These two contiguous indigenous areas cover nearly 4,266,852 hectares in the north of the state of Pará, and are the homelands of Tiriyó, Kaxuyana, Akuriyó and Wajãpi, among other peoples. Although created at different times, the Tumucumaque Indigenous Park and the East Paru Indigenous Land were demarcated and homologated in 1997, by Decree s/ n , published in the Official Diary of the Union, on November 4^th of that year.