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In February and March, following a number of inspection trips to the fields, someone finally brings some corn hair to camp, showing the maturity of the plant. The last great tortoise shaman ceremony is then performed - an activity typical of the rainy season - as well as the first great opirahe dance which is characteristic of the village-dwelling stage which is about to start. This is "green corn season", the beginning of the Araweté year.

Only after all families have come back to the village the first cauim (sweet corn gruel) divination is performed, to be followed by others, the corn for each feast is collectively stored in the field of one family, but processed by each household in the village. This is a time when women prepare huge quantities of urucum, giving the village an overall red ambiance. From April and May rainfall diminishes and village life stabilizes, highlighted by the processing of ripe corn, which yields mepi - corn pemmican, the dry season staple.

June through October is the season of alcoholic cauim, which is called "sour cauim season." It is the height of drought. Evenings thrive under the thrum of opirahe dances, which increase in intensity during the weeks when cauim is made. This beverage is prepared for the entire family of household, from the corn yielded by their own fields. There may be several feasts during the dry season thrown by different families. They usually gather more than one village (when the Araweté had different local groups) and still are the highlight of sociability. The alcoholic cauim feast is a great opirahe night dance when guest men, attended to by the host family, dance and sing throughout the night.

At the final stage of fermentation of the drink (the entire process takes about twenty days) men leave for a collective hunt. They return one week later, bringing much singed meat and will refrain from hunting for several days. On the eve of the hunters’ arrival there is a shaman ceremony is held to call the Maï and the souls of the departed ones, to try out the new cauim.

From July - August, the frequency and duration of scattering movements begin to increase. Families move out to the fields, even though they are not far from the village, and set camp there for a fortnight or longer. That is the "corn-breaking", when all standing corn is harvested and stored in large baskets, deposited on makeshift gantries built on the periphery of the fields. Thence families are supplied through the end of the dry season, when the remaining baskets are taken to new corn fields.

This field season gathers more than one household in each camp - either because the field belongs to a household section, or because the owners of adjoining fields decide to camp together. During the corn-breaking season, men hunt every day, while women and children harvest the ears of corn, grind corn for flour and weave; this is also the cotton harvest season.

Starting in September, the cauim season begins to yield to açaí and honey. The arrival of spirits Iaraci, the açaí eater, and Ayaraetã, the father of honey, brought to the villages by the shamans, causes all to leave to the forest in search of products associated to these spirits.

In October - November, with the river waters at the lowest level, the Araweté fish with timbó weed, which also entail fragmentation of the village into smaller groups.

The scatter entailed by all these gathering and fishing activities is once again counterbalanced by the demands posed by corn.

Cutting for new fields begins by September; by late October burning begins; the first rains begin in November and December, to be followed by sowing before the scattering of the rain season. Before they leave for the forest, they harvest cassava, whose flour will complement venison and honey yielded by the forest.

This is the Araweté annual cycle: a constant shift between the village and the forest, agriculture and hunting-gathering, rainy and dry season. Village life is under the aegis of corn and its most elaborate product, alcoholic cauim, life in the forest is under the aegis of the tortoise and honey.