Differently to what might be expected, the system of intense nomadism is a historical contingency that affected the Avá-Canoeiro at different times and with different results as well. There is no indication that this a group whose culture is fully adapted to such regime. On the contrary, all evidences suggest that the group has forms of subsistence - such as agriculture combined with hunting and gathering - that indicate a seasonal nomadism, very different from the regime of continuous movement it has been forced into in the last 100 years.

Forced to move around for at least four decades, the Upper Tocantins groups stop activities such as agriculture and ceramics, resuming them when conditions are favorable. As for the descendants of the groups that left towards the Araguaia around 1840-60, they do not plant anything and live exclusively of hunting and gathering and of the plundering of fields and cattle. Activities that are not compatible with a nomadic lifestyle have been forgotten.