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The decision to hold the games requires little preparation. All that is needed is a large quantity of sugarcane or papaya and the desire of people to take part. There is no fixed date for realizing the games, but they usually take place with higher frequency during the ‘summer’ period when moving about the village becomes easier.

The game begins when a man takes a length of sugarcane and passes it in front of a woman, dragging it along the ground close to her feet. However, he does not approach just any woman, but those who may be classified as his pano (cross-cousins, potential wives). The woman then responds to the provocation by starting to fight with him for the sugarcane. Little by little other women approach to help her and seeing their friend in difficulty, other men also join him in the dispute. Very often there is more than one group fighting over the lengths of sugarcane: these groups are formed according to generational criteria. Children form one group, including girls who have not yet entered puberty. Young bachelors and married youths play together, forming one or two groups depending on the number of people taking part.

People frequently hurt themselves during the games, especially the men. Women can strike them (and do so) with all their force in order to wrest the sugarcane or papaya from the men’s clutches. At the end of the games men retire with their clothes in shreds and their backs and chests covered in bruises from the slaps and punches thrown by the women. The men are never allowed to take revenge. The only way they can injure women is verbally.

Aggression – verbal and physical – is central to the games, but it seems to exist merely as a dissimulation to the seduction actually taking place, since the punches and verbal abuse are accompanied by erotic body contacts. As they wrestle over the sugarcane, the bodies of men and women are practically glued to each other the whole time.

Men never leave the games victorious. When the women gain control over the sugarcane (or papaya) they run to the older women who remain watching and hand it over to them (preferably to their mothers). The dispute then starts all over again with another length of sugarcane. However, men never win a contest by handing the sugarcane to older men. When the men gain control or a temporary advantage in the game, they hurl more verbal abuse, saying they are strong and pull the sugarcane violently, sometimes dragging women with them as the latter try to keep hold of the other end. If they are fighting over a papaya, the men throw it from side to side between themselves. The games end only when the women succeed in capturing all the fruits held at the outset by the men.

The fact that men never win the game may be comprehended by analyzing the Katukina economy. The distribution of all foods, not only meat, is controlled by women. Men never offer meat or any other food to other men.

In this sense, the games can be interpreted as a representation of the pattern of cooperation that organizes the exchange relations between men and women in the village. As in production, men cooperate with each other during the games. Women also make up a united group, but the cooperation between them is centred on distribution. A correction is therefore necessary here: rather than winning, women succeed in forcing a draw, re-establishing the equilibrium between the sexes and consequently the community as a whole.

In addition to the symbolism of the economic exchanges expressed in the games, it is possible to note a strong sexual appeal in the explicit flirtation and the furtive escape of couples to the forest during or after the games. However, this does not mean that these economic and sexual exchanges are equivalent. There is rather a certain correlation between them. Just as men and women should exchange produce and services in order to live, so they should do the same in order to procreate. In addition, the games subvert the pattern of everyday behaviour among the Katukina. The restraint in inter-personal relations gives way during the games to an almost absolute licentiousness and it seems as though the community is experiencing a collective ecstasy, briefly revealing the dense network of mutual economic and sexual relations between men and women. The Katukina games highlight exchange, but not just an immediate exchange between men and women, which underlies the subsistence economy, but also a larger long-term exchange which ensures the continuance of society itself.