The Rikbaktsa believe there is an exchange of “souls” among beings of the physical world. Thus the fate of the dead varies according to the lives they led as human beings. Some people may come back again as human beings (or even as “whites”) or incarnated in “night” monkeys (one of the very few animals never hunted by the Rikbaktsa); others, who are believed to have been bad while alive, come back as dangerous animals, such as jaguars or poisonous snakes. On the other hand, all beings were once human, and the myths register how they were transformed into animals for good. Therefore, pigs, tapirs, macaws, birds and even the Moon were people once.

The hundreds of stories that make up the myths that gives form and sense to the lives of the Rikbaktsa are told over and over by the older Indians, and even the children use them as reference in their relations with the surrounding physical and social environment, in an effort to maintain the harmony between their activities with the immanent order of the cosmos, portrayed in their myths.

Illnesses are seen as a break in the balance resulting from taboos that have been broken (that is, acts that jeopardize the world’s immanent harmony or order) or as the product of a spell, or of poisoning by an enemy. Traditional cure methods are based on the use of plants with medicinal qualities and on ritual purifications.

All activities of hunting, gathering, fishing and planting are contained within this universe of significance, and are ritualized in the cycle of ceremonies determined by the agricultural year. The music, the chants and the feather ornaments are thus of fundamental importance, expressing in a sensitive way the Rikbaktsa’s social and mythical universe and their forms of affective, aesthetic and religious sensitivity. In the process of recovery of their ethnic dignity, the rituals, the music and the mythical narratives have crucial importance, expressing and being themselves the nucleus of cohesion and identity that enables them to face the transformations induced by contact without disintegrating as a people with an original culture and history.

There is the green maize ceremony in January, the clearing of the forest ceremony in May, and lesser ceremonies throughout the entire sequence of annual activities. The high point of the cycle takes place in mid-May, when the Halves and the clans show up with their characteristic body paintings, feather ornaments and flute songs. At that time they perform mythical stories and episodes of fights recently confronted by men of the community.

The Rikbaktsa are excellent flute players and the appropriate traditional songs are performed in each ceremony.