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The members of the clans that comprise Suruí society share the same set of social rules, and have obligations to each other. They are separated, in community life, in two halves, one connected to the forest and the other to the garden, which means that the families change sides in annual cycles, thus, those from the forest goes to the garden and vice-versa. In the garden, for example, there is broad cooperation among the members of this half, beyond the same cooperative attachment that exists among brothers and sisters’ husbands. These, in turn, have the obligation to give mutual assistance to each other. Traditionally, all economic activities are organized around kinship.

Thus each half shares the idea that everyone in that half has commitments to their side, in the various types of possible labor in hunting, gardening, and making of objects, each implying different demands on labor activities.

The opposition between forest and garden organizes the annual calendar of the Paiter. The division between the halves determines various moments of social life, including food production, festivals and rituals.

The forest half is installed during the dry season (May to October) in the metare, which means clearing or thin forest, from 500 to a thousand meters from the village, a place which is prohibited to the other half.

::02

In the Mapimaí, the great festival in which trade takes place between the two halves, the íwai, group from the garden or of food, are the hosts. The íwai should provide makaloba in the festivals, a fermented beverage which is greatly appreciated by the Paiter. Made of yams, manioc, corn or other products that yield flour, makaloba is drunk in quantity by men and women.

It is necessary to know the forest well to know what metare means, a clearing connected to journeys, to the pleasure of the expeditions, unexpected findings, to suddenly abundant food, without it being necessary to wait for the rhythm of the seasons and for the growth of the plants that the garden demands.

While the íwai, the half connected to food, need larger gardens for their offerings and have to dedicate more time to gathering and cooking, those of the metare stay in the forest during the dry season, although they continue to work in the garden as the others do. A set of temporary shelters is built in a semi-circle for each nuclear family in the clearing selected for the metare. The arrival in the camp takes place in the midst of much noise and the men, in a festive mood, make arrows, bows, feather or straw ornaments, headdresses, all the while conversing and joking. The women make ceramic objects, collars, baskets, they spin and weave straps to carry the children, besides cotton belts and collars, all dyed with much red urucum. In the village these objects are also produced, but in the metare the artisans are altogether and working towards the festivals. In the metare there is more time for hunting and fishing and the roasting racks are always full of meat, as though from here it was simpler to go out to the forest.

Alone or in groups, with or without children, small trips are made in search of many kinds of products. It is from the forest that the thatch for baskets and houses comes, as well as the resin for the tembetá lip plug, the bamboo and genipap paint for the arrows, caitetu hide to decorate them, string and wood for the bows; tucumã nuts, armadillo shells, beans and beads, hedgehog hide for the collars and bracelets, etc.

::03

The metare is not only more connected to the forest and to the play of the expeditions, it is also the place where one prepares for and from which the festivals emerge. The festival and work appear to be intertwined, for in the metare crafted objects are produced, which are traded as presents in the festival of the Mapimaí, where the members of one half go over to the side of the other and vice-versa, in the midst of songs, dances and much drinking. This festival, which takes place in the harvest or in planting time, is when the halves exchange presents and food. In this festival one can clearly observe the division between the two halves. Months are necessary to prepare for the festival, which demands immense quantities of chicha, the traditional fermented beverage. This is an occasion of several days of complex ceremonials, when people dress up in collars, headdresses and painted cotton belts. On the day of drinking the festival beverage, an immense procession comes from the woods to the village, in ritual song and theatre. The women of the ceremonial chiefs carry fire torches, which they must not allow to burn out, for this would mean not only that they will soon die, but also that the demiurge, the creator being of humanity, Palop, ("our father") refuses to visit and protect the village.

In this combination between festival and work, the rules of the halves, forest/village, are revealed, and one can thus clarify how the work parties and festivals take place. Among the work rituals, the collective labor parties stand out, all the are, ‘companions’ being called at the end of the phase of felling the forest.

There were times, in 1979 for example, when four collective work parties happened in the same year. When a garden was cleared by a collective labor party, for example, the two halves worked together. In the morning, the whole tribe got together in the house of the owner of the garden in order for the shamans to guide them, with chants. Then, the metare and iwai halves went to the garden, one after the other. While the men got the axes, the women made the fires – each her own -, hung up the hammocks, roasted yams or corn and fed the children. All of a sudden, cries and songs in code advised them that they should move from where they were. There was a rush of people carrying children, baskets, buckets, collars. It was the sudden change, one more tree would fall. They would go higher up into the forest, relight the fires and several times the sequence would be repeated.