The field research for this book was carried out in Colombia between September 1968 and December 1970. Twenty-two months of this time was spent in the field. I took part in a joint project in which Stephen Hugh-Jones and I were to study a group of Tukanoan Indians and Peter Silverwood-Cope was to study a group of semi-nomadic Makú. By careful choice of field location, we hoped to report on each side of the symbiotic relationship between specific groups of Tukanoans and Makú. However, as is the way with fieldwork projects, our plans had to be modified as soon as we had made our first exploratory trip down the Pirá-paraná. We had chosen this river because most of the Tukanoan population were still living in traditional longhouses, but it was not until we got there that we learnt that it was barely ever visited by Makú and that there were no ongoing Makú–Tukanoan exchanges. Peter Silverwood-Cope left to study the Makú on the Makú-paraná, a tributary of the Papurí (see map 1 below and Silverwood-Cope 1972). Although we could not follow our original plan, various ideas that the Pirá-paraná Indians hold about the Makú are presented here.

Throughout our stay in the Pirá-paraná, we had to weigh up the advantages of making close ties with a single community against the disadvantages of having little comparative data and relying on a mere handful of adult informants. We decided in favour of close ties with a single community.