Some women decide not to have a permanent
companion but to be a sexual partner for several men in the village.
Special places in the forest are reserved for courtship and lovemaking, and group sex is also practiced during some ceremonial events.
According to Kayapo tradition, it is assumed that a girl has had sexual experience before her first period, therefore the Kayapo do not use two different words to distinguish menstrual blood from the blood of the first sexual intercourse. Some Kayapo medicine is able to either stop or restore menstrual flux as well as eliminating the pain it causes. When women have their period they usually cease with their regular activities, spending most of their time instead close to rivers and streams, bathing frequently.
The relationship between the sexual act and pregnancy is not easily defined for the Kayapo.
In fact, they believe that there are contraceptive plants strong enough to avoid pregnancy even if a woman has sex with more than one man. And that there are plants which are effective enough to cause pregnancy without any sexual contact. In this case, it is the plant itself that impregnates the mother.
The Kayapo strongly believe that if a woman's body is dirty, it will be difficult for her to get pregnant. The remedy is described by Kwyra Ka:
The husband should go to the forest to collect and prepare the medicines to be used. Early in the morning, both husband and wife should go to a stream and, there, the man covers the wife's body with mud mixed with the medicines prepared earlier.
The waters of the river are then allowed to wash away the mixture along with all the dirt that is preventing her from becoming pregnant. At night, the husband must watch over her; and whenever he sees her dreaming, he must awake her. If she is dreaming of a child, it means that there is already one inside her.
Contraceptive remedies are known by the
Kayapo as me kra ket dja, the 'no child medicine.' They are a combination of different plants which are used externally and internally, such as the orchid bulb which is crushed and rubbed over the woman's body, as well as swallowed. These remedies not only halt the menstrual cycle for several months, but are so potent that, accordng to some wayanga, it is almost impossible to reverse. If undesired
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Fires of deforestation.