Mataliwa, a young Wayana from the village of Antecume Pata on the Upper Maroni, tells the story of maluana and of reed arrows, the ancestral traditions and skills that he received from his father. This is the first work to be written in Wayana as well as being the first written work by a Wayana, and first and foremost provides a way for the reader to explore Wayana culture. It is an ethnographic and historical adventure, as well as the reflections of a young man about the future of his culture in the face of modernity. Eliane Camargo, an ethnolinguist who works on the Wayana language, has translated the text into French and supplemented it with ethnographic explanations and a lexicon.