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‪Among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon, the fundamental topological opposition between the upstream (katonko) and downstream (kamatikya) of rivers is at the intersection of a double dualism. Upstream and downstream are places associated with a distinction between the masculine and the feminine on the one hand and, on the other, with two opposing types of social otherness. By analysing the mythological repertoire and ritual practices, the article shows that these oppositions confront the Matsigenka with current socio-historical upheavals. Driven by the force of the current, the inexorable descent of individuals downstream is a sign of the cannibalisation of the Matsigenka by the colonists and warlike Amerindians in these lower worlds. This is a disastrous fate which, from a presumably androcentric perspective, is described as the encompassing of the masculine by the feminine. The direction of the flow of the waters is also that of the tragic sense of history that gives rise to the anxious desire to ascend to the higher spaces occupied by the peoples of the Andes and their influential deities. This idealized journey against the current appears to be a way of slowing down the accelerated decomposition of the Matsigenka world, by staying away from the spaces below, dominated by the disturbing strangeness of the present world.‪