The communication reviews aspects of four decades of fieldwork with the Javae ́ and the Karaja peoples of Central Brazil in order to offer methodological and epistemological reflections on the relatively new endeavour which has been termed as experimental fieldwork. It is our objective to call the attention of present and future practioners of exper- imental fieldwork in non-W.E.I.R.D. populations (not Western, educated, industrialized, rich and demo- cratic) to the importance of making epistemological and methodological adjustments to face the challenges involved in ‘‘taking the lab to the field’’