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Traditionally, the Aparai and Wayana do not recognize a form of political organization and/or leadership that transcends the limits of the village. Each village is, in principle, politically autonomous, having its own chief, called pata esemy ('chief of the village'), typatakemy ('the very chief of the village') or even by the term tuisa (or tamuxi in Wayana). However, in certain contexts, it is possible that a leader comes to perform an outstanding role in the making of decisions that mobilize Aparai and Wayana society as a whole (understood, here, as the group of villages and local groups in Brazilian territory). When that occurs, the influence of this leader transcends the limits of his village and extends to his local group (the set of villages which are genealogically and/or geographically close) and, at times, to other more distant villages.

The authority of the chief of the village over its members is restricted, depending on the social distances among these members, the prestige that he gains and his capacity for persuasion. Generally speaking, it is up to the village chief to coordinate community activities (such as the cleaning of the plaza) and activities that go beyond the limits of the village, as for example, in questions of external politics, whether intra- or interethnic(festivals, rituals, meetings, etc.). In larger-sized villages, which encompass more than a single domestic group, political space is open for those men who ‘lead’ their domestic group and end up exercising some influence on political decisions in the village. Besides that, certain activities which take place through cooperation among individuals demand the formation of a temporary leadership in order to make things happen. For example, the festivals and the rendering of services in the form of a ‘collective work party’ (cleaning gardens, making canoes), which requires the hiring of several employees or, as they say, muruku. In both cases, there is a ‘chief’ who organizes the respective activity, called aporesemy. This word shares the same lexical root, emy, that denotes a hierarchically superior position of ownership and authority, that is, "chief" and "owner", simultaneously – employed also in the case of the 'village chief', pata esemy or typatakemy.

The reciprocal position to that of the village chief is that of his subordinates and co-residents, generically designated by the word -poetory. This is an ‘institution-relation’ widespread among Karib language-speakers of the Guianas, which is understood and characterized in distinct ways by each group. For many groups, as among the Aparai and Wayana, this relation has a strong asymmetric connotation, referring to positions that are considered hierarchically inferior, like those of son-in-law (daughter’s husband), 'employee', 'servant', 'prisoner' or 'slave'(Rivière, 1969:81).

Generally speaking, the chief of the village corresponds to a ‘father-father-in-law’ who joins around his figure his single sons and daughters, married daughters, daughters’ husbands and grandchildren and, at times, married sons and their wives. Besides these, he can also join around him his brother (s), brothers-in-law (sister’s husband), among others. The relation father-in-law/son-in-law involves a series of obligations of the son-in-law to the father-in-law as soon as the alliance is established, such as the cutting of a garden, the building of a house, the making of a canoe. Besides that, during his lifetime, the son-in-law must render services to his father-in-law whenever he is asked and offer him presents through his wife. In a way analogous to what occurs between spouses, industrialized goods have co-existed with “traditional “ obligations and even have “substituted” them. Yet, these forms of obligation do not necessarily exclude each other, and can be found associated in accordance with the power of the particular father-in-law.

Among the criteria used to judge the worth of a future son-in-law, as well as the pertinence or not of the marriage, is – besides the obvious determining factors of genealogical (terminological ) distance and geographical distance – whether or not he is a “worker”. That is, the readiness and aptitude of the future son-in-law to perform the services mentioned above and, above all, his capacity to acquire industrialized goods for his wife, father-in-law and mother-in-law, by producing and commercializing artwork, rendering services to the FUNAI or working on nearby prospecting sites. The intensity of these obligations seems to vary according to the genealogical and /or geographical nearness/distance between the father-in-law and son-in-law. Thus, when the son-in-law is a co-resident, he has more obligations and capacity to comply with these obligations, than someone residing in another village. On the other hand, if there exists some genealogical link or tie of affinity between the families of the father-in-law and son-in-law, the obligations also tend to be minimized.

The relation between father-in-law and son-in-law extends to the rest of the extended family, serving as a hyperbolic model of asymmetric relation and of power. Thanks to this relation, domestic groups stay together and local groups take shape.

However, although ideally, as a counterpart of the services rendered by the members of a village, its chief has the obligation to organize festivals, to be a good host and, above all, to divide and redistribute goods (these values are frequently mentioned when criticizing present-day leaders), the father-in-law does not seem to have any obligation to his son-in-law.

Leadership and indigenous organization

As has been said, among the Aparai and Wayana, there is traditionally no form of leadership that transcends the limits of the village and, in the last analysis, the local group. However, after 1973, with the beginning of the assistance activities by the FAB and the FUNAI, there emerged the need to create a broader leadership, a representative of all the villages, who could serve as an interlocutor between indigenous society and the government and non-indigenous society. Progressively, the decisions that affect the Aparai and Wayana in general came to depend on the consent of this single leader, sharpening and producing tensions among village chiefs, villages and families. This model, although implanted more than 30 years ago, still has a great deal of difficulty in co-existing with the form of traditional power. One can verify an enormous dissatisfaction on the part of various individuals (leaders or not), who accuse the general leadership of benefiting only his kin and close allies.

In 1996, through a political maneuver which articulated the interests of a specific Aparai family and the interests of the administration of the local FUNAI, the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the Tumucumaque (APITU) was created. In principle, this association represents the indigenous groups that inhabit the Indigenous Park of the Tumucumaque and the East Paru River Indigenous Land: Aparai, Wayana, Tiriyó and Kaxuyana, among others. However, most people do not know how the APITU functions, that it is ‘controlled’ and disputed by a minority which is more familiar with the codes of the surrounding society, such as new forms of organization, representation, and political activities.

Finally, one notes that the authority of the president of the indigenous association in no way supercedes that of the village chiefs. On the contrary, the president of the association depends to a certain extent on the consent of several more influential village chiefs to make several decisions.