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Among the Bororo the political unit is the village (Boe Ewa), formed by a group of houses built on a circle, with the men's house (Baito) at the center. West of the Baito is the ceremonial court, called Bororo, where the society's most important ceremonies are held. Even in the villages where the houses are disposed in a linear way because of the influence of missionaries or of government agents, the village circularity is considered the ideal representation of the social space and of the cosmological universe.

In the complex Bororo social organization individuals are classified according to their clan, their lineage and their residential group. Descent among the bororo is matrilineal; thus the newborn receives a name that will identify him/her to his/her mother's clan. However, although that is the ideal norm of conduct, in practice this may be manipulated in order to satisfy other interests (Novaes, 1986).

In the spatial distribution of the houses around the village circle each clan occupies a specific place. The village is divided into two exogamic halves - Exerae and Tugarége -, each of them subdivided into four main clans, which are composed of several lineages. There is a hierarchy among lineages manifested in categories such as larger/smaller, more important/less important/ older brother/younger brother. People who belong to the same clan but to hierarchically different lineages are not supposed to live in the same house.

In the traditional political structure, three powers can be identified: the Boe eimejera, who is the chief of war, of the village and of the ceremonial; the Bári, who is the shaman of the spirits and of nature; and the Aroe Etawarare, who is the shaman of the souls of the dead. Nowadays there is also the Bae eimejera, who is the chief of whites, that is, the chief who does the interface with the whites.

Here is a classic model of a Bororo village, with the divisions into two exogamous and clan halves, with each clan's great heroes and chiefs (Adaptation: Viertler,1978).

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Usually two or three nuclear families live in each village house. Residential groups are uxorilocal, a rule according to which a man who gets married is supposed to move into his wife's house but continues to be a member of his old lineage. For that reason, in one given house there can live people from different social categories, clans and lineages. Marriage among the Bororo is rather unstable and there is a high rate of separations, so a man may live in several houses along his life.

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In general, the ties of an individual with his original group are stronger than those with his wife's group, despite the fact that he has a more intense contact with the latter's members and owes them obligations such as hunting and fishing for them, working on his father-in-law's field and making ornaments for his wife's brother. But such activities, claims Novaes, only mark physically his presence in the group. Regarding his original group, however, the man is in charge of taking care of his sisters' future, and it is through them that he projects himself socially. It is to his sisters' children - his iwagedu - and not to his own that a man passes on his names and the ritual rules associated with them. Besides, even though he lives away from home, the man has the responsibility for the cultural heritage of his group of origin and represents it in the ritual activities: chanting, dancing and manufacturing of ornaments, as well as specific ritual services. Regarding his own children, he is in charge of their physical survival, but it is the responsibility of his brother-in-law, his wife's brother, their cultural formation.

In spite of dividing the same roof, the nuclear families that make up a domestic group establish internal divisions among them. The space for each family is located on the house's extremities, never in the center. In their area they keep all their belongings, eat, sleep and receive their visitors.

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The center of the house is not exclusive of any of the families and is the place where the visitors considered important are received and where rituals are held. It is the space that represents that social unit (clan or lineage) which certain members of the nuclear families are part of. It is also in the center of the house that the fire is placed for cooking, keeping mosquitoes away or simply heating the air at night (Novaes, 1986).

During the day doors and windows are kept permanently open so as to control what is going on in the village. In the rituals in which women cannot participate doors and windows are closed. The same happens during mourning, because mourners keep themselves away from social life and cannot look at the village center. During the funeral the mourners' house is kept empty, and afterwards it should be destroyed. For those reasons Sylvia Caiuby Novaes recognized in the bororo house a space for the contact between the domestic and the political-juridical realms.

Women spend more time inside the house, the place where their tasks, such as cooking and the manufacture of straw utensils, are performed. In Novaes words, "it is also in the baatada (which encompasses the circle of houses in the village outskirts) that appear the great gossips, activity in which the Bororo women seem to outdo women of any other ethnic group (men are expert gossip as well, but in their mouths gossip seems to acquire a serious tone). The house is also the center of daily sociability, and women are constantly visiting and exchanging favors with each other, even though they live just a short distance away" (1986:100).