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The social organization of the Munduruku is based on the existence of two exogamic moieties, which are identified as the red moiety and the white moiety. Presently, there are about 38 known clans, which are divided between the two moieties, whence not only kinship relations are derived, but also various meanings in relation to the daily life of the village, the world of nature and the sacred.

Descent is patrilineal, that is, the children inherit the clan identity from the father, although the residence rule is matrilocal, meaning that the recently-married young man goes to live in the house of his wife’s father, to whom he must provide his collaboration in such tasks as making gardens, hunting and all other activities related to the maintenance of the house, including going along with the family in the labor of extraction and harvesting in the rubber and nut-stands. Generally, this period of living with the wife’s father corresponds to the first years of marriage, up until the birth of the second child; after this phase is over, the husband takes care of building a house for his family.

Over the last few years, in several families and villages, among the productive activities, there is work on the gold-prospecting sites, generally in the region of the Kaburuá and Tropas rivers, where they exploit small grottoes. But this need has decreased somewhat as a result of the inclusion of the indigenous elders in the social benefits program of the INSS (government social security). This has produced several changes in the role of provider and source of income among the families. The benefits received generally are shared, with special attention for the grandchildren; most of the time these resources are used to acquire products that otherwise would only be possible to get through labor in rubber extraction and other activities of natural resource exploitation.

Since the clans are exogamous, a person belonging to one moiety can only marry a person belonging to the opposite moiety. Thus, a person of the Boro clan, one of the many clans of the white moiety, can only marry someone from the red moiety, such as Karo. There are a variety of possibilities; among the white moiety, there are the Kirixi, Akai, Saw and others; in the red moiety: Kabá, Tawé, Wako and others. The names of the clans correspond to different elements of nature, such as trees, birds and mammals, which are part of the rich cosmology of the Munduruku, and are often found in the traditional songs and narratives that explain the world and the relations of humans within it.

Marriage is preferably made among cross-cousins, which means that the young man or girl tends to marry the mother’s brother’s daughter or the father’s sister’s son, respectively. From the information that I obtained, marriage among the Munduruku was never the occasion for great rituals, despite there being clear and precise rules on courtship, requesting a spouse, approaching marriage and consolidation of the relation. Separation is permitted. Marriage is a sphere of social relations which is very important to the harmony of society, essential for the good relationship among families, for relations of trade and solidarity and for the political organization of the community.