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The villages have no definite format such as those of other peoples of the same linguistic branch, as is the case of the Jê family, who build circular villages that are a reflection of their social organization. Currently there are some 33 villages in the Rikbaktsa’s contiguous areas (the Erikbaktsa and Japuíra Indigenous Lands), located along the Juruena, Sangue and Arinos rivers, which form the limits of their territory – it is a strategy for keeping guard on their lands and for maximizing the use of their natural resources. In 1998, a new village was built in the recently demarcated Escondido Indigenous Land, where they plan to build others in order to ensure its occupation.

The Rikbaktsa divide the beings of the universe in two series, opposed but also complementary to each other. Such division, although used for other beings as well, operates more extensively in the Rikbaktsa society and, configured in the kinship system, provides the most encompassing classifying principle through which they organize their social life. The Rikbaktsa society is divided in exogamous Halves, one associated with the yellow macaw (Makwaratsa) and the other to the big-headed macaw – in reality, a variety of the red macaw – (Hazobtisa), each one of them subdivided into various clans, which in turn are associated with animals and plants.

Marriages are between persons of different Halves. In the 1970s there were marriages between members of the same Half – even though they are usually considered incestuous –, in part due to the high mortality post-contact, in part because these unions were encouraged by the Jesuits in their efforts to “civilize” the Rikbaktsa. Currently the traditional precepts are rigorously followed. Lineages are patrilineal, based on the belief that a child is generated by the father and always looks like him and never like his/her mother. In addition, the Rikbaktsa seem to believe that any man who copulates with a pregnant woman participates in the paternity. They say that the son takes his father’s place, is his continuation. The ties between father and child go beyond the moment of generation, and are considered a vital link (even more so than social ties) that is maintained all life long. The preferred marriage is between crossed cousins, and the rule of residence is uxorilocal, that is, the groom moves into his in-law’s house. The general norm is monogamy, but poliginy is allowed and occasionally practiced. Wedding ceremonies are very simple. Once the agreement between the families of the couple – and between the bride and the groom – is made, the village leader removes the groom’s hammock from his house (or from the men’s house) and ties it next to the bride’s, on her father’s house. The couple lives in the wife’s father’s house during the next few years, and moves away only after the family has become larger – then the family moves close to the husband’s married brothers’ houses. Divorce is common, especially during the first years of marriage, and is easily obtained by any of the partners.

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The position a person occupies in the Rikbaktsa society is defined by the age group, sex, clan and Half. Gender places him/her in either side of the labor division and defines the chores he/she will perform along his/her life. This trajectory – and the social roles that will be assumed in it – is made along with other persons of the same sex and age group, who undergo together the same rituals that mark their entry into adult life. His/her belonging to a clan of a determined kinship Half, on the other hand, defines his/her marriage possibilities, his/her role and his/her obligations in the collective ritual celebrations, which are organized on the basis of the reciprocity of rights and obligations that each Half has via-a-vis the other. On the other hand, as they grow older, people are entitled to assume increasingly central positions in the organization of social life, until old age comes and place them in the highest level of respectability.

Each clan has a fixed stock of names, established in an immemorial past, which were used by all past generations and are continuously used by the living ones. There are children names and adult names. Along his/her life, a person may have three or four names; each time it changes, the former name is apt to be given to someone else.

The members of the father’s clan suggest the names, but the final decision regarding its adequacy belongs to the old men, not all of them of the same clan (but everyone of the same age group). They meet before the ceremony that takes place along with the clearing of the roças for planting and decide who is going to get a new name (both children and adults) and which one it shall be. During the ceremony, in the evening chant, the “owner of the ceremony” announces the names and the individuals who got them.

A child may get the “child name” that his father, grandfather or older brother has already used. Even though it is more common be given names whose last users have died at a very old age after a full life, a man can get a name that has already been used by his father, grandfather or another clan member even if he is still alive.

Except in the case of small children, no one is called by his/her real name. The Rikbaktsa call each other by kinship terms, Christian names, nicknames or referring to a known relationship established by a third person.

A person’s real name is known only by close relatives and allies – those who take part in the same ceremony of clearing fields – and is usually unknown to people with whom the person maintains distant relations. For enemies it is a secret. But even those who do know the name do not say it in public – to expose someone’s name in such a way is considered rude, an invasion of privacy. The name of a person who is not present cannot be mentioned either. Only the beholder may reveal it, if he/she feels confident to do so. The names of people whose death is recent are not usually pronounced either; the dead individual is referred to as “the deceased” and by his/her kinship relation with a third person.