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The basic unit of the Tembé social structure is the extensive family, which constitutes a production unit in itself. The family leader attracts young workers and strengthens his group through his daughters and his brothers' daughters, so that he always tries do 'adopt' women whose fathers died. The chief is thus the leader of a family group whose power is assessed by the number of individuals linked to him through kinship and matrimonial obligations, since the son-in-law must work in the 'roças' of his in-laws, with whom he lives, at least until the first child is born.

Within a wider family, the father or the widowed mother hold a position of authority. Since the public and the private spheres are not very differentiated, politics becomes domestic and a woman may lead a group in certain situations. In the 1980s, among the Gurupi Tembé, the most prestigious leader was 'captain' Verônica, and two other villages were made up of extensive families grouped around 'velhas' (old women) and widows.

The villages, whose size can vary considerably, are built on high banks along the river, near the 'roças'. The houses are covered with 'ubim' (a type of palm) and the walls made of narrow trunks of palm trees or of bark, when they exist at all. In the Indigenous post they're made of mud. Each elemental family lives in one house, and the houses that belong to the same extensive family are close to one another. Only the post's village has a large ceremonial house. In the other villages, the main space for collective use are the flourmills.

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