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The Pirahã conceive time as an alternation between two well-defined seasons, marked by the quantity of water each one possesses: piaiisi (dry season) and piaisai (rainy season). These temporal demarcations combine with forms of socio-spatial organization. This presents us, therefore, with a series of oppositions conceived on the basis of relations between space and time:

Organization of social life on the basis of the two seasons is projected onto space, thereby creating a beach space-time versus an upland space-time.

The Pirahã organize themselves into small residential nuclei, whose number varies according to the season of the year. An average of 5 groupings is found during the dry season and 10 to 13 during the rainy season. These nuclei are concentrated in two distinct areas of the territory, the upper and lower Maici, thus conforming to larger sets that encompass the different residential patterns.

The nuclei making up part of a set maintain relationships governed by spatial contiguity and the bonds of consanguinity and affinity. The two wider sets are separated by a considerable distance and are practically independent, with only sporadic relations between their members. As a consequence, social relations, marriages, exchanges and communal rituals take place in the interior of each set.Within residential nuclei, it tends to be difficult to delineate the domestic group or elementary family as a unit of production and consumption. The couple is the most perceptible unit; by means of this unit, the fragmentation of social life gains cohesion and a form of systemization. Kage is the term used for a relationship between two people of opposite sex, not necessarily implying sexual relations and/or children. The couple’s autonomy is made evident in the fishing and gathering expeditions; the couple remains alone for days or weeks, thereby giving the idea that this is sufficient to constitute a social life. On one hand, the couple produces fragmentation, stimulating an autonomous, non-gregarious lifestyle, marked by a provisional mode of living (constant relocation, fragile shelters, few goods). On the other hand, the couple appears as a fundamental unit, operating as an regulator of sexual relations, weaving, however tortuously, the social fabric.

The set encompassing the residential nuclei of the lower Maici is the more populous. The conformation of these sets and their maintenance over time are due to three factors: ‘territorial inheritance,’ classification of kin as ‘close’ and ‘distant’ and the preference for marrying within a set.

Two distinct forms of classification are created through the notions of consanguinity and affinity: distant kin, the mage, and close kin, the ahaige. Based on these classifications, distinct forms of reciprocity are engendered and, as a consequence, differences that reproduce levels of inclusion and exclusion of the residential nuclei or larger sets.

Matrimonial arrangements are also responsible for the way in which people are organized in spatial terms. Marriages can occur within the same residential nucleus, between nuclei, or even take place between sets.

In Pirahã society it is rare to hear someone call or refer to another person in kinship terminology; kin terms do not serve as an emblem for interpersonal relations. The fact that they are not enunciated does not mean they do not fulfil a classificatory function or that they do not inform the way in which these interpersonal relations take shape.
Four basic terms can be found employed in a primary classification of the universe of kin. These terms, prefixed or suffixed to other words, produce the derived modes for classifying a relationship. The three derived modes are defined by the fixation of elements (such as pronoun, verb and substantives defining sex and age) to the basic term.

The Pirahã kinship system can be included as an example of an ‘elementary structure,’ taking into account the fact that the term ibaisi corresponds to female bilateral cross cousins and is the way in which Pirahã men in practice refer to the women they marry. In the Pirahã case, the term ibaisi covers the genealogical positions of ‘female cross cousins’ (mother’s brother’s daughter and father’s sister’s daughter), and is in fact the only trace, at a terminological level, indicating virtual affinity in this context.

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A man maintains direct relations with his mother, father’s wife, sister, female parallel cousin, female cross cousin, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, wife, daughter and wife’s daughter. Taking into account that men are responsible for fishing and swiddens, the principle productive activities in Pirahã society, they have to be the main providers of food. A man’s relations with his mother, sister and parallel and cross cousins are ahaige in kind, meaning that the man ‘must fish’ for these women. If he is married, this practice also applies to his wife, his daughters and his wife’s daughters. His mother-in-law and sister-in-law have access to the his catches of fish via his wife. A man would never claim that he fishes for his father-in-law or brother-in-law, though these will have access to his fishing catch via the women.

Swiddens are related to men, generally brothers who unite to share the work and together ‘eat from that swidden.’ A man has access to the swidden products of another man through a woman, whereby he is able to eat from the swidden of the husbands of his mother, sister, daughter and wife’s daughter.

Hunting is a seldom practiced activity, though it may be undertaken by men and women. Men hunt with rifles (monkeys, tapirs, white-lipped and collared peccaries, agoutis, capybaras, pacas) while women hunt with the help of dogs (pacas, collared peccaries, agoutis). Gathering is a daily activity among the Pirahã, pursued in both the dry season and rainy season, by men and women.