This is the first of three chapters that look at how Ndauness was shaped within societies in this corner of southeast Africa. Several long-standing, interdependent social structures and cultural practices bound Ndau communities together over successive generations and across a vast region. Modes of social and political organization such as households, lineages, totems, clans, villages, and chieftaincies were crucial elements of a Ndau sociocultural milieu. The Ndau regulated life-cycle events such as birth, marriage, and death through practices that reinforced the social order. A hierarchical system ensured, in most cases, that power flowed from paramount chiefs to lesser chiefs and their village headmen. A council of male elders assisted leaders in making decisions at the village level, and patriarchy was reinforced in daily household life where male authority was evident. The Ndau responded to stresses in their social world by relying on the judgment of their leaders and established “safety nets” designed to deal with problems such as troubled marriages and food shortages. People turned to their own granaries or the more abundant food reserves of chiefs, for instance, in times of drought or locust plagues. The Ndau consciously initiated changes in their social structures and cultural practices in response to shifts in the political and economic landscape.