Review by Edward Hummel:
Fighting with Property is the intriguing title of a small book that attempts to summarize the information in the literature on the potlatch of the Kwakiutl and analyze its place in their pattern of life. While the author relies on ethnological accounts to a large degree, the approach is partially a historical one, for the ethnography is supplemented with the early travel accounts as well as the reports of government officials. Through the dating of this supplementary materials, the history of the Kwakiutl can be traced for the period from 1792, when Vancouver found them, to about 1940.