The Author brings frequent illustration from his anthropology in Tikopia, however, his investigation of Symbolic Usage is applicable humans generally. He clearly addresses the academic controversies among anthropologies and develops a theory of Symbols. For this purpose, he analyses meaning-making as a process, and analytically distinguishes Private Symbols and Public Reactions.

In the second half of the book, he analyses the Symbolism of food, hair, the body in greeting and parting, national flags, and giving and getting. In the meaning-making process, individuals behave as persons but within collectives. He says: "Unlike some of my colleagues, I argue that important problems of interpretation and clues to understanding lie in analysis of such intricate conjunction between the individual and the collective symbolization." [403] Most of his examples bear on issues of status. Life in society can be grasped "only in symbolic forms". For actions to be effective, socially viable and personally meaningful, the symbolic forms must be understood.

Broadly speaking, food exchanges symbolize basic social relationships; mode of wearing hair makes a statement about personality and attitude toward authority; flag display symbolizes communal political identity; greeting patterns expose views of relative social position.

Anthropologists debate over why humans felt constrained to invent symbols with religious attributes such as "unobservabless", omnipresence, or spiritual sanctity. Firth clearly receives "belief" data, including Christianity, Islam, and other "truths", as worthy of investigation, using description, sorting (ordering), and even logical analysis of implications. [406] He exemplifies his approach with a dive into the question of the "ethnicity of Jesus", challenging the assumption by many Christians and Moslems, that a literal, or metaphoric, or symbolic Jesus, could be both colored and real. Firth argues that the highest emotional loading is shared "with a real participation in the thing symbolized". [411] ( )