"many of the most important forms of indigenous property were immaterial or incorporeal: magic formulae, stories, medical knowledge, the right to perform a certain dance, or stitch a certain pattern on one's mantle" (160)
what Robert Lowie calls "sacra"
"Quite often, sacra have both material and immaterial elements; as among the Kwakiutl, where ownership of an heirloom wooden feast-dish also conveyed the right to gather berries on a certain stretch of land with which to fill it; which in turn afforded its owner the right to present those berries while singing a certain song at a certain feast, and so forth"