Exchange systems subjected to gradual and traumatic changes have been extensively described and analyzed by ethnologists.1 Many analyses of the exchange systems of imperialism and colonization have incorporated the prominent and brilliant "underdevelopment dependency" theory advanced by I. Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank.2 The use of "underdevelopment-dependency" theory has been of greater assistance in understanding inter-exchange phenomena than intra-exchange phenomena, although the two are obviously related. Among the possible reasons for this is the theory's greater emphasis upon the meaning of Western exchange than on that of indigenous exchange. Underdevelopment, as a political economic reality, is a critical factor in any theory of the interaction of exchange systems involving antagonistic meanings. However, the nature and result of this antagonism must be explored historically. Only then can the relation between the exchange system and other social systems be understood. The interaction of Euro-American and traditional Kwagul (the term that has superseded "Kwakiutl" in usage) exchange systems represents an antagonism of exchange meanings and the assimilation and/or destruction of the latter by the former. This analysis of architectural and related myth/ritual exchanges in a precontact Kwagul domicile emphasizes that basic modifications to the domicile, a central institution, cannot be understood without reference to the larger symbolic matrix and correlatively (or more accurately, dialectically) an understanding of the larger symbolic matrix can be enhanced through a consideration of domiciliary meaning. Such meaning constitutes a major (but not exclusive) part of exchange, and changes in exchange meaning affect domiciliary meaning which may be