The book consists of twenty-two chapters divided into six distinct sections. General summaries of each section are included below.
- Introduction: Malinowski's famous general statement of the aims of ethnography
- Chapters I-III: setting the scene and sketching the structure; from the broad survey of Kula District (I) to intensive fieldwork (II-III); "native" life (II), structural overview of the kula (III)
- Chapters IV-XVI: the kula by example; "a consecutive narrative" from the earliest preparations of canoe-building through extended voyaging from Sinaketa to Dobu and back
- Chapters XVII-XVIII: on magic and language
- Chapters XIX-XXI: three permutations of basic kula pattern: the inland kula (XIX), a Kiriwina-Kitava expedition (XX), and "the remaining branches and offshoots of the kula" (XXI)
- Chapter XXII: a summary statement of "the meaning of the kula"