In fact, what they call “towns” would count as villages for the reader – a dozen or a few-dozen multi-family or large family homes.

What they call “war” is a minor skirmish over hunting territories, and is considered a ridiculous pastime for youngsters, since an adult person should not throw his life away.

They also have social taboos against multiple siblings and early pregnancies; a third child is considered shameful, and the Dayao's practice of large families is referred to as "incontinence".

The two societies are contrasted through her narrative: the Kesh are peaceable and self-organized, whereas the Condor people of The City are rigid, patriarchal, hierarchical, militaristic, and expansionist.

It includes discussions of village layout and landscaping, family and professional guilds, recipes, medical care, yearly ritual dances, and language.

According to Richard Erlich,[8] "Always Coming Home is a fictional retelling of much in A. L. Kroeber's [Ursula's father] monumental Handbook of the Indians of California."

There are also some elements retrieved from her mother's The Inland Whale (Traditional narratives of Native California), such as the importance of the number nine, and the map of the Na Valley which looks like the Ancient Yurok World.

[9] There are also Taoist themes: the heyiya-if looks like the taijitu, and its hollow center (the "hinge") is like the hub of the wheel as described in the Tao Te Ching[broken anchor].

[10] One of its earliest reviews, by Samuel R. Delany in The New York Times, called it "a slow, rich read... [Le Guin's] most satisfying text among a set of texts that have provided much imaginative pleasure"[11] Dave Langford reviewed Always Coming Home for White Dwarf #82, and stated that "Among many rich strangenesses it also includes a critique of its own improbabilities (as seen through twentieth-century eyes).

[13] A stage version of Always Coming Home was mounted at Naropa University in 1993 (with Le Guin's approval) by Ruth Davis-Fyer.