Himmelheber, an ethnologist and art historian, did field work in Africa and published his dissertation at the University of Tuebingen on the technique and character of non-Western art. On a lecture tour of the U.S. in 1935, he was urged to do a comparable study among American Indians. He decided to travel to Alaska to observe Eskimo carvers at work. Himmelheber lived and studied at Bethel and Nunivak, and this book is the result of that period, first published in 1938. He returned 50 years later and was disappointed to find the entire culture had changed.