Vladimir Germanovich Bogoraz (1865-1936), best known under the literary pseudonym N. A. Tan, was a Russian revolutionary, writer and anthropologist, especially known for his studies of the Chukchi people in Siberia. He published his first literary works in the early 1880s, but he became famous in 1896-1897 under the literary pseudonym Tan for poems and novels published in various periodicals. In 1899, he published the book Chukchi Tales and in 1900, The Verses. The materials, published by Tan-Bogoraz in periodicals of the Russian Academy of Sciences, such as Specimens of Materials for Studying Chukchi Language and Folklore and Studies of Chukchi Language and Folklore Collected in Kolyma District were a very valuable contribution to the development of linguistics and made the author popular around the world. He fled Russia for political reasons in 1901 and settled in New York City, where he became curator of the American Museum, and produced his great works The Chukchee (1904-09) and Chukchee Mythology (1910). During the 1920s and '30s he did important anthropological work creating and teaching written languages for indigenous Siberian peoples and founded the Institute of the Northern Peoples in Leningrad.

This book documents the L. M. Waugh collection of early 19th century photographs of Yupik people from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, with identifications and commentary by their modern descendants.