Diagrams and text illustrate the steps involved in creating over one hundred string figures while providing information on their origin and cultural background

Distribution of figures; local variations in names and form; method of construction, with diagrams.

This landmark volume will stand for decades as one of the most comprehensive studies of a hunter-gatherer population ever written. In this third and final volume in a series on the early contact period Iñupiaq Eskimos of northwestern Alaska, Burch examines every topic of significance to hunter-gatherer research, ranging from discussions of social relationships and settlement structure to nineteenth-century material culture.