“I cant get any ceder Bark yet for the Indians would not sell them yet for [they] are useing them yet in [their] winter Dance. As soon as [they’re] Done With the Dance and use of the ceder Bark then [they] will sell it for Half the Price.”
—George Hunt to Franz Boas, 20 March 1895

Franz Boas spent 1895 processing his Chicago and Fort Rupert fieldnotes, designing life groups for museums in New York and Washington, DC, and preparing his 1897 book manuscript. Meanwhile, George Hunt transcribed songs and stories, documented genealogies, and collected masks and cedar-bark regalia that had been worn in the previous year’s Winter Ceremonial, as owners would not sell items that were in active use. In 1896, Hunt traveled to neighboring villages in order to clarify Boas’s descriptions of the 1894 songs and dances. Together, the two men crafted the book and its illustrations from multiple sources.