The Social Organization of the Gilyak

Shternberg's classic study was the last ethnography of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, studying the Amerindian peoples of the Russian and American Pacific rims.

Shternberg emphasized the complex matrilineal cross-cousin marriage among the Gilyaks, but others used his work for different ends, including the rising Soviet social engineers who saw in it everything that needed to be eradicated from Gilyak life.

Grant (anthropology, Swarthmore U.), has added a foreword reviewing Shternberg's career and an afterword in which he details his own experiences among the Gilyaks in 1995.