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What types of information besides photographs appeared in The North American Indian?

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Curtis, Edward S. — Edward S. Curtis Self-portrait, photogravure by Edward S. Curtis, 1899; in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Beyond his extensive collection of photographs, The North American Indian served as a massive repository of ethnographic information. The publication included a wide range of written content, systematically organized according to the anthropological standards of the time, such as:

Outlines of social organization1
Myths and traditional stories1
Language vocabularies1
(Auto)biographies of tribal leaders1

While Edward S. Curtis was the driving force behind the project, he relied on a team of experts to produce the bulk of this research. The text was primarily written by ethnologists William E. Myers and Stewart C. Eastwood, with editorial oversight from Frederick Webb Hodge of the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology and contributions from various academics. The project also benefited from the insights of Native American assistants and informants, who acted as cultural brokers to help document these traditions.1