Snow blindness, caused by excessive ultraviolet light, is a painful and debilitating condition, and in fine weather the combination of sun and ice produces a powerful glare against which the eyes of the Inuit traveller or hunter have to be protected. Before the twentieth-century introduction of sunglasses, snow goggles with small slits provided remarkably good vision, especially on the horizontal plane, while deflecting much of the harmful glare. Engraved ivory examples are rare and this one is attributed by Wardwell (1986: no. 137) to the Punuk period. Most nineteenth-century examples are made of wood.

Six small holes around the eyes were for inlay of tiny pebbles; the three around the bridge of the nose have been interpreted as an animal face, possibly a fox. There is a rectangular hole at each end for attaching a headband.

Steven Hooper, 1997

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Vol. 2: Pacific, African and Native North American Art, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 232.