In the course of his life he was an ornithologist, explorer, journalist, broadcaster, soldier, guerrilla, ethnologist, museum curator, archaeologist, documentarian, film-maker, conservationist, and writer.
Many ledger artists worked with ethnologists, by documenting shield and tipi designs, ethnobotanical information, winter counts, dance customs and regalia, and other cultural information.
These 19th-century ethnologists used these principles primarily to explain differences in religious beliefs and kinship terminologies among various societies.
During this period, the region became a major focus of historians, linguists and ethnologists, interested in its archaic customs, language and common law.
