The primary set of material in this collection includes the cover, an introductory page, and 32 photographs from the book The Mokis and their Snake Dance by George Wharton James. The photographs, probably on collodion printing-out paper, are mounted on thin matte board pages. The book pages, now separated, each have three holes on the left margin.

The book was published by Maude and Company, Photographers, Los Angeles, a company owned by the photographer and photographic collector Frederick H. Maude. The publisher's name appears in the lower right corner of each photograph (e.g. F.H. Maude Photo), although the introduction to the book makes it clear that the photographs were by G. Wharton James, who also wrote the introduction. There is a descriptive title in the left lower corner of each picture.

In the introduction, James takes pride in being the first to present "really successful photographs" of the Snake Dance. The photographs were made over a two year period in the Hopi (then sometimes called Moki) village of Oraibi in present day Arizona, about 100 miles north of Gallup and Winslow. In his introduction, James describes the dancers and the ritual in great detail.

In addition, there are photographs by James of Native Americans in Hopi, Pima, and Zuni, photographs by Maude of Native Americans in Acoma, Hava Supi and Zuni, and landscape photographs from Arizona, including the Petrified Forest.