Inuit snow goggles carved from a single block of red cedar wood. Size: 5" x 2".
One of Christopher Oberg's ethnographic art reproductions.
The Vancouver Maritime Musuem has a nice photo of an original pair, and this explanation of their function:
The intense sunlight of the springtime in the Arctic, when reflected from the snow-covered ground causes a temporary condition called snow blindness. To prevent this, the Inuit made snow goggles. These were fashioned to fit the contours of the face snugly to allow light to enter only through narrow viewing slits that restricted the field of vision and reduced the amount of light that reached the optic nerve. The area behind each eye slit was hollowed out to prevent eye contact and blackened to eliminate glare ... The width of the slits governs the width of lateral vision, and the narrower the slit, the more the acuity of vision. This simple but ingenious invention is superior to modern high-tech sunglasses.
