Works on history of ethnography and ethnology had been written in the image and likeness of the scientific ideals professed at given time. The author regards depicting the beginnings of ethnography in the context of the development of the positivist science to be badly justified and insufficient. At the same time, he doesn’t try to dispute the ties of ethnic studies with science. And contrary to what might be believed, the author doesn’t try to establish that ethnography is a variation of literature. He doesn’t reject the written stories of ethnographers and ethnography, only to proclaim that he will finally present their true history. The author has written his history of ethnography, or to better describe it: “ethnography of ethnography in the 19th century Poland and later periods”, in a form of not completely interconnected “sketches” or “pictures” arranged by the following order: from field research to writing ethnography, from ethnic studies to scientific ethnography.