28o  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
house  originated  on  the  Northwest  Coast  in  the  fact  that  certain  other 
features  of  Eskimo  culture  are  known  to  have  emanated  from  that 
region.  However,  it  now  appears  as  highly  probable  that  such  in- 
fluences have  been  exerted  only  in  relatively  recent  times ;  at  any  rate 
in  the  oldest  culture  layers  that  have  been  revealed  archeologically  in 
the  north  there  are  no  traces  of  labrets,  masks,  or  other  characteristic 
elements  of  Northwest  Coast  culture. 
The  underground  houses  from  southern  British  Columbia  south- 
ward, both  those  with  a  roof  entrance  and  those  with  an  entrance 
passage,  are  no  doubt  related  to  the  Asiatic  houses  described  above, 
as  well  as  to  the  Aleutian  and  Eskimo  houses,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Point  Barrow  type.  The  intrusion  of  the  Northwest  Coast  plank 
house  renders  more  difficult  the  problem  of  determining  the  relative 
ages  and  probable  paths  of  diffusion  of  the  two  forms  of  entrance. 
The  roof  entrance  through  the  smoke  hole  is  much  more  widely  dis- 
tributed in  America  than  in  Asia,  being  found  in  the  Pueblo  region 
of  the  Southwest,  from  California  to  southern  British  Columbia,  and 
then  again  in  the  Aleutian  Islands;  in  Asia  it  is  found  only  among 
the  Kamchadal  and  Koryak,  although  recent  excavations  tend  to  show 
that  it  was  known  in  China  during  the  Neolithic  (Bishop,  1933,  p. 
393;  1935,  p.  44).  Jochelson  (1907,  pp.  125,  126)  and  Waterman 
(1921,  p.  33)  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  references  to  houses  with 
a  roof  entrance  occur  in  the  mythology  of  the  Quinault,  Bella  Coola, 
and  Tsimshian,  from  which  it  would  appear  that  among  these  tribes 
also  it  had  been  in  use  at  an  earlier  period ;  and  as  mentioned  above, 
the  same  may  have  been  true  of  the  Gilyak.  Assuming  a  relationship 
between  the  Asiatic  and  American  examples,  the  Aleutian  Islands  must 
have  formed  the  connecting  link,  and  although  it  would  be  hazardous 
to  decide  just  where  this  feature  originated,  the  known  distribution 
would  seem  to  point  to  its  diffusion  into  Kamchatka  by  way  of  the 
Aleutian  chain  rather  than  from  the  opposite  direction.  For  although 
the  roof  entrance,  used  alone,  has  a  wide  and  sporadic  distribution 
in  America,  it  is  only  in  Kamchatka,  the  Asiatic  coast  nearest  the 
Aleutians,  that  we  find  this  to  be  the  only  form  of  entrance  used  by 
the  men;  the  only  other  modern  Asiatic  house  with  a  roof  entrance, 
that  of  the  Koryak,  conforms  more  to  the  usual  Asiatic  pattern  in 
that  it  possesses  also  a  passage  entrance  which  in  summer  is  used  by 
men,  women,  and  children  alike. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  passage  entrance  is  even  more  widely  dis- 
tributed in  America  (Southeast,  Plains,  Plateau,  California,  Prehis- 
toric Pueblo)  and  although  there  is  a  great  gap  along  the  Northwest 
Coast,  southern  Alaska,  and  the  Aleutians,  it  appears  again  at  Bristol 
