20 BUREAU OF AliIERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



count the complete obliteration of a village near the mouth of the bay, 

 from which the only survivors were the men who had been out hunting 

 sea otters and a lone woman who had been picking berries on the hills 

 (Williams, 1952, p. 137). Possibly it was this village, and not that on 

 the Akwe near Dry Bay, which our informants should have associated 

 with the Lituya Bay drownings, since the mourning song commemorat- 

 ing the tragedy is supposed to have been composed by a woman who 

 actually saw her relatives drown. Probably the Akwe village, 

 occupied by the same or related sibs, was deserted about the same time, 

 leading to an association of the two events. Although there had been 

 no great waves in the bay for some time prior to 1786, in the opinion 

 of Miller (1960, p. 56), who studied these phenomena, the Tlingit 

 were well acquainted with the treacherous character of the bay, as 

 evidenced by the traditions recorded by Emmons (1911). The dangers 

 they feared were probably something more than ordinary storms or 

 tide rips at the entrance. 



The whole southern part of Alaska is subject to seismic activity, 

 and there were probably other earth movements which may have 

 affected former village sites, but of which we have no direct or clear 

 evidence. 



SETTLEMENTS ON YAKUTAT BAY 



A number of former villages or camps within the Yakutat Bay area 

 were reported by our informants, but we were able to investigate only 

 a few of these sites. The available information about them is sum- 

 marized below. Unfortunately the early explorers are not very 

 definite or specific about the location or nature of the native habita- 

 tions they saw. Probably Colnett (MS., 1788) was correct when he 

 estimated that the 200 natives he met at "Foggy Harbour," or Port 

 Mulgrave, had their homes to the southeast and came to Yakutat 

 Bay only to hunt, fish, or trade. He beUeved the huts he saw were 

 only temporary summer dwellings. It is to be noted also that Beres- 

 ford with Dixon in 1787 (1789, p. 169) noted "several huts scattered 

 here and there in various parts of the sound." Malaspina in 1791 

 seems to have found a village on or near Port Mulgrave, that is 

 Khantaak Island, but does not indicate its location on his chart 

 (1802; 1885, p. 156), although the latter shows the cemetery inside 

 Ankau Creek, on the north shore, near the site of the present Alaska 

 Native Brotherhood Cemetery. 



1. On Ankau Creek, in the vicinity of the cemetery mentioned 

 above, there was evidently a village, according to Dixon's chart of 

 1787. The grave monuments which he and Malaspina describe 

 evidently stood nearby. Vancouver in 1794 (1801, vol. 5, p. 396) 

 also noted a village about 2 miles "within cape Phipps." This site 



