28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



fishing cabins on the Itaho in 1909 (Robson, 1910, photograph on 

 p. 171). 



SETTLEMENTS IN THE DRY BAY AREA 



Our information about former settlements in the Dry Bay area is 

 unsatisfactory, owing in part to the shifting stream channels which 

 render available maps inaccurate or confusing to our infonnants and 

 in part to the great difficulties of travel encountered by Riddell and 

 Lane in 1953. 



Just west of Dry Bay, the Akwe and Ustay (Akse) Rivers have a 

 common mouth. The Akwe or western stream drains the lake at 

 the foot of Chamberlain Glacier and also ponds and swamps near the 

 Italio River. The Ustay (Us-tay of Moser, and Akse of Tebenkov) 

 is formed of two tributaries, the one draining the lake at the foot of 

 Rodman Glacier to the west, and the Tanis, draining Tanis Lake to 

 the east. Near the confluence of these two branches, the Ustay puts 

 out distributaries draining eastward and southeastward into Dry 

 Bay: Gines ("William") Creek to the north, and farther down the 

 Ustay, the Kakanhini ("Muddy") Creek and the much smaller 

 Stuhinuk ("Stickleback," or "Cannery Creek"), both of which enter 

 Dry Bay near the mouth of the Alsek. 



According to Tebenkov's map (1852, map vii; cf. also Davidson, 

 1904, map vi), there were villages on both the Akwe and "Akse" Rivers, 

 designated, respectively as "Nearer" and "Farther Village to the Mili- 

 tary Post" (at Yakutat). The Coast Pilot of 1869 (Davidson, 1869, p. 

 136), relying on Russian sources, reports in roughly this locality 

 (59°14' N., 138 °45' W.) the common mouth of two streams, each 

 with a village on it, some 6 to 12 miles (by winding channel?) from 

 their confluence. 



26. The westernmost of these two villages was probably the 

 principal town of the Tl'uknaxAdi, called Gusex. This was reported 

 to have been on the Akwe River, apparently at the confluence of the 

 main or northern with the western branch. Tebenkov's "Nearer 

 Village" is west of the river and north of a large slough. According 

 to the Coast Pilot of 1883 (Dall and Baker, 1883, p. 206), about 

 1870 (or earfier?), one of the several villages between Yakutat and Dry 

 Bay was visited by the captain of a whaler anchored at Yakutat. 

 He reported this as "the largest, finest and most clean Indian village 

 he had seen in all his experience on the coast. The population was 

 large, the houses well built, solid, and adorned with paintings and 

 carvings of wood, and expressly adapted for defense." It was per- 

 manently inhabited, parties leaving to trade or to hunt seals in 

 Disenchantment Bay. The description would fit what was toldfof 

 Gusex. Unfortunately, the chart (ibid., opp. p. 204) shows a village 



