de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 75 



to the northernmost and most civilized peoples of the Northwest 

 Coast" (Birkct-Smith and do Lagmia, 1938, p. 367). Such arrange- 

 ments were lacking among the Nootka and southern Kwakiutl, for 

 example (Drucker, 1950, Trait 314), as well as among completely 

 marginal groups lilce the Yurok and Karok of northwestern Cali- 

 fornia (Ki-oeber, 1925, pp. 78 ff., pis. 9-11). In the area of shed-type 

 houses the construction was so different as to prevent comparison 

 with the types mider discussion. 



Storage houses were not very common on the Northwest Coast, 

 because the huge lineage dwellings offered ample room for the ac- 

 commodation of supplies. The Chilkat, for example, owe their name 

 (tcilqat) to their custom of erecting aboveground fish caches like those 

 characteristic of the interior (Ki'ause, 1956, pp. 90 f., note 5). No 

 information was obtained from the Copper River Eyak about any 

 form other than temporary platform caches (Birket-Smith and de 

 Laguna, 1938, pp. 44 f.). On the other hand, Drucker (1950, Trait 

 365, p. 252) reports of the Chilkat: "The type of storehouse for roots, 

 berries, etc., was a semisubterranean structure, rectangular with 

 pole walls, gabled roof covered with poles, bark, and earth, rather 

 than a simple pit, as were other caches of this type." Subterranean 

 earth-covered caches (ibid.. Trait 370, p. 252) were used by the 

 northern Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Tsimshian, Haida, Cape Fox, and 

 Chilkat Tlingit, but not farther south. "Boxes of olachen grease, 

 berries, etc., to which repeated changes of temperature would be in- 

 jurious, were kept in pit caches, well covered with earth." Clover 

 and cinquefoil roots were thus stored by the Kwakiutl proper. We 

 are not certain, however, how similar these pit caches may have 

 been to the Yakutat storage houses and caches. In recent years, 

 root cellars for storing potatoes were observed at a number of sum- 

 mer camps near Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 45, 51, 54), Those 

 stiU standing were rather substantial log structures built over a pit 

 and covered with earth. 



Whereas salmon roe or fish heads were frequently stored in pits 

 Imed with bark or leaves by the Gitksan, Haida, Tlingit, Nootka, 

 Copper River Eyak, Tena, and Tanaina (Drucker, 1950, Trait 114, 

 p. 241; Bu-ket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 96, 445), this is not 

 so much a method of storage as of preparation through rotting or 

 fermentation, and it does not require more than an ordinary pit. 



The nearest archeological parallels to the Knight Island Storage 

 House seem to be the four rectangular semisubterranean fish storage 

 pits at the early historic site of Pedro Bay on Lake Iliamna. One 

 of these when excavated measured 5 by 5 feet and was 4 feet deep 

 (Townsend and Townsend, 1961, p. 32). The "cellar" visited by 

 Steller on Kayak Island in 1741 may have been a large Chugach 



