94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



The planing adz blades fall into two groups on the basis of size. 

 The five larger (pi. 6, a, c, d,j, i) are about 9 to 16 cm. long, 5.6 to 8 

 cm. wide, and about 1.7 to 2.3 cm. thick. One of these (pi. 6, i) 

 is narrowed at the butt on one edge as if it might have been hafted 

 like an ax. A sixth blade (pi. 6, g) is 17.4 cm. long, but as narrow 

 as the smaller specimens, measuring only 3.2 cm. in width, and may 

 have been intended for a chisel. 



There are seven smaller blades (pi. 6, h, e), some of which may be 

 fragmentary or unfinished, and which may have been used for scrapers 

 rather than for adzes. They range in length from about 6 to 8.3 cm., 

 in width from 3.2 to 5.1 cm., and in thickness from 0.6 to 2 cm. 



The provenience of these blades is: one large from Diyaguna'st; 

 three large from Old Town III, including the long slender specimen; 

 two large and one small from Old Town II; six small from Old Town I, 



In addition, there are seven large specimens that appear to be 

 unfinished (pi. 6, h, j). They range in length from 11.6 to 17.6 cm., 

 and several are probably reshaped fragments of splitting adzes. One 

 is from Old Town III, one from Old Town II, and five from Old 

 Town I. 



There is little to distinguish the Yakutat planing adz blades from 

 those of the Eskimo and the Indians of the Northwest Coast and the 

 interior. They correspond to types described by Drucker (1943, 

 pp. 46 f., 121), although he does not recognize as a special form those 

 that taper toward the cutting edge. 



Of more interest than the form of the planing adz blade is the 

 relative frequency of this type as compared to the splitting adz. 

 Although our samples are small, they suggest that the planing adz 

 lost in popularity at Old Town as the splitting adz became more 

 common. The same trend is more clearly apparent on Prince WUliam 

 Sound, while at the early historic Tlingit site of Daxatkanada in the 

 Angoon area, the planing adz is poorly represented in comparison 

 to the splitting adz (de Laguna, 1956, p. 118; 1960, pp. 99-101). 



There is no evidence that the Yakutat people used bone or antler 

 heads for hafting the smaller adz blades, and such heads are not 

 encountered in archeological or ethnological collections from the 

 Northwest Coast until one reaches Coast SaUsh territory (Drucker, 

 1943, pp. 122, 124; de Laguna, 1947, pp. 157-159; King, 1950, pp. 49, 

 58). Bone or antler adz heads are known from Kachemak Bay III, 

 Kodiak Island (upper and lower levels), Port MoUer on the Alaska 

 Peninsula, but not from Prince WiUiam Sound (de Laguna, 1956, 

 p. 117; Heizer, 1956, pp. 73 f.). In general, such hafting devices are 

 much rarer in southwestern Alaska than among the Eskimo farther 

 north, who seldom attach adz blades directly to the handle, although 

 this was commonly done by the Pacific Eskimo, expecially in hafting 



