100 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



3.5 cm. wide. The wooden handle was 14 cm. by 8.5 cm., with 

 rounded back and straight grooved edge into which the blade was set. 

 There was a crescentic hole in the handle to accommodate the index 

 and middle fingers. Our informants claimed that such handles with 

 holes were not used in southeastern Alaska, but were peculiar to 

 Yakutat, where the ordinary oval or plain unperforated handle was 

 also used. Although the true ulo with flat blade is still called by its 

 Eyak name, and the smaller knife or scraper with slightly cupped 

 blade is called in Tlingit "mussel shell," after the material of which 

 it was formerly made, it is sometimes almost impossible to distinguish 

 between these two implements when dealing with metal specimens. 

 Grinnell (1901, p. 161) describes and illustrates how the Yakutat 

 women use the ulo on sealskins. 



At Old Town two complete ulos with copper blades and plain 

 wooden handles were found. The first (fig. 10, e), from Old Town III, 

 has a narrow handle, 22.5 cm. long, straight along the back, but 

 widening in the middle to 3 cm. Fragments of copper blade can still 

 be seen in the groove along the curved edge. The illustration shows 

 the appearance of the Imife as reconstructed. 



The second specimen (fig. 10, a) was found in the Storage House in 

 Old Town 11. The handle, 8.5 cm. long and 2 cm. wide, has a slight 

 depression on the back and on one side, probably to accommodate the 

 fingers. The curved copper blade is only 7.5 cm. long and just over 

 2 cm. wide in the middle. There are also three complete (fig. 10, b; 

 pi. 14, m) and four broken blades (pi. 14, k, I) for ulos or ulo-shaped 

 scrapers. Of tliese, two complete and three fragmentary blades are 

 from Old Town III, a complete and a broken blade from Old To^vq II, 

 and one broken specimen from Little Fort Island near Knight Island. 

 These blades are all rather narroAV (1.1 to 1.9 cm. wide) and also very 

 thin (0.1 to 0.2 cm. thick), with the thinnest part at the back which 

 was set into the grooved handle. Three complete blades are 15.6, 

 12.2, and 8 cm. long, the first two crescentic in outline, while the 

 third is almost straight and appears to be unfinished. One of the 

 broken blades (pi. 14, k) was probably about 10 cm. long when com- 

 plete. Identification of the other three broken specimens as ulo blades 

 is uncertain, since they may have been used for small knives of 

 other types, possibly crooked knives. 



A somewhat similar fragment of an iron blade (pi. 4, e), 1.8 cm. wide 

 and (4.8) cm. long, is from the floor of the Storage House. Six other 

 fragments of iron from Old Town III (pi. 4, a, c,f, h,) and four from 

 Old Town II (pi. 4, d, j) appear to be derived from nails or spikes. 

 Possibly some were used as knife blades, although they are now too 

 corroded to permit identification. 



The ulo is an ancient and widely distributed type of knife in both the 



