de Laguua] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 111 



UNHAFTED HAND MAULS OR PESTLES 



Five elongated subcylindrical cobblestones, ranging in length from 

 14.5 to 24 cm., and in diameter from 3 by 4.6 to 4.7 by 8.4 cm., appear 

 to have been used as pestles or hand mauls (pi. 10, k). They come 

 from the house pit at Nessudat; Old Town III, three (including one 

 partially shaped granite bar); Old Town II, one; and Old Town II or 

 III, one. 



It is curious that no carefuUy shaped implement of this type was 

 found, unless a stone figurine (fig. 21, h), from just under the turf of 

 Mound B (Old Town III), was intended for a pestle. This is a 

 roughly cylindrical piece of sandstone, 10.8 cm. long, 5.9 by 4.1 cm. 

 in diameter, and has been pecked to resemble the head of an animal, 

 perhaps a frog. The base (below the animal's neck) is flat, and shows 

 no signs of use. It may represent a break. Wide shallow grooves 

 form the mouth, outline the protruding eyes and run back along the 

 top of the head. The carving is similar in style to that of a maul 

 head from the Situk River (fig. 21, d, described below). Although 

 much less elaborately decorated and in a cruder form of Northwest 

 Coast art style, the Old Town specimen resembles a stone pestle, 

 representing a raven, used by the Angoon ("Hoodsinoo") Tlingit in 

 preparing native tobacco (Niblack, 1890, pi. lxiii, fig. 338). Our 

 specimen may have been intended for a similar function, for the 

 cultivation of native tobacco was reported at Yakutat, and ethno- 

 logical examples of wooden snuff mortars were seen. 



It was perhaps only accidental that we found no clear example 

 of a carefully made pestle or hand maul, since the cylindrical pestle- 

 shaped form with nipple top and the stirrup-shaped type with "handle 

 like a flatiron" are both known from Yakutat (H. I. Smith, 1899, 

 figs. 12, c, 13, /, p. 365), and are common on the Northwest Coast 

 (Drucker, 1943, fig. 13, types IBI and II). Well-made cylindrical 

 pestles or hand mauls come from Chugach sites (de Laguna, 1956, 

 pis. 21, 8, 22, 1), and such implements may also have been used by 

 the nearby Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 76). The 

 hand mauls from Uyak Bay, Kodiak Island, are of a somewhat 

 different style, with finger pits around the middle of the cylindrical 

 handle, and one is like a paddle with lateral handle. None has the 

 usual pestle shape (Heizer, 1956, p. 46). 



Shaped hand mauls and pestles are common on the Northwest 

 Coast from the Tlingit (Keithahn, 1962, fig. 3) to the Fraser River 

 Delta, although the more elaborate types are replaced by simple 

 rectanguloid or pear-shaped forms, or by cobblestones, in the Milbank- 

 Queen Charlotte Sound area (Drucker, 1943, p. 124; 1950, Trait 417). 

 In Coast Salish territory, the cylindrical pestle or hand maul reappears 



