124 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



earlier times. In addition, there were also found smaller blades of 

 slate, copper, and bone for lances and arrows. 



These various weapon blades will be described in the following 

 sections. 



DAGGER 



Although no large copper daggers or spearheads were found, these 

 were remembered by our Yakutat informants. Daggers were worn 

 by men in a sheath hanging across the chest, and were called in Tlingit 

 by a word meaning "something close to one's hand." These weapons 

 were probably also made with slate blades. 



An iron dagger, or large double-edge knife (fig. 13, b), was found at 

 Diyaguna'Et. Although the metal was probably obtained from White 

 men, the shape suggests native workmanship, but it may also reflect 

 something more than purely aboriginal skill in metalworking. The 

 specimen had originally a total length of about 27 cm., and the blade 

 a width of about 3.5 cm., although the edges and point are now broken. 

 The handle has been wound with cord to make a comfortable grip, 

 and ends with two rectangular ears. The blade itself has two broad 

 concave facets down the middle of each side. This Imife is evidently 

 of the same kind as one of the copper daggers seen by Dixon at Yaku- 

 tat in 1787 (Dixon, 1789, fig. 4, opp. p. 188; Niblack, 1890, pi. xxvii, 

 fig. 116, p. 284). The Tlingit also used stone-bladed daggers, as 

 well as those with copper and iron blades (ibid., fig. 108, b, c, pis. 

 XXV, xxvii). Copper daggers were used by the Tena, Kutchin, 

 Tanaina, Atna, Eyak, Chugach, and Tutchone of southwestern 

 Yukon Territory (de Laguna, 1947, p. 181 ; MacNeish, 1960, pi. vi, 9). 



The bone blade from Old Town III (fig. 13, a; see below) may also 

 have been a dagger. Bone daggers are kno^vn from the Punuk and 

 Thule Eskimo, from Kachemak Bay III, and from sites on Kodiak 

 and Prince William Sound, and also from the Aleut, Tena, Tanaina, 

 Tlingit (including the occupants of Daxatkanada), Haida, Tsimshian, 

 Kwakiutl, and Coast Salish, but not from the Nootka (de Laguna, 

 1947, p. 181; 1956, pp. 193-195; 1960, p. 115; Heizer, 1956, p. 75, 

 pi. 71, p, q; Drucker, 1950, Trait 536; Barnett, 1939, Traits 125-127). 

 Some of these bone daggers antedate metal weapons; others seem to 

 have copied them or been influenced by them. 



Thus there is no doubt that the dagger was a weapon common in 

 western America and that it has at least a moderate antiquity here 

 (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 205). 



IRON SPEAR 



That the inhabitants of Yakutat formerly made tanged lance blades 

 of slate or copper is suggested by one of iron, said to have been found 



