de Liigima] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 171 



latter is indicated by the same abl)reviated design elements used to 

 represent faces on the petroglyphs at Capo Alitak, Kodiak Island, 

 on Chugach pictographs, and on Northwest Coast petroglyphs. 



Thi-ee of the Angoon pebbles are also faces, but the details are 

 different, for on two of these the eyes appear to be weeping (de Laguna, 

 1960, fig. 15, c, e). Otherwise the designs are similar in that they 

 consist of geometric elements, chiefly zigzags and spurred lines and 

 panels. 



The Chugach pebbles or plaques exhibit perhaps the richest series 

 of geometric elements, but there is nothing to suggest a face, and the 

 designs correspond, therefore, only to the "clothing" of the Kodiak 

 figures. 



All the specific design elements on the Yakutat pebble can be 

 duplicated or closely matched by those from Kodiak, Prince William 

 Sound, and Angoon; the layout of the designs is also similar in these 

 areas. Can we take the Kodiak specimens as a guide and interpret 

 all of these pebbles as highly conventionalized anthi-opomorphic 

 representations? If so, it is obvious that clothing is more important 

 than the features. Perhaps ceremonial garments are portrayed, and 

 the "faces" themselves may be really masks. In this case, the two 

 rectangles on one side (a) of the Yakutat pebble are all that is left 

 of the mask or face; the horizontal band below suggests a fringed 

 garment, perhaps the apron of a dancer or of a shaman (see Emmons, 

 1907, pp. 346, 395 ft'., figs. 588, 589). On the reverse side (a') would 

 be the back of the figure, and this design bears a strildng resemblance 

 to that of the Chilkat blanket from the grave on Knight Island (pi. 19) . 

 The band across the top, the fringed ends, the row of rectangles, 

 two of which are "tasseled" at the lower left corner, are all duplicated 

 in the Yakutat blanket (see pp. 187-192), and suggest that the same 

 geometric style of blanket may have been made during the late 

 prehistoric period represented by the upper part of Mound B, or Old 

 Town III. If the geometric patterns of the Daxatkanada pebbles 

 can also be interpreted as representing blankets, although this is 

 less certain, we might infer the persistence of the geometric Chilkat 

 blanket weaving into early historic times in the Angoon area. In 



Figure 21. — Carved and incised stone objects. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein (except d, 

 sketched by F. de Laguna from photograph), a, a'. Pebble incised to represent a human 

 figure (?), wearing dancing apron (a) and Chilkat blanket (a'), from Mound B, upper 

 levels, Old Town III (No. 278); b, carved stone hand hammer or pestle, from Mound B, 

 upper levels. Old Town III (No. 266); c, incised limestone fragment, from Mound B, upper 

 levels, Old Town III (No. 30); d, carved stone maul head, representing the Frog (.'), 

 found in bed of Situk River near U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service weir. 



