de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUT AT BAY AREA, ALASKA 177 



technically advanced type, requiring straight grained wood and skill. 

 Cedar is ideal for this purpose and was always used for such boxes, 

 except that Chilkat (Drucker, 1950, p. 257) and Yakutat informants 

 reported the use of carefully selected spruce. Tlingit, Haida, Tsim- 

 shian, and Kwakiutl boxes, especially those for holding liquids, had 

 flanged, morticed bottoms (Drucker, 1950, Trait 449). Similar boxes 

 were made at Yakutat in recent times, and one of the specimens from 

 Old Town has this type of bottom, even though it is oval. 



Very large boxes on the Northwest Coast were sometimes made 

 with two or fom- separate pieces for the sides (Niblack, 1890, p. 319; 

 Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 413 f.). This type was easier 

 to make than that with a single bent piece for the side, since it did not 

 require skill in bending wood, nor such fine planks. Presumably, 

 such boxes were also made at Yakutat, since they were by the Copper 

 River Eyak and the Chugach, and are quite old among the Eskimo 

 (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 57 ff., 202, pi. 26, b; Birket-Smith and de 

 Laguna, 1938, pp. 78 f., 413 f.). Pegging or nailing was employed to 

 fasten the sides of these boxes together, but the method typical of the 

 northern and central Northwest Coast is to sew the parts together. 

 The Coast Salish used both methods (Barnett, 1939, Traits 359-361, 

 365-367). Both are represented by the Old Town specimens and were 

 reported by our Yakutat informants, although we gathered that 

 pegging was more common. 



The cylindrical vessel with a flat round or oval bottom, like that 

 from Old Town III (fig. 23, c), may have been a still older type than 

 any form of square-cornered box, for it is less diflBcult to make. The 

 sides of such vessels are usually of pliable bark or baleen, or of thin 

 wood which is easily bent after soaking in warm water. Cylindrical 

 pails of this kind were made by the northern Alaskan Eskimo at least 

 as far back as Birnirk and Old Bering Sea times, and have been re- 

 ported ethnologically from the Pacific Eskimo, Aleut, Eyak, Tanaina, 

 Tena, and many interior Athabaskan groups (Birket-Smith and de 

 Laguna, 1938, pp. 413 ff.; Bhket-Smith, 1953, p. 202). The ends of 

 the side piece on such vessels are commonly joined by sewing, which 

 may explain why the northern and central Northwest Coast Indians 

 have adopted this essentially interior bark-working technique and 

 adapted it to the manufacture of wooden pails and chests. 



Figure 23. — Box fragments and band of grass. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein, a, Side of 

 small wooden box or dish (restored), from floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 367); 

 b, b', fragment of a similar box or dish, same provenience (No. 367); c, bottom of wooden 

 box or vessel with copper nails, from just above floor of House 9, Old Town III (No. 974); 

 d, band of ryegrass stems, strung together, from floor of Storage House, Old Town II 

 (No. 283); d', diagram to show method of stringing d. 



