184 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



A stick (fig. 16, d), 42.5 cm. long, has been trimmed smooth, and 

 both rounded ends are beveled from one side. It may have been 

 used to spread fish for drying or cooking. 



There are four spatulate wooden fragments, also from the Storage 

 House. One (fig. 24, c), now (14.4) cm. long, has a series of finely 

 incised chevrons on the flat blade near what appears to be the handle 

 (on the side not illustrated). This may have been a paddle for 

 beating up soapberries, an imported delicacy. Another (fig. 24, b), 

 looking like an asymmetric wooden knife, 17.8 cm. long, suggests 

 the implement used for eating sea urchin ovaries. A third may 

 have been intended for a wedge, although it shows no signs of wear. 

 The functions of the other two specimens (fig. 24, a) cannot be guessed. 



There is also a section of a slightly curved branch (fig. 24,/), now 

 (18) cm. long and 2.5 cm. in diameter, which has been cut with a 

 sharp metal (?) knife. Both (?) ends were originally bluntly pointed. 

 It was found in a litter of charred shavings, twigs, and moss on the 

 floor of House 9 in Old Town III. 



The proveniences of the other pieces of worked wood are: 15 from 

 Old Town III, and 37 from Old Town II. Some of the larger pieces 

 were sent to Dr. J. Louis Giddings, at the Haffenrefi'er Museum of the 

 American Indian, Brown University, with the hope that these, to- 

 gether with borings from livings trees in the area, might furnish 

 materials for dedrochronological dating. The samples were, however, 

 insufficient. Other pieces of wood were given to Miss Elizabeth 

 Ralph, in the Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, for 

 radiocarbon dating. We are extremely grateful to her for the results 

 reported below (p. 206). 



CANOES 



There are two bluntly pointed, slightly curved wooden sticks 

 (fig. 24, e), flat on one side and rounded on the other. One from the 

 Storage House in Old Town II is (13.4) cm. long; the other, smaller 

 fragment is from House Pit I. It is possible that these were pieces 

 of ribs for bidarkas or kayaks, since they resemble some Chugach 

 specimens (de Laguna, 1956, p. 247), and our Yakutat informants 

 reported that their ancestors long ago used sealskin canoes. These 

 included large boats like umiaks, one-hole kayaks, and two-hole 

 bidarkas. Obviously, there could never have been a complete boat 

 in the Storage House. 



While the ethnographic evidence (cf. de Laguna, 1963) is sufficient 

 to establish that the prehistoric Yakutat once made skin boats like 

 those of the Chugach, this cannot be said of the Tlingit, with the 

 possible exception of the Chilkat. However, the skin canoe used by 

 the latter for crossing lakes when on trading trips to the interior, had a 



