de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKXH'AT BAY AREA, ALASKA 193 



8. The design is entirely geometric. 



9. Two colors only were used in the blanket; a light yellow or gold and a dark 

 reddish brown. It is, of course, possible that there was also the natural wool 

 used, but I could see no shading of the light-colored yarns. 



10. All wefts cross the warps at right angles; there ia no eccentric wefting. 



There are actually only two ethnological specimens which are com- 

 parable to this archeologic blanket; and one ethnologic fragmentary 

 specimen. 



The first of these is the comparatively well-documented "Swift" 

 blanket described by Willoughby (1910, pp. 1-10). Of the 10 above- 

 summarized techniques and qualities, the Swift blanket shares 7 with 

 the Yakutat fragments: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10. The Swift blanket 

 exhibits the wrapped lattice twining (Willoughby, 1910, p. 5, fig. 4) 

 which is widely used in the Chilkat weaving but is not present in the 

 fragments of the Yakutat blanket. This type of weaving involves 

 weft yarns which show on one surface only. Both the Swift blanket 

 and the Yakutat blanket exhibit a closely comparable weave: the 

 vertical bands which divide the zigzag sections of both blankets in- 

 volve two wefts of different colors, one of which provides a temporary 

 lattice for the other. The yarn which acts as lattice for one colored 

 band is the twining element for the alternate vertical band. This 

 may be resolved as a matter of tension on one of the twining elements. 

 This reversibihty of design is not a regular featiue of Chilkat blankets. 

 It is seen occasionally in very small areas of design, such as the teeth 

 motifs. 



The Swift blanket has side fringes which are extensions of the weft 

 yarns; the Yakutat blanket has added yarns for the side fringe. 

 Neither exhibits the braided or plaited band of the Chilkat blankets. 



The Swift blanket uses three colors: two dyed and an undyed 

 natural white wool. The yellow and the dark brown are comparable 

 to those of the archeologic specimen; as I have stated, it is difficult 

 to be certain of the light color in the Yakutat blanket, but no variation 

 in the hght-colored wefts can be seen. 



There can be almost no closer design elements than the alternate 

 zigzag and bars of the Swift blanket and the ones described above; 

 the weaving technique of the bars is certainly similar and that of the 

 zigzag identical (Willoughby, 1910, fig. 4, b). The design of concen- 

 tric "lazy" H's of the Swift blanket is very like the concentric rec- 

 tangles of the Yakutat blanket, and the tassels pendent from the lower 

 right-hand corner of the design appear in both specimens. The Swift 

 blanket seems to have, in addition, tassels pendent from the bold 

 geometric diamonds. These are braided and may or may not be 

 integral weft yarns. 



In general, the Swift blanket is more complex in design than is the 



