196 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



It resembles the fine cedar-bark capes of the Nootka in its open 

 space twining. It lacks the heavy rolled and plaited side binding of 

 the specimens that I have observed in the Washington State Museum, 

 and it has the addition of mountain goat wool in a twined geometric 

 upper and lower border. It is also deeply fringed at side and bottom. 

 The geometric patterning is simpler than in any of the previously 

 discussed blankets and the lack of a photograph from the reverse side 

 leaves us with no indication as to the type of weave. 



All of the blankets discussed have been assigned to the same general 

 period. The earliest would seem to be the 1778 (?) collected British 

 Museum fragment. The archeologic specimen (Yakutat) could date 

 from the 1780's. All the rest were collected before or at the turn of 

 the 19th century. The only one of the blankets with known pro- 

 venience is the blanket from the shaman's grave on Knight Island 

 in Yakutat Bay. With, however, the added information that Van- 

 couver saw a tasseled blanket at Lynn Canal and Lisiansky saw 

 Indians wearing tasseled blankets at Sitka, I submit that it fixes the 

 geographical provenience of the all-wool geometric-patterned blanket 

 as the northern coastal area of southeastern Alaska. All of these 

 predate any specimens known as "Tsimshian"; and all fall in Tlingit 

 territory. 



The earliest known garment of mixed cedar bark and wool comes 

 from a more southern location — Nootka — but dates (if my assumption 

 about the Hewett collection of Vancouver Voyage is correct) from 

 approximately the same period — i.e., the 1790's. It also exhibits geo- 

 metric patterning. 



All of this patterning is evident in the fine twined basketry of the 

 Tlingit and other Northwest Coast tribes, and also of the Aleut. It 

 would seem to me that, in the earlier aspects of weaving, wool blanket 

 weaving was, like basketry, a woman's craft, and she used designs and 

 patterns and skiUs (witness the selvage-to-selvage wefts; three- 

 strand twining; wrapped lattice weave; lack of eccentrics and vertical 

 overlay twining) with which she was familiar as a basket weaver, in 

 both the northern and southern areas. 



The new art style — the highly elaborate stylized naturalistic design 

 of the Chilkat blanket — was probably a male development. The 

 Chilkat blanket was woven by women who copied pattern boards made 

 by the men, and who of necessity invented and adapted new techniques 

 to meet the requirements of design. This new style was in accord 

 with the total artistic and social development of its time. 



It is the Tsimshian who have been credited by Emmons, and by Boas 

 following the mythology, and by most later writers, with the origin of 

 the Chilkat blanket. Because of the apparent antecedence of the 

 northern blankets of geometric style, and largely because of the lack 



