S'abadeb-Seattle Art Museum The fine-grained wood of the western red cedar was worked with few tools, but those that were used were ever efficient, like this straight adze made of elk antler. The carver's toolbox would include several types of adzes, wedges, straight-and crooked-bladed knives, and, later, metal blades, chisels, and saws. Before Natives had access to metal via salvage from oceangoing vessels or trade, adze blades were made from finely sharpened stone, and knives from shell or beaver teeth. The straight adze was employed on the southern Northwest Coast and along the Columbia River. Often there is a human or animal on the butt: here, it might be a mountain goat or an elk.

S'abadeb-Seattle Art Museum The D-adze is one of the indispensable implements in a carver's tool chest, along with a straight adze, a short-handle elbow adze, several crooked knives, a chisel, a stone maul, and yew wedges. Originally adze blades were made of bone, shell, or stone, but they were quickly replaced by steel blades acquired through trade and often recycled from pioneer-style axe heads or chisels, as this one appears to be. Waterman was conducting an ethnographic survey for the University of Washington during the summer seasons of 1918 and 1919, collecting place names from southern Puget Sound consultants. Curiously, the Burton Acres Shell Midden--near where Waterman collected this D-adze--was excavated in 1996 and yielded two antler adze hafts and a bone chisel dated to approximately 500-600 years ago.