The quality and decoration of boxes reflected and communicated the status of their owners.

Box making was a specialized craft, and particularly fine boxes were valued objects.

The presence of bentwood boxes in the Ozette assemblage documents this entire technological and social system.

It shows that 500 years ago, the Makah were using exactly the same basic container technology that ethnographic accounts describe.

It establishes continuity between the pre-contact and contact-period material cultures.

And it provides physical evidence that the skills required to make these containers were present and practiced in the community.

Fish, Fishing, and the Economy of the Sea