ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING-A STUDY BASED ON MATERIAL

To understand the steps in the processes of the original tanner, it can be useful to take a hasty look through a mod-. The subsequent processes of dyeing and preparation for special use all involve the accretion of civilization and produce the complexity of the more highly organized processes. These laborious processes, Hall describes as resulting "in the breaking of the skin, which does.

When we have removed all the fat, which will take three or four hours of faithful work, we take the skin outside and roll it around with our feet for a while and rub it in the snow and so on. As the season progresses and the snow melts, they begin to stretch the skins to the ground using the aforementioned pegs. The skins of the young in the white coats dry in considerable quantities, taking approx.

Haircutting is one of the dirtiest and disgusting sights you can imagine. The hides are allowed to lie and become slightly rotten, leaving some of the blubber on them.

ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING 563

564 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889

A few lines have been cut from the skins of Pagomysfcetidus, but these are weak and very inferior to the lines of seal skins. The birds are opened in the chest and the body is taken out through this small hole; the head, arms, legs aud are cut at the neck and joints. Ducks are often skinned by cutting the skin around the head and the outer joints of the wings and legs, and stripping it.

Salmon skins are used for waterproof bags, seal guts, especially ground seals, are carefully dried and, after sewing, used for sails, windows and kyak jackets. The skin is first prepared while the hair is still on it by spreading fermented fish roe on it.

566 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889

SKIN DRESSING AMONG THE INDIANS

ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING. 567

572 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889

573 On the groud aud with an instrument resembling an adz, used on the groud aud with an instrument resembling an adz, used in the manner of our carpenters, the appendages are of dried meat. The surface is then covered with the brain or liver of the animal, which has been carefully preserved for this purpose, and retains the heat. This seam is almost always present in the buffalo mantle, but one of the largest we have seen is used to cover one of our beds, and is entirely finished, as it has no seam.

When the process of tanning and dressing is completed and the inner surface of the skiu is dry, figures are traced on it. With a knife blade, placed in a curved stick, all hair aud outside the skiu was scraped off. It was then soaked in a lather made of deer brains and hot water, one or two Indians rubbiug with stones, much like those called axes, which were plowed up in the fields, and which often drew the skin.

A hole 18 inches in diameter was then made in the ground, and the skin hung above on vertical sticks and smoked, until the desired color was produced, by burning rotten wood beneath. And mantels made of beares skinnes is commonly worn among the natives who live where bears are hunted.

DETAILS OF SKIN-DRESSING AMONG THE NAVAJOS

ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING. 575

34;In addition to shaving off the hair, the skin is thrown over a small log that he had placed against the tree in the morning, held in place by catching the skin of the head between the notch and the limb, the skin of the hind quarters are always nearer the ground, and as the work progresses it is dexterously moved by the tanner. Here the tanner selected a small section about 5 or C feet from the ground and passed the head and neck of skin under and over it, and then I carefully folded this last section lengthwise along the center of the body surface of the skin, and turned the whole thing over and over until he reached the front legs. You can see that the limb was folded tightly into a loop of skin. , and by pulling hard, I saw that there was no such thing as slipping.

In a similar way was the skin of the front legs. folded lengthwise inside the skin; then the edges of the abdominal. cut was also folded in, and in turn the skin on the hind legs,. but this last, of course, had to be thrown in the direction of. wood, to include them. The edges of the rear parts were thrown over in such a way as to form a loop like that around the limbo of the tree. Continuing this twisting, the skin was finally brought up close to the limb of the tree in a hard coil, where, by hooking the turning stick under the limb, it was held in that position and allowed to drip for nearly an hour.

At the end of the above time the Indian loosened the stick, twisted the skin, and brought it down. However, I noticed that he only used his hands during this part of the operation and never resorted to his feet for straightening assistance.

SKIN-DRESSING AMONG ABORIGINES OF OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Butter or oil is then applied in significant quantities to the skin again in the sun. Some skins are dyed after the hair has been removed, others have patterns printed on them, and the thick buffalo hide used to make sandals is decorated with either a knife or a red-hot nail. Friendly islanders remove hair and entrails from the pig with split bamboo knives, also used in carving cooked pig.

These, as they are obtained, are stretched on a piece of bark and fastened with wooden pegs and kept there until they are dry. They are then well scraped with mussel shell or a chip of basalt, dressed in proper shape and sewn together.

THE SCRAPER

584 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, L889

REPORT OF NATTONAL MUSEUM, 1889,

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