Navajo Buckskin: Hair Shaved with the Deer's Own Foreleg Bone, Brains Rubbed In, Wrung on a Tree, Worked Dry over the Feet (Shufeldt, 1888)

"In a few short hours it be converted into the softest and most durable fabric in the country, a tanned buckskin."

Dig a hole about as big as a bushel (35 L), tramp the bottom hard, lay the fresh hide in hair side up and cover it with cold water. Put a kettle upside down on it, braced with the spade, against drying and dogs. Leave the skinned head (lower jaw off) overnight in the low ashes of the fire so the brains half-bake.

Cut a small pine trunk about 6 in. (15 cm) thick at one end and 4 in. (10 cm) at the other. Bark one side of the thick half, notch the big end deeply and brace it against a low limb of a tree, smooth face toward you, the thin end on the ground about 2 ft (60 cm) from the trunk. Strew clean short hay around.

Wash the hide in clean water. With a sharp knife take every scrap of flesh and membrane off the flesh side, the ear cartilage too, and dip it in clear water.

Hang the hide over the log, the head skin caught between notch and limb. Shave off all hair and the dark outer skin, to the very edges and the backs of the ears, leaving the lower legs and tail. His scraper was the deer's own foreleg bones (ulna and radius), the thin back edge of the ulna sharpened with the knife, held at both ends like a spokeshave; a rib or a dull knife also serves. Two to four hours.

Wash the hide in several changes of cold water and leave it in the last. Split the baked skull with an ax, lift out the brains, clean them in tepid water, then simmer them in a little water on a low fire for over an hour. When you can hold your hand in it, rub the brains to paste between your palms and add about three times as much tepid water.

Rinse the hide and wring it by hand. Pass the head and neck over a limb about 5-6 ft (1.5-1.8 m) up, fold the hide lengthwise and twist it into a rope, the tail end looped over a stick about 2 ft (60 cm) long. Twist with the stick until it is a hard coil at the limb, hook the stick under the limb and let it drip nearly an hour. Then pull it back by hand nearly to its full size.

Spread the hide flat, hair side up, and rub the brain water into the hair side only, with the open hand, fingers and knuckles, until the basin is empty ("to make it soft"). Fold the edges into a loose firm ball, wrap it and leave it in the sun about 15 minutes. Then open it over a bush in the sun to dry until dark, and keep it dry overnight. By morning it is hard and amber.

Soak it three hours in water with the chill off (some use cold spring water), rinse three or four times in cold water and wring it on the tree again, dripping nearly half an hour. On a canvas sheet in the sun, barefoot, throw the limp skin over your feet and pull it toward you with both hands, turn it, pull again, and work the edges, ears and legs until it dries velvet-soft and pale clay-coloured. Cut a dozen holes along the neck edge, stretch the neck across with a wooden awl through each, and give it a final hour in the sun.

From R. W. Shufeldt's account, reprinted in Otis T. Mason, "Aboriginal Skin-Dressing", **Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1889** (1891), pp. 574-580 and Plates LXI-LXVI (checked on the archive.org scan aboriginalskindr00maso). The Navajo often used beef brains, earlier deer or buffalo. The tanner cut his mark, a leaf shape, under each ear; such hides then fetched $1.50 to $2. Metric figures are ours.