1888.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 59 





THE NAVAJO TANNER. 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, U. S. A. 



(With Plates xxiii-xxvm.) 



During the summer of 1887, and at a time when the writer was sta- 

 tioned at Fort Wingate, N. Mex., he received a letter from his friend 

 Prof. Otis T. Mason, Curator of the Department of Ethnology of the 

 National Museum, informing him of the fact that there was on record 

 no special account, so far as he was aware, describing the manner in 

 which the North American Indians tan and prepare their buckskin. 



As is well known, all of our Indians, from time immemorial, have skill- 

 fully manufactured this material and put it to an infinite number of 

 uses to meet the necessities of the life they lead. So Professor Mason 

 was thus prompted to contribute to this branch of our literature of the 

 subject, and did me the honor of asking me to render an account of the 

 process as it is practiced among the Navajoes, a tribe of Indians of 

 which many are found living in the valleys and among the mountains 

 about Fort Wingate. 



Circumstances soon admitted of my undertaking this matter, and a 

 Navajo hunter was dispatched to bring in a deer, for the purpose of 

 preparing its hide directly under my personal observation, and thus 

 allowing me to record carefully each step of the operation. 



In a day or two this Indian returned with a fine doe, an adult speci- 

 men of Cariacus macrotis. He had skinned the legs of the animal froiu 

 the hoofs up as far as the ankles, which he disarticulated partially, so 

 the limbs could be tied more compactly together, and thus be less liable 

 to either frighten his horse or catch in the low timber as he returned 

 home with his game. Strange to say, this was the hardest part of my 

 task to undertake, for the Navajo Indians have a belief that when one 

 of them kills a deer for the purpose of tanning its skin, to make buck- 

 skin, the hide must be removed on the spot where the animal was slain, 

 or else the successful hunter will lose his eyesight before the next 

 moon. 



I had great difficulty in finding a Navajo that had sufficiently little 

 faith in this superstition to be overcome by a generous reward for his 

 pains. The deer which had been captured for me had already been evis- 

 cerated and the skin divided from its chin to its tail — the entire length 

 of the under side of the animal. He threw it down upon the ground 

 in front of his lodge, and, as I had my camera with me, prepared for 

 the emergency, I directed him to commence operations at once. In a 

 moment, with a sharp hunting-knife, he divided the skin on the inside 



