64 THE NAVAJO TANNER. 



he put them ou at all, he said " to make it soft." Buckskin that is 

 tanned without using brains is harsh and stiff afterwards, and still 

 worse in these particulars if it happens to get wet at any time. 



The Navajoes often use beef braius too for this purpose, especially 

 when their game i.s taken far from camp, and they do not care to pack 

 the deer skulls home on their ponies. In early days they employed 

 deer brains as a rule, but in some cases the brains of the buffalo, when 

 that animal existed in their country. 



While he was in the midst of the process of applying the brains to 

 the hide, with an August sun of no mean power streaming down upon 

 us, I made an instantaneous exposure of him with my camera, and suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining an excellent picture showing this stage of the tan- 

 ning process, which picture is reproduced for the present paper. 



Finally, as the last step of the process, he commenced by folding in 

 the edges of the skin all round continuously, to make it up into an ellip- 

 soidal ball, quite firm, though not tightly rolled. He then wrapped it 

 up in the buffalo robe, and allowed it to remain out in the sun for about 

 fifteen minutes for the purpose, he said, of letting " the braius go well 

 into him." 



Once more in its wet and limp condition it is thoroughly opened, 

 and this time spread out over the top of a sage-bush near by with the 

 outer surface exposed, to the sun, and sufficiently high from the ground 

 to prevent the dogs from getting at it, or its being soiled through acci- 1 

 dent. It was now about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and very warm, 

 the semi-tropical sun doing its full duty, and the skin at once com- 

 menced to show the effects of it as the first stages of drying set in. * 

 Nevertheless I was informed that the hide would now be allowed to re- 

 main there and dry until dark, when it would he placed upon top of 

 the "hogan" for the night, or in the event it rained, be taken in and 

 hung up inside. 



Next morning I was on the ground at 9 o'clock, and was thoroughly 

 surprised at the appearance of the hide when it was brought out and 

 shown me. Although I was familiar with the making of buckskin, not 

 only as practiced by the Navajoes, but by the Sioux and other North 

 American Indians, I never happened to have seen it in this particular 

 stage, that is, right after the drying on the second day. 



I found that it had again shrunken so as to be not more than one- . 

 third of its original size, or just after it had been removed from the 

 animal. It was hard, and appeared .almost brittle, as though it might 

 be broken in two; moreover it was semi-transparent, and easily trans- 

 mitted the light through it, or even prominent objects might be out- 

 lined through it in favorable lights. In color it was of a deep, muddy 

 amber, or a semi-translucent Roman ocher, and one would never have 

 suspected in the world that it was either a deer hide, or much less that 

 in a few short hours it could be converted into the softest and most 

 durable fabric in the countrv — a tanned buckskin. 



