ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING-A STUDY BASED ON MATERIAL IN THE 



I, S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



By Otis T. Mason, 

 Curator of tin- Department of Ethnology. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Consider for a moment all the industries included within the word 

 "leather." It involves everything done to the hides of animals from 

 the moment they are taken oft' by the butcher until they are manufact- 

 ured ami ready to be sold to the consumer. It is important to enter 

 somewhat into detail at this point before describing the skin-working 

 apparatus of the American aborigines, so as to bring into a congenital 

 relationship the earliest and the latest manifestation of a great series of 

 industries. 



The hides of cattle, sheep, goafs, horses, dogs, and indeed of all do- 

 mestic animals, the peltries of all wild animals that are of any use what- 

 ever to man. are gathered up in a kind of civilized or wild harvest, as 

 the case may he. by butchers, trappers, hunters, etc., and sent to the 

 tannery or to the manipulators answering to this trade. 



Here commences a diversity of treatment, ending in the preparation 

 of the hide with the hair remaining, by the furrier; in the production 

 of a soft leather by a process called tawing; or in the manufacture of 

 true leather by the use of tannin in some form. We have done now 

 with the secondary industries. 



The products of the leather factories are taken up and prepared for 

 consumption by harness-makers, shoe-makers, glove-makers, satchel- 

 makers, embossers, book-binders, carriage-makers, armorers, machinists, 

 musical-instrument-makers, taxidermists, and the like, and passed on 

 through the great Briareus of commerce to those who will destroy 

 them in use. 



After fully realizing this immense body of industries, we are in a 

 position to appreciate one or two facts respecting savagery, to wit, how 

 Largely the products of the skins of animals entered into the activity of 

 primitive men ; how necessary it is, in order to reconstruct that civili- 

 zation, to know what modern savages do with these same suhsl ances, 

 and anally to collect the tools and observe the processes of aboriginal 



