566 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



The hide scraper of the Chukchis is of stone or iron, and fastened to 

 a wooden handle, and looks like a spokeshave. It is, indeed, the lineal 

 descendant of the bone scraper. With this tool the moistened hide is 

 cleaned very particularly, and is then rubbed, stretched, and kneaded 

 so carefully, that several days go to the preparation of a single reindeer 

 skin. That this is hard work is also shown by the woman who is em- 

 ployed at it in the tent dripping with perspiration. While thus em- 

 ployed she sits on a part of the skin and stretches out the other part 

 with the united help of the hands and bare feet. When the skin has 

 been sufficiently worked she fills a vessel with her own urine, mixes 

 this with comminuted willow bark which has been dried over the lamp, 

 and rnbs the blood- warm liquid into the reindeer skin. In order to 

 give this a red color on one side the bark of a species of Pinus (?) is 

 mixed with the tanning liquid. The skins are made very soft by this 

 process, and on the inner side almost resemble chamois leather. Some- 

 times, too, the reindeer skin is tanned to real chamois of very excellent 

 quality.* 



The Tuski understand the art of tanning and are able to produce 

 very fair specimens, but practice it principally with seal skin, which is 

 dressed in all colors. The white is very delicate and much prized. 

 Deer skins are dressed with ammonia, red ocher and other materials. 

 They are rendered very soft and pliable (W. H. Hooper, p. 183). 

 This description answers perfectly to the work done on the reindeer 

 hide, both with and without the hair, by the Indians and Eskimo <>l 

 Uugava, Canada. 



A large collection of those brought by Lucien Turner will be found 

 in the National Museum. The softness of the texture is marvelous. 

 Not one particle of rigid fiber seems to have been left in the skin. 

 In order to effect this perfect flexibility the statement of Norden- 

 skjold is not overrated. Indeed, those who have seen some of the best 

 of the wigwams made of buffalo hide depilated will recall the soft- 

 ness and pliability effected in this refractory material by the applica- 

 tion of human muscle, which after all is the chief ingredient in abo- 

 riginal tanning. 



CHAPTER III. 



SKIN DRESSING AMONG THE INDIANS. 



The skin-working apparatus of the Naskopi Indians is described by 

 Lucien Turner. 



This instrument is one of the few really labor-saving tools of the 

 poorly equipped Naskopi; and is particularly effective in removing the 

 hair from the hides of various mammals or the fat from the flesh side 

 of the skins. The skin is removed from the beast and laid aside until 

 a convenient time arrives for preparing it for its intended uses. The 



Nordeuskjokl, Voyage of the Vega, New York, 1882, Macmillau, 486, Fig. 1. 



