ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING. 569 



the bair can be removed, when they are Stretched upon a frame or upon 

 the ground with stakes or pins driven through the edges into the earth, 

 where they remain for several days, with the brains of the buffalo or 

 elk spread upon and over them, and at last finished by " graining," as 

 it is termed by the squaws, who use a sharpened bone, the shoulder- 

 blade, or other large bone of the animal, sharpened at the edge some- 

 what like an adze, with the edge of which they scrape the fleshy side 

 of the skin, bearing on it with the weight of their bodies, thereby 

 drying and softening the skin and fitting it for use. (Plate XCI.) 



The greater part of these skins, however, go through still another 

 operation afterwards, which gives them a greater value and renders 

 them much more serviceable — that is, the process of smoking. For 

 this a small hole is dug in the ground, and a fire is built in it with rot- 

 ten wood, which will produce a great quantity of smoke without much 

 blaze, and several small poles of the proper length stuck in the ground 

 around it, drawn and fastened together at the top, around which a skin 

 is wrapped in form of a tent, generally sewed together at the edges to 

 secure the smoke within it. In this the skins to be smoked are placed, 

 and in this condition the tent will stand a day or two inclosing the 

 heated smoke, and by some chemical process or other which I do not 

 understand the skins acquire a quality which enables them, after being 

 wet many times, to dry soft and pliant as they were before, which secret 

 I have never yet seen practiced in my own country, and for the lack of 

 which all of our dressed skins, when once wet, are, I think, chiefly ruined. 



An Indian's dress of deer skins, which is wet a hundred times upon 

 his back, dries soft; and his lodge also, which stands in the rains and 

 even through the severity of winter,. is taken down as soft and as clean 

 as when it was first put up. 



A Crow is known wherever he is met by his beautiful white dress and 

 his tall and elegant figure, the greater part of the men being G feet 

 high. The Blackfeet, on the other hand, are more of the herculean 

 make, about middling stature, with broad shoulders and great expan- 

 sion of chest, and the skins of which their dresses are made are chiefly 

 dressed black or of a dark-brown color, from which circumstance, in all 

 probability they — having black leggins or moccasins — have got the name 

 of Blackfeet. (Catlin's Eight Years, pp. 4G-47, vol. 1.) 



Among the Sioux the hides were stretched and dried as soon as possi- 

 ble after they were taken from the animals. When a hide was stretched 

 on the ground pins were driven through holes along the borders of the 

 hide. These holes had been cut with a knife. While the hide was still 

 green the women scraped it on the under side by pushing a webajabe 

 over its surface, thus removing the superfluous flesh, etc. The webajabe 

 was formed from the lower bone of an elk's leg, which had been made 

 thin by scraping or striking. The lower end was sharpened by striking, 

 having several teeth-like projections, as in the accompanying figure. 

 A withe was tied to the upper end, and this was secured to the arm of 



