IX 



THE FUR, LEATHER AND HIDE TRADES 



The taking of furs for clothing and the trading in pelts is undoubtedly the oldest 

 industry in the world. This activity goes back many thousands of years into the 

 dim reaches of the Stone Age, when the cave man, crude hatchet or club in hand, 

 killed the beasts of the field, so that he and his family could have covering during 

 the rigorous seasons of the year. . . . We know, from cave pictures, that the Cro- 

 magnon people wore animal pelts. . . . Turning our attention to the age known 

 as the Garden of Eden period, we find in the third chapter of Genesis, twenty- 

 third verse, that Adam and Eve, at the behest of the Creator, wore the skins of 

 beasts of the field following their expulsion. . . . The Babylonians, Assyrians, 

 Greeks and Romans wore furs, history tells us. Mention is made that Queen 

 Semiramis of Babylon in 2182 B.C. brought 8000 tiger skins to her country at the 

 close of her campaign in India. Furs were mentioned by Herodotus. In Biblical 

 and pre-Biblical times, Armenia was the principal fur center, pelts being sent 

 there from northern Asia and Persia and traded to Greece ; and ermine, the fur 

 insignia of royalty, is a word derived from Armenia, so it is claimed by etymolo- 

 gists. Furs were worn in Egypt, its early records show; Chinese writings testify 

 to the wealth they secured from furs three thousand or more years ago. . . . 

 During the Middle Ages the men of Europe wore furs exclusively, but they were 

 denied to women, and it was not until the reign of Edward III that furs became 

 fashionable for women, and they have remained so ever since. . . . Cinderella's 

 slipper was not made of glass, as many of us were informed by fairy story books, 

 but was, in fact, a fur slipper. ... A typographical error has been responsible for 

 the belief long held by English and American children that the slipper the Prince 

 found, which fitted only Cinderella's foot and not those of her ugly and wicked 

 step-sisters, was made of a fragile substance such as glass and not of a durable 

 material such as fur. 1 



Doubtless long before men began to plant seeds and indulge in the 

 rude beginnings of agriculture, before they had domesticated any ani- 

 mals and established pastoral life, they discovered that the skins of 

 the mammals they killed for food or in self-defense would provide 

 warm clothing to protect human beings from the cold. Probably in 

 colder portions of the world such were for a long period the only gar- 

 ments known. Doubtless at first the skins were used just as they came 

 from the animals, with no preparation except to dry them, but in time 

 methods of dressing and tanning them were developed, making the 

 skins softer, more pliable and better suited for clothing. 



1 Arthur, The fur animals of Louisiana, pp. 9-11, 1928. Laut, The fur trade of the 

 world the oldest industry of mankind, World's Work, May, 1907, pp. 8862-8878. 



50 



