THE FUR, LEATHER AND HIDE TRADES 5! 



When white invaders first penetrated the North American wilder- 

 ness they everywhere found the Indians clothed in garments made of 

 skins, often highly decorated, and in some portions of the continent 

 their only shelter from storms was the tepee made of skins. The white 

 settlers and trappers found that the skin garments, especially those 

 made of buckskin, were an excellent and easily obtained substitute for 

 cloth garments, and promptly adopted buckskin suits, coonskin caps 

 and the like. Mason has listed 143 distinct species of mammals whose 

 skins are known to have been used by North American Indians, and 

 describes their primitive methods of preparing the skins for use. 2 Re- 

 duced to terms in general use in the fur trade, his list would not look 

 so formidable. For example, he lists twelve species of rabbits, twenty- 

 four of squirrels, three of prairie-dogs, four of marmots and eleven 

 of skunks. In fur-trade lists each of these groups would appear under 

 a single name. 



In another chapter we shall see how important was the fur trade in 

 the early exploration and settlement of North America. In the present 

 chapter we consider its present importance as a world industry, extend- 

 ing the discussion also to hides and leather obtained from mammals 

 whose pelts are not considered furs and not used in the manufacture 

 of fur garments to a marked extent. Many books 3 and very numerous 

 articles in periodicals have recounted some of the romance, as well as 

 dry and technical phases, of the trapper's art, the furrier's business and 

 fur farming. Limited space will permit reference to only a few of these 

 publications, and the vast amount of information on the subject, with 

 numerous statistics, must necessarily be very much condensed. 



A large number of trade names for furs have been devised, some 

 of them apparently for the purpose of deceiving purchasers as to the 

 character of the furs they are buying. These names usually are such as 

 to imply greater values than the furs really possess. To supply the in- 

 creased demand for fur garments it has been found absolutely neces- 



2 Mason, Aboriginal skin-dressing, Ann. Kept. U. 5*. National Museum for 1889, 

 PP- 553-589. 



* Chittenden, The history of the American fur trade in the Far West, 3 vols., N.Y., 

 1002. Poland, Fur-bearing animals in nature and commerce, London, 1892. Davidson, 

 The Northwest company, Univ. California Pub. in History, vn, 1918. Stevens, North- 

 west fur trade, 1763-1800, Univ. of Illinois. Laut, The fur trade of America, New 

 York. 1921. Innis, The fur trade of Canada, 1927. Dale, Ashley-Smith explorations, 

 Cleveland, 1918. Vandiver, The fur trade and early western exploration, Cleveland, 

 1929. Johnson, Michigan fur trade, Michigan Hist. Comm., v, 1-192, 1919. Fur trade 

 in Wisconsin, 1812-1825, 'Wisconsin Hist. Soc., xx, 1911. Peterson, The fur traders 

 and fur-bearing animals, Buffalo, N.Y. 1914. Amer. Nat. Fox. and Fur Traders' Assn., 

 Manual of the silver fox and fur farming industries, 5th ed., 1930. 



