SwANTON] miDIANS OF THE SO UTHE ASTERN UNITED STATES 445 



is held between the knees while the other rests on the ground, and are then 

 scraped with a scraping implement to remove the hair. The scraper, ts*ame'- 

 satdn^, for this purpose is a round piece of wood about twelve inches long with 

 a piece of metal set in edgewise on one side, leaving room for a hand grip on 

 each end. This implement resembles the ordinary spokeshave more than any- 

 thing else. A sharp edged stone is said to have taken the place of the iron 

 blade in early times. Hides are finally thoroughly smoked until they are brown, 

 and kneaded to make them soft and durable. (Speck, 1909, p. 35.) 



Swan has the following brief statement relative to skin dressing 



among the Creeks : 



Smoked leather is universally used among them for moccasins, stockings, boots, 

 and often for shirts. It is dressed with the brains of the deer, with which 

 the skin is first impregnated, and afterwards, confined from the air, is softened 

 and finished by the smoke of rotten wood. (Swan, 1855, p. 692.) 



According to personal information, skin dressing was anciently an 

 occupation of both men and women, though in later years it has fallen 

 entirely upon the women. The skin was first separated from the flesh 

 by means of sharp stones, and in later times with knives and hatchets. 

 Then it was hung on a framework of poles to dry, and afterward 

 taken down and soaked in water for about 2 days. Then it was put 

 back in the frame and scraped on the outside so as to make it smooth, 

 the implement used being either a knife or a two-handled scraper 

 like a drawshave. I saw Celissy Henry use for this purpose a piece 

 of iron in the shape of a grubbing hoe (pi. 71, fig. 1). Then the skin 

 was again allowed to dry. After that, they put water and dried deer 

 brains into a pot and heated the mixture without letting it come to a 

 boil. The skin was immersed, the liquid allowed to soak up into it and 

 it was then squeezed out again, the process being repeated many 

 times, for perhaps an hour. It was again stretched on the frame 

 to dry and was then found to be soft. Next, they scooped a hole in 

 the ground, built a fire in it, and put corncobs upon this so that a 

 thick smoke was produced with little flame. The hide was fastened 

 down over this pit with the outer surface down and left until it was 

 smoked yellow. They then procured red oak bark, boiled it for some 

 time in water, and allowed it to cool. Into this the deerskin was 

 plunged and allowed to remain for perhaps a day, after which it 

 was taken out and hung up for a final drying. The moccasins, leg- 

 gings, and other deerskin clothing were made of this, and, so proc- 

 essed, they would not get hard when wet. Sometimes bark of the 

 red wild peach (ichoma') was used in place of oak. The red oak 

 gives skins a yellowish red color, the wild peach a red color. When 

 preparing a cowhide, they soaked it for 2 months in an infusion of 

 red-oak bark. It appears that the process varied very little from 

 that in vogue among the Natchez, and, indeed, there seems to have 

 been little variation over most of the eastern part of North America. 



