26 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XVIIl, 



Several tools are in use for dressing skins. A chisel-shaped 

 flesher (now generally made of iron, originally of a buffalo 

 leg-bone) is used to clean the inner surface of hides from fat 

 and flesh. If the hair is to be removed, which is almost 

 always the case unless a blanket is being made, an instrument 

 made of elk-antler is used. The end of this extends at right 

 angles to the handle, and is provided with a metal blade. 

 This instrument is at times made of wood, but then has 

 exactly the shape of those made of antler. With this instru- 

 ment the hair is cut from the skin with little difficulty. Some- 

 times a stone hammer is used to pound the hairy side of the 

 skin until the hair comes off. With the elk-antler scraper the 

 hide is generally thinned down more or less, the surface being 

 flaked or planed off. All hides used for clothing are thinned 

 to a certain extent. The scrapings obtained in this process 

 are sometimes eaten. The elk-horn scrapers are usually 

 marked with a number of parallel scratches or lines, which are 

 a record of the ages of the children of the woman who owns 

 the scraper. One woman kept count of the number of hides 

 she had dressed with her instrument. Twenty-six scratches 

 denoted so many buffalo-skins ; forty small brass nails driven 

 into the back of the instrument at the bend, signified forty 

 skins of other animals that she had worked. These scrapers 

 are sometimes used for digging roots. 



After the hair has been removed, the skin is stretched on 

 the ground by means of pegs, and dried until stiff, if rawhide 

 is to be made. If soft hide is desired, as for clothing, the 

 skin is soaked and then scraped or rubbed with a blunt edge 

 until it is dry. Now, pieces of tin, whose scraping edge is 

 slightly convex, are generally used for this purpose ; formerly 

 bone, horn, and perhaps stone, seem to have been used. 

 Another form of scraper for softening or roughening hide 

 consists of a slightly curved stick of wood a foot long; in 

 the middle of the concave side of this is a metal blade. The 

 whole object somewhat resembles a draw-knife. This instru- 

 ment is used more particularly on buckskin, which is hung 

 on an upright post or stick. A scraper of this kind is shown 

 in Fig. 3- It has carved upon it in outline the figure of a 



