FOREST AND STREAM. 



SOFTENING THE TANNED HIDE. 
it on the hide, drawing it toward her at each 
stroke, and making the strokes parallel, so that 
each one cleared of flesh and blood, or tissue, 
a space six or eight inches long and an inch 
wide. She worked fast, and as she separated 
the attached tissue from the hide she picked it 
up with her left hand and threw it behind her. 
Perhaps some favorite dog had accompanied 
her, and stood there ready to devour the scraps 
that she threw away. 
From time to time she moved along, a little 
further around the hide, and left the surface 
over which she had been working, clean and 
white. After she had been once about the hide, 
she began again, a little toward the middle, and 
thus working around and around it, at last had 
the entire flesh side of the skin clean and white, 
exposed to the sun. Always as she worked she 
kept the surface of the hide moist, so that 
when she had finished it was nowhere dry. All 
this work on the hide had not gone on without 
stretching it more or less; and now it was neces- 
sary to remove all the pins once more, for when 
the hide was permitted to dry it must be 
stretched tightly, so that the drying would be 
even. Very likely all this work had taken a 
full day’s time, and the woman was tired. Per- 
haps now it was time for the evening meal, or 
if not that, at least time to rest. She had not 
been without company all day long. Her little 
grandchildren, whom she dearly loved, had 
come to the place when she was working, and 
talked with her; or perhaps some neighbor of 
her own age, whose lodge had no hides to be 
dressed, or whose work was done, came and 
sat down with her, and gossiped for a while; 
or some friend, in passing, might stop, and 
standing by her, describe some event that had 
taken place, giving her a bit of interesting news. 
It did not take long for the hot sun and dry 
wind to remove all the moisture from_ the 
tightly stretched hide. And now very likely 
another operation had to be performed. If the 
hide was too thick to make a good robe, the 
woman, after it was dried, attacked it with a 
new instrument; this was a little adz, made of 
an elk-horn, bent at right angles, and furnished 
with a chisel-like plate of steel, with which she 
stood upon the hide, and bending over chipped 
away thin flakes from the flesh side, until it 
had been reduced to the proper thickness. This 
was hard work, involving a stooping position, 
with repeated blows of the adz, yet the woman 
worked at it for hours at a time, scarcely look- 
ing up, except occasionally, when she raised 
her body to an erect position, swept from her 
face the hair that had overspread it, and bend- 
ing back with hands on the loins, relieved her 
tired muscles. 
After the hide had been reduced to the proper 
thickness came the application of the tanning 
mixture. This was a compound of the brains, 

the pounded liver, and the gall of the buffalo, 
smeared thickly over the hide, after it had been 
thinned down. It was allowed to soak into the 
hide for a little while, and then, the pins being 
removed, the hide was folded together and laid 
away for twenty-four hours, to permit the mix- 
ture to thoroughly penetrate it. 
After this, the woman looked at it, and if it 
were ready, she spread it out on the ground 
again, the flesh side up, and scraped it again 
with a dull blade, squeezing from it all the 
moisture possible. It was now ready to be 
softened, and leaving it in the sun to dry, she 
took from the parfleche a strong rope, braided, 
of buffalo sinew, and attaching one end of this 
to a tree, or a pole set in the ground, fastened 
the other to a pin, which she drove firmly into 
the earth a foot or more from the post. Thus 
the rope ran diagonally from a point about 
six feet above the ground on the post, down to 
the pin. Seating herself on the ground before 
the rope, she passed the hide around behind it, 
the flesh side resting against the rope, and then 
began to pull it backward and forward against 
the rope, at each pull covering the surtace of 
perhaps two feet. This broke up the fibre of 
the hide and made it soft; and after one portion 
had been softened, the hide was moved along 
a little further, and another part of the skin 
treated; and so the position of the hide was 
constantly shifted, until at length it had all been 
gone over. When-this had been done the robe 
was again spread out, and carefully gone over 
with the hands, to find if there was any portion 
that required further softening. If not, the skin 
was laid out in the sun to dry, and sometimes, 
if it was not of even thickness, nor éverywhere 
equally soft, it was rubbed with a rough stone, 
or sometimes with the rough surface formed by 
the cancellous tissue of the head of the buffalo’s 
humerus, cut off so as to leave only the smooth 
articular surface to be held in the hand. 
The robe was now spread out in the sun to 
dry thoroughly, and when it was dry it was 
ready for use, being, when in this condition, 
the ordinary bed or robe used by the Indians. 
Often, however, the work on the robe con- 
tinued much longer. An old woman might 
wish to make an especially attractive robe for 
her husband, or for her son-in-law; or some 
girl whose young lover was off on the war- 
341 
path might devote a portion of the time of his 
absence to preparing a token of her affection 
for him against his return. The adornment of . 
the robe consisted usually of the embroidery of 
the flesh side of the robe with porcupine quills. 
Sometimes this embroidery was quite elaborate, 
and covered much of the robe. Or again it 
was more simple, and consisted merely of nar- 
row strips of quill work applied for the whole 
length of the robe, at greater or less distances 
apart. Each strip of quills might be interrupted 
at greater or. less distances by attaching a 
bunch of the hoof-sheaths of deer or antelope 
or buffalo calves, at different points along the 
line; or sometimes, besides the quill embroidery, 
bunches of such hoof-sheaths are attached to the 
robe all about its border. 
The work of ornamenting robes or dressed 
hides in this manner could not be performed at 
haphazard by any woman. Among the Chey- 
ennes it was a ceremonial, and to some extent 
a sacred operation, and no woman could per- 
form it until she had been taught by some one 
who knew how; in other words, until she had 
joined the quilling society—mi-i-nu’? The candi- 
date for admission to this society, when re- 
ceived into it, gave a feast to the members, and’ 
perhaps a larger present to some poor person; 
and the initiation, which occupied considerable 
time, was accompanied by much ceremonial of 
prayer and instruction. It was considered that 
a woman who had quilled thirty robes, or the 
equivalent of thirty robes, had secured good 
fortune for herself throughout her age, and 
would live to be old. For the women this 
operation was almost as serious as was the 
operation of making shields for the men. It 
was something that was undertaken with great 
deliberation, and after much thought, and once 
undertaken was not given up until completed. 
At the meetings of the quilling society it used 
to be common, before the food was served, 
for one old woman after another to stand up 
and tell of the robes she had quilled, just as on 
certain ceremonial occasions a warrior might 
tell of the brave deeds that he had performed. 
In ancient times, besides the quills of the porcu- 
pine, which, dyed in various colors with their 
native dyes, were the varied and most showy 
forms of ormentation possessed by the Indians, 
some tribes used also a flat black water-grass, 

RETURN OF THE WOOD 
GATHERERS. 
