Native+American+Indian+Brain+Tanning

__**Native American Indian Brain Tanning**__ The trade of leather tanning has been around for many years but of all the civilizations throughout history, Indians have perfected it. Indians utilized the brain tanning method. They used handmade tools such as smaller, handsized stones and rocks with beveled edges as scrapers when skinning an animal. The reason for the beveled edges was to make a clean separation between the meat and the hide minimizing the punctures into the hide from tools. In modern days, skinning tools are more precisely made to be more accurate. The Indians were very gracious people and utilized every part of each animal that was taken. This means that even the bones were utilized; bones were carved into tools such as scrapers that could be used to scrape the membrane and fat off of the hide during the tanning process. The tool used today for this part of the process is a double handled scraping blade. Instead of scraping off the hair, often times Indians would take the hide to a nearby cool stream and submerge the hide using rocks to weight it down while the temperature combined with the swiftness of the stream to float the hair off the hide. Along the lines of using all of an animal, the Indians used the brains of an animal as the key element in the hide tanning process that is now replaced by chemicals in modern tanning methods. Indians would mash up the brains of an animal in a container of sorts and then mix the mashed brains up with water to create a solution for the hide to soak in, curing the hide. This curing of the hide was the turning point of making a hide into leather. When the hide is done curing in the brain solution, it is strung up on a wooden frame using strips of leather cut into rope. Additionally, sometimes the bones from an animal can be carved into oars for canoes and also shorter paddles used for stretching the fibers of a hide while it is hung up to dry. While drying, it is important to use a paddle style of oar to stretch, press, and work the fibers of the hide until it is completely dried.When the hide was finally done drying, Indians would cut down the hide using a sharp stone or bone carved into a knife being careful not to leave any pieces of the hide that were too tough and uncomfortable yet still using as much of the hide as possible. Depending on what the intended use of the hide was supposed to be, the process could be done at this point but also could have one more step involved with it if desired. This next step is to smoke the hide at a very low temperature. Smoking hides always call for low temperatures and dead, dry wood; doing this last step would make a hide more breathable as well as giving a darker color to the item. When tanned properly, the hide will be as soft and smooth as suede. A finished hide can be made into many different items of clothing; actually, it can be made into any article of clothing from loin cloths to leggings to jackets and hats. In some instances, buckskin is more beneficial to use for clothing over conventional textiles. An example of this is winter time boots. A good set of full buckskin boots will allow ones feet to stay warmer than conventional boots because the smoked leather lets the feet breathe and the soles don’t have a large piece of rubber sponging all of the bodily warmth from the feet out of the boot and away from the foot. Buckskin boots can also be lined with fur of sorts in modern day to add increased warmth. When making other clothes such as t-shirts and pants of sorts, it is also more beneficial because buckskin is much more durable. Buckskin pants would be very nice in the days of Indians because of the durability and longevity of the garment. Over the years, hide tanning has evolved but the brain tanning method used by Indians has proved to be the best.

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