Facilitating connection with Hides - Science version

Had a great day exploring Western Science, Indigenous Science, somatic experience and the fundamentals of curiosity with over 100 highschool students at Hazelton Secondary

Hide Tanning in New Hazelton B.C.

Cotton mills

1802

Those first cities found orphaned children

Kept them in poor houses of London

Only a little more than 2oo years ago

Those children were moved up stream to the cotton mills – fuel of industrialization.

Where I’m from

It was those boys

9 years old, younger

12 hour days

6 inches from the ground

Little fingers sorting

Tying - Trying to be human in

The laboring heart of an inhuman

Industrial way of being.

I wonder if Gandhi knew this

When he spoke of home spun

a century later.

non-cooperation

swadeshi boycott of foreign goods

Non-violence

Khadi – home spun thread

Home made clothe - the old way.

Despite the cost of time

in comparison to British clothe

Swadeshi

non-violence

non-cooperation

Did he know that

Where I’m from

It was the boys

9 years old, younger

the one’s who needed to be loved most

12 hour days

little fingers

tying

and for the first time

wearing clothes made by

strangers

Swadeshi

Non-cooperation

To make these clothes for my

Family, with my son playing at

My loom is

Swadeshi

Non-violence

“and like a slave

her feeble helpless pow’rs

are doom’d to work

at least for thirteen hours”

it was 1802 when

those doctors said

“wait”

it took them 17 years

To legislate a work day from

5am through 9pm with

1½  hours for meals

5am through 9pm

Except if

there was drought

or the mill broke –

And they had to catch up on

the orders.

By 1835 there was some

1 000 cotton mills in England

135 in Scotland

29 in Ireland

237 000 people they estimated

½ were women older than 13

13.2% were children younger than that

“and like a slave,

her feeble helpless pow’rs

are doom’d to work at least

for thirteen hours”

Did Africa know then

That bundles of used clothes

Would dress a continent

Out pricing those hand made

Fabrics

Hand died fabrics

Colors of home

Where I’m from

They used to work those kids

To the bone

“and like a slave,

her feeble helpless pow’rs

are doom’d to work at least

for thirteen hours”

No wonder my people bet their lives

By getting on those boats to

Reach a shore only to discover

People wearing royal buckskin clothes

Because where I’m from

The kings family owned the

Forest and the deer

1785

King George the third

“No man henceforth shall be in possession of …”

“Imprisoned a year and a day…”

“And after that expires

He shall abjure the realm of England”

While we worked 5 – 9

Fed tea

And fish and chips

From oceans already become

Thread bare.

Between 1755 and 1773

2 601 152 lbs of deerskin

were shipped to England from

savannah, Georgia

“and like a slave,

her feeble helpless pow’rs

are doom’d to work at least

for thirteen hours”

The children who needed love the most

Were trapped in the heart of an

Industrial machine

Abused by a society lost to

Itself –

And those boys became fathers

And those girls became mothers

Of generations of cultural orphans

Spiritually lost within

A machine driven world

Where god became an idea

Packaged by religion

And the machine keeps

Chugging along

…

Inform yourself from

A time when the most

In need were nurtured

Identify with a time

When your people

Acted from love

Towards each other

And the planet

Nov. 25^th, 2012

Fire broke out in a Bangladeshi factory killing 112 workers who couldn’t escape as there was no fire escapes.

The clothes we wear today are not much different than 200 years ago.

Speak to the silence in the weave of our clothes.

We may think that

200 years looks differently

but is it not just a wolf in sheep’s clothes?

Find the time when Your people Acted from love towards each other and the planet, own that history, we’ve been fighting all along.


...  ...  ...

here's a rare color video of
1927 London england

Many hands reveal
that the work of making cloth
the ways we use our days
is as much about doing as being

creating cloth with
the hide of an animal
we shared an experience where we
each journeyed our own paths
through this shared experience
connecting with our selves

proper hide storage

So if you're interested in storing a hide for the spring weather to warm before tanning your hide, I suggest skinning the animal properly first. ie. it should not look like this.

Below (white) is the hide. We want to get muscle/fat off so that it is a nice smooth white colour before we salt it.

So in reference to 'proper skinning'.
If you plan on using the hide to make fabric, think about your cuts that will maximize usable sections of fabric. below is an example of a bunch of wasted extraneous hide that I removed due to this.

*note about skinning
When skinning an animal, cut the edges (ie. back of hind, belly, chest, neck and then PUT DOWN YOUR KNIFE AND PULL OFF THE HIDE WITH YOUR HANDS leaving all muscle on the animal so that you eat it! Knifing a hide off is a waste of everybody's time. however coyote appreciates a hide to chew on now and then.

click any picture for larger view

Notice the heavy salting. salt is cheap. use it liberally.

Allow the salt to draw moisture from the hide for 12 - 24 hours. keep the hide on a slight incline to facilitate drain/run off. Once this is done apply more salt if you like, fold the edges in and roll. store in plastic bag, rubbermaid etc. the idea is that the salt binds all the moisture so rot can't set in. We also don't want the hide to dry out. bad news.

this will store long term, as far as I know, as long as animals don't get in...

I prefer to process a hide into rawhide that I then dry and store inside. it becomes smaller, more portable and much more stable (animals aside)

Tan your own Sheep Hide without Chemicals

Here's How.

Peel the hide off of the animal using your hands. That's right, put your knife down after making your initial cuts along the length of the hind legs and pull. Cutting a thin hide off an animal is prone to cause tears later on in the tanning process.

I use an dull curved knife to clean any remaining fat/muscle from the hide.

Over the period of 3 days I rub a soap/oil (a little water) into the hide. Brains work best. This can all be done stretched in a frame (or not) allowing it to dry into the hide. Then, using a pumice stone I found in the bush, I work the hide on a sunny day, keeping the fibres moving while it dries. I focus on the edges first, and then the main body.

Dissimilar to a deer (etc.) hide, a more agressive tool tends to rip right through the hide. experiment! see what works for you, I suggest being firm, but not aggressive.

Cleaning the Wool side is up to you!

once the hide is dry and soft, fill it with smoke until it takes on colour. this leaves you with a machine washable rug for those cold days and nights that will inevitably come in this beautiful place.

click for larger version

for natural tanning how to and know how check out braintan.com and look for Matt's book and the online tanning forum.

Rugs

It has been a full year that I've had the hide of the deer that I killed carefully rolled and stored. Wanting to admire and be inspired by the deep colour, sensual texture and characteristic marks, a red splash on the neck and that little spot on the right flank. But it stayed rolled away and stored because how could it be out and not walked all over. To walk on something that beautiful was unthinkable.
Well as all things seem to come to pass, Paula's shed roof had a leak, and that leak flushed water right onto that dried hide rug, causing some potential trouble. Now that I"m living in a very dry house, the hide quickly sprang back to stiffness, and after a couple of days keeping distance from stepping on it (it takes up the majority of my floor) I sprang out of bed the other day realizing...

I will take Every step of this day
as if I am stepping onto the most beautiful expression of life
as each step surely is, this deer is of this same world of
concrete and dirt, forest and field. No matter where I walk
it is all of the same force as this deer that I admire,
though different in form.

Truly, the ground water in the tap, the wind or the tree.
Styrofoam cups in the ditch, frozen for the time being,
each is somehow related, and each step, as the first step
of each day now reminds me, to take each step after
as such a gift.

careful on the ice Ben

A cold december day

The Otonabe river had frozen over my rinsing hides

standing on the ice I broke to get to them

was not the safest! but fitting maybe, as

these hides will become snowshoes and drums.

Feeling good

Well here is my first pair of long pants.
All buckskin except the antler button (threaded with buckskin cordage, pockets and fly).
People often ask how long? Well I didn't hunt these two animals (big bucks, I have long legs!) but from skinning (with Jon) two animals is about 20 minutes, 12 hours to tan each hide is 24 hours and 20 minutes, designing the pattern, 3 hours, cutting, sewing and dancing, 4 hours. Brings a grand total of 31 hours and 20 minutes (approx. of course).
I've never grown and spun cotton or hemp or kept sheep or alpaca, but I figure time wise, and the life that these pants will lead, they may be around longer than I am for a little time worked!

Feeling Good,
Ben.

buckskin on television!?!?!

Forward to minute 12:16 till about minute 16:00
((does anybody know how i can edit this down?))
Starring ben and buckskin in peterborough!



I was softening two hides daily for 10 days and boy did it take a toll on the ol body! some sore hands to say the least. take particular note to me saying 'braintan.com' and the flash bar that says 'braintanner.com' hello the good folks at braintanner, i had never been to your site before!

And hello Matt, thanks for helping me get to the point of tanning some great soft hides!

On Race...

I met an acquaintance at the Guelph Organic Growers Conference and we got to talking about buck skin and I invited her to come to the Canoe Museum where I have space these two weeks and am softening about 20 white tail deer hides.
She said she might, but would probably just go to the reserve to learn.
I think that race used to be interesting, or pertinent, when people of different families/lineage lived in different ways. Now that the majority of people live in a similar (industrial) way, is race less important?
For me I'm interested in place based living. There are people who carry knowledge and stories that are from families/people that have lived in a place continuously for thousands of years, which I am enthralled by. Strength, Resilience.
I am from a family/peoples that hasn't lived in a place for some while, but just like you, I am of this earth.

Enjoying part of the falls work,
28 white tail hides bucked and dried
winter will be to soften, smoke, and craft!

living as if I belong

To handle the stuff of our living was for me to be born again.
To take apart an animal's wholeness, the tangible experience of the complete
the smooth of liver and lung
the perseverance of heart

Later
to work the fat of the brain into hide
lustrous fabric
My clothes remind me, celebrate with me, that I am of this earth.
As my body belongs, so to may my living belong.

ben's first hunt

"How could he be a hunter?" they said to themselves, "I've seen him blow mosquitos off himself so as not to harm them..."
Their ideas of hunting may have been about death. yet for this hunter the death of the deer is the responsibility for the health of that species. By taking life he commits to maintaining life. In the way that he relates with the sun, choosing the healthiest animals, those who eat the plants and medicines that he may be unable to, he incorporates all of that in to his living through that doe's flesh and organ, through her hide, that will become a drum to sing songs of praise.

He wasn't quite sure if he could share the life of hunting with his community.
He had grown up knowing hunting as death as well.
But sitting in those trees, 4 silent hours at a time, witnessing those trees turning towards sun, or away, morning and evening. Maybe a hundred silent hours watching turkey and tree, squirrel, mouse, opossum, deer, wind, nuthatch, colour! coming and leaves falling.

"In life I knew her for less than a minute, and then for hours, and then days." They had come to that tree he was standing in as dusk time neared, and his bow drew silently, that arrow flying smoothly through branches where he aimed above her elbow. She stumbled, breaking that arrow before it went through her, a timeless second and she ran.

It wouldn't be till 2:00 the next afternoon that he would find her, lying on her injured side on those coloured leaves. Leaves he understood in new ways, the difference between a drop of blood 1/4 the size of a dime and the red splash of fall colour on this year's yellow leaf.

Jon came after an hour or so of tracking in the dark, Ben's flashlight had since died and with a wind up light and ben's bike light they followed her trail under the moon, till moon set and the grass became wet they returned to the house, ben ate and they slept, 12 hours before the doe would be found.

Up before dawn, ben was back to where they had left off, with a chance muddy track and splash of blood.
by noon I had left that grassy area, traveling through wet areas, maples and forest alongside hwy 403 near brantford. I had come into that forest so slowly and quietly that a sneeze spooked two bucks, who would return to interact with me. At 1:00, after spending an hour at a pond with a bewildering track and a pool of blood where she had stopped, maybe to consider her direction, I began walking the area, as I was coming into the corner of the bush, between corn field and highway.

A turn, after consideration of the best plan, having followed a heavily traveled (deer) path, and my heart fell to the forest, those tears came to my eyes as, running, falling, touching her so that i could let myself believe, turning her over to know it was the same arrow that pierced her, i wept.





Processing, skinning, butchering, learning.
Friends came to experience this expression of god.

Chris Keefer

Dear Chris Keefer: An open letter.

I write to you in the greatest appreciation. Now not many folk would appreciate the gift of a 3 year old Caribou hide, smelling of the hunt, wrapped in old grain sacks and plastic, except maybe I and my friend Jon. In the greatest of greats, I happily rub my hands over the now tanned hide, softened and smoked, loosening the shedding winter coat, which emits quite a profuse array of white hairs. But better in the outside world than the inside world of my bed, as I plan on using the hide as a mattress of sorts before eventually crafting winter wear from the fine thick coat of the animal known as the 'bou. so thank you. chrit'ou, for the 'bou. thank you. When you come to visit Cortez, you will surely bed down on this cozy hide.

- Yours in perpetuity, Ben Laurie -



Thank you Jon for the gracious gift of your brains (4 of them!) and your time, and your punk. You are a dear friend (and a deer friend!)

Anticipated Clothing

The garment making working surface
in dad's shop, due to the smokey nature
of the buckskin and all of mom's fabric
in the house that can acquire smell.

The lovely shirt, jerkin, jersey or jacket
as modeled by a scruffy little pine
looking west, towards Vancouver island
from Cortez.

Making Fabric

Thank you Jon for teaching me how to make buckskin, how to skin moose and deer, and how to butcher. I am so fortunate to have learned from a person as knowledgeable, skilled, and respectful as you. Thank you.

In exchange for the knowledge and experiences Jon's gifted me with, I have offered, and worked, with many people on the hides I've processed. and Soon I will have a lovely hoodie as testament to my work! (picture to come mid January)

Scott scraping the flesh side of the hide before soaking in Alkali (wood ash)

Hair side of a Deer Skin post soak

'Graining' - removing the hair and grain
leaving the skin layer, which becomes
the supple buckskin

Laura and Kashmir (or is that Apollo?)

One of five hides that's been softened
and is awaiting the smoke ...

The Smoke!