If you are looking on how to Tan a deer hide the Indigenous way or a moose hide, then here is where you will learn it.
So get your hide ready and let’s get it going.
Step One: You need to get a hide from either hunting or donation
Step Two: You want to soak the hide in a tub for a few days until the hide is nice and soft and Trim out all the odd shapes and start making your holes around the hide about 5-6 inches apart. On a moose make the holes about 6-8 inches apart.
Step Three: Lay the hide into a frame to stretch the hide. Tie the top and bottom of the hide onto the frame first. Then work the sides from the top down.
Step Four: Now you have to flesh the hide. You will need some fleshing tools and hit out the flesh at a 90 degree angle and hit it quite hard. You are starting at the middle down. Then you flip it over and do the other half.
Leave it up for 4-5 days until its dry
Step Five: Pull all nice hair off the rump area on a moose and you can use that for crafts or tufting. Now use the scraping tool and scrape out all the hide from the centre of the hide and work down.
Now do the thinning. Wet the raw hide down and where it is thick you will thin the hide out to make it more even and consistent.
Take it off of the frame and use a knife or scissors and shape out the hide.
Step Six: It’s time to brain the hide. You can use the brains
1 Brains from the animal, 1/2 pound of butter unsalted (lard, bear grease) 1/2 bar of sunlight shaved soap, and half a gallon of water. Simmer it and stir it constantly until the mixture is all good together.
Set it off the fire until it cools down and mush the brains with your hands in the pot.
Lay your rawhide on the ground with hair side up. Mix the brain mixture on the hide and use your hands to rub it in until it thickens.
Once your done, fold it in half and fold it in.
Step Seven: Go out to the bush and collect some punk spruce. Find a spruce stump with moss on it and look for a bark of a tree and you will find a rusty brown color wood from the punk spruce.
Pack it up in a bag and bring it back.
Set up a Tipi frame and wrap your hide around it and put plastic around it.
Get a pot and get the punk spruce smoking and put it inside the tipi frame and smoke the hide for about a half a day.
Then turn your hide around and finish smoking it on the other side.
Step Eight: Soak the hide in a tub with about 5 gallons of warm water and a cup of downy. Soak it for 3-4 days depending on the thickness of the hide.
Step Nine: Then take it out to a post and we are going to wring out the hide and work the edges first.
Step Ten: Wringing out the hide. Make sure the hair side is on the outside and fold it around a post and use a pole to twist the hide so all the moisture and water is soaked out of the hide.
Stretch out the hide length and width hide. Then you repeat the process.
Step Eleven: It’s time to dry the hide. You can do this over a small fire and flap the hide over the fire until it is almost dry.
Then put it back onto a frame and work the hide to completely dry it out.
Step Twelve: Soften and fluff the hide. Sprinkle some white flour onto the hide and use your dull scraping tools to work it into the hide.
You can also use sandpaper or sand rock to remove fuzzy spots and make it look nice and smooth.
Step Thirteen: Final Smoke. Fold the hide length wise with the flesh side in and sow it like a pillow case. Use a piece of canvas and make a little skirt that will be placed over the pot.
You will want to sew it so that you can turn it inside out.
Patch up any holes with canvas and use some Indian glue made with flour to patch up any holes. Allow for glue to dry before you take it to final smoke.
Take it to your smoke shed and make a little pully system and raise up your hide and lower your hide the canvas is around the pot and start smoking the hide.
You need to smoke the hide on each side for a full day on each side.
