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342

Art of Travel.

sary to slightly grease the skin, when it is half-dressed, to make it thoroughly supple.


,S' poking Hides.-llr. Catlin, speaking of the skins used by

the N. American Indians, says that the greater part of them
" go through still another operation afterwards (besides
dressing), which gives them a greater value, and renders
them much more serviceable-that is, the process of smoking.
For this, a small hole is dug in the ground, and a fire is built
in it with rotten wood, which will produce a great quantity
of smoke without much blaze, and several small poles of the
proper length stuck in the ground around it, and drawn and
fastened together at the top (making a cone), around which
a skin is wrapped in form of a tent, and generally sewed
together at the edges to secure the smoke within it : within
this the skins to be smoked are placed, and in this condition
the tent will stand a day or two, enclosing the heated smoke ;
and by some chemical process or other, which I do not under
stand, the skins thus
acquire a quality which
enables them, after be
ing ever so many times
wet, to dry soft and
pliant as they were
before, which secret I
have never seen prac
tised in my own coun
try, and for the lack of
which all our dressed
skins, when once wet,


- ruined." A single skin

may conveniently be

smoked by sewing the

edges together, so as to make a tube of it : the lower end is tied round an iron pot with rotten wood burning inside, the upper end is kept open with a hoop, and slung to a triangle, as shown in the figure.

_   are, I think, chiefly Tanning .Sides,-Steep them in a strong solution of alum

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