The Modern Frontier - How to Make Buckskin
Learning how to make buckskin can teach you more than a primitive skill.
If you’ve visited this website much, you’ll know that a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish is to make frontier history more accessible to people. Part of this is to provide easy-to-understand primary source posts. Primary sources are a great way to learn about history because you can learn about historical events from somebody who actually experienced them. Another thing we’ve tried to accomplish is to help people actually live out historical skills or activities. If you’ve checked out the Frontier Life YouTube channel, you may be aware of the videos demonstrating historical skills. Practicing historical skills is a great way to learn more about the past. One skill that I’ve personally found to be worthwhile is learning how to make buckskin.
The American frontier is a neat place to study for lots of reasons. One reason, in my opinion, is because it was the meeting place of Stone Age (or Copper Age) technology, and the Iron Age. Mountain men, for example, learned primitive skills of survival but also used metal knives, guns, and kettles. Had it not been for the annual rendezvous, it’s unlikely their way of life would have existed. It is sort of the story of the American frontier. People on the frontier had access to manufactured goods, but they were far enough removed from them that the need to develop skills of self-reliance was crucial. One skill that everyone on the frontier had to be competent in was making clothing.
Prior to the spread of manufactured clothing, clothing yourself and your family was a time-consuming chore. Early colonial Americans used mostly cotton, linen, and wool to clothe themselves. Using these raw materials, people created the well-documented “homespun” clothing of the time. However, prior to the introduction of those crops and resources, people used more animals skins and furs to clothe themselves. The tribes of the Great Plains that George Catlin painted, for example, clothed themselves using mostly buffalo skin. Alfred Jacob Miller also created images of Native Americans and mountain men clothed in buckskin. Trapper Rufus Sage even documented the practice in his book Rocky Mountain Life. Because the use of buckskin was so common on the American frontier, learning how to make buckskin can help you better understand life in that place at that time.
Learning how to make buckskin is a good example of a living history activity. Living history is an approach to history education in which the student actually does historical activities. The basic idea, is that by doing, or living, historical events or activities, you can gain a far better understanding than if you just read about it in a book. When making buckskin, you’ll learn more than just the steps in the process. You’ll also learn about the effort it took to stay clothed. You’ll also end up with a useful product that was actually used in the past. This means you can use it to create products and gear that matches that of historical figures. This opens up a world of opportunity for living history activities.
If you are interested in learning how to make buckskin, you might appreciate this video on my YouTube channel. When I first started tanning, I used lots of different YouTube videos to learn the process. Over time, I pieced together information learned from a variety of sources into a process that works for me. That process is demonstrated in the video. Hopefully, young or aspiring tanners can use it to add to what they already know or serve as a starting place for them.
I’d encourage people who are interested in learning as much as they can about tanning to consider two books. First is Monte Burch’s The Ultimate Guide to Skinning and Tanning. This book is comprehensive and contains as much information as you are likely to ever need. It has been in my library for more than a decade. The other book is Brain Tanning the Sioux Way by Larry Belitz. In this book, the author describes the traditional practice of brain tanning hides. It is very informative, and one of the first books I read on the subject of primitive tanning.
For those people who prefer limited distractions when it comes to learning, you might find my Make Your Own Buckskin guide a helpful resource as well. Not intended to be a comprehensive dissertation, the guide was written to explain one approach as straightforward as possible. At 27 pages, this guide outlines the process that I have used to successfully make buckskin. The guide also describes the process using modern tools and equipment. Although using only Stone Age equipment and tools would teach us the most about history, it seems impractical for beginners. Personally, I feel like the process demonstrated in the video and described in the guide has taught me a good deal about history and life on the American frontier.
As I mentioned, learning how to make buckskin is a living history activity that can really open up a world of opportunity. By making this traditional material, you’ll not only learn what it takes to turn a deer skin into buckskin, but you’ll also learn more about the lives of people in the past. If nothing else, that can help you better understand their lives and struggles, and help you better appreciate all of the abundance we are surrounded by in our modern world.
