Deer Hides

Iwas driving through Lake Ozark when I noticed a sign for a black powder rendezvous. At the time, I was a member of the Howard’s Bluff Militia, a Jefferson City black power shooting club. I pulled into the rendezvous because I was curious. Much to my surprise there were many boy scouts attending and I learned that several of the black powder rendezvouses in Missouri host boy scout troops. I had just become the new scoutmaster of the troop in California, MO, and I was looking for different camping trip ideas.

In the fall, I took the troop to a black powder rendezvous in west central Missouri. The scouts got to shoot muzzleloading rifles, throw knives and hatchets, and participate in other activities.

In the evening, there was a contest to select the troop and individual scouts with the best mountain man costume. I was unaware of this competition, so the scouts were not prepared to participate, but I immediately recognized the potential for making mountain man outfits out of deer hides that would be much better than any outfit at this competition. More importantly, tanning deer hides and making clothing would take up dozens of scout meetings.

I put a notice on the bulletin board at work during the deer season asking for deer hides for the scouts, which was a huge mistake. I was inundated with raw deer hides. People dropped them off anonymously on the porch of the house.

Soon I had enough deer hides to cover the backyard. I salted and rolled them up for storage in the chest freeze over Mrs. Urich’s strong and vocal objections. Apparently, some wives don’t like the freezer packed with deer hides, especially if they are aromatic.

The first step in the tanning process was to scrape the remaining flesh off the hides. The scouts tacked the hides to sheets of plywood. One of the scout dads made scrapers out of 1-inch wide by 18-inch long metal strips with one end bent 120 degrees and sharpened. It took a long time to scrape a deer hide, and the hides were salted and rolled up between scout meetings.

The next step was tanning the hides, a process that I didn’t know anything about, plus the Internet was new and there was no YouTube. Consequently, I had to go to the library and actually read books. The native Americans used deer brains as the active preservation ingredient, but it is hard to come up with enough brains for dozens of hides. A more practical alternative was water, hydrated lime powder and wood ashes which removed the hair. First, the hides were rinsed in a mild boric acid solution to neutralize the lime. Then the hides were tanned in water with alum and salt. All of this was done in large plastic garbage cans. After the hides came out of the tanning solution, they were rinsed and tacked to plywood to dry.

The dried hides had the consistency of thick cardboard and had to be softened. Nyla, the Smiling One, wife of Nanook of the North and the other Inuk women chewed the hides until they were soft. But this process is hard on the teeth and probably doesn’t taste very good. I knew the scouts would not want to spend hours chewing their deer hides. Alternatively, the scouts rubbed the hides over the ends of tables and sawhorses, but they still were not pliable enough to make clothing. The solution was to tumble the hides in a drier without the heat and with old tennis shoes or wooden blocks covered with cloth. Unfortunately, no scout mother would allow a grungy deer hide near the dryer.

I took all the deer hides home on a day Mrs. Urich was gone and processed them in our dryer. In this case, it was obviously much better to beg for forgiveness than seek permission because she was still chafing from having the chest freezer packed with smelly deer hides for months. Besides, I did an excellent job of cleaning and sanitizing the dryer drum but, unfortunately, I forgot about the lint filter.

Several days later, Mrs. Urich was standing in front of me with a serious frown on her face holding the lint filter. It was choked with deer hair. She told me never to put a deer hide in her dryer again. I thought the dryer was half mine, but apparently, the household appliances only become half mine when they break and require repair.

Almost two years later, Mrs. Urich was standing in front of me again, scowling and holding a perfectly clean drier lint filter. As I began weaseling out of another uncomfortable marital situation, she cut me off saying there were two things I had never done during the course of our marriage.

The first was cleaning the bathroom, and the second was clean the drier lint filter unless I was up to something. This was my final warning but she suggested I process the deer hides at a laundromat. Actually, this was an excellent suggestion and I was shocked that I hadn’t thought of it myself because it would have prevented almost two years of bickering over the dryer. I located a commercial dryer with a huge tub which allowed me to process deer hides much more quickly.

The final steps in the softening process were sanding the flesh side of the hide with fine-grain sandpaper and rubbing the hide sparingly with neat’s-foot oil. With the hides softened up, the scouts could make a vest, possibles bag, belt pouch or moccasins. Many of the scouts made all four. I had artificial sinew which was thick nylon thread covered with a brown waxy coating. The scouts had difficulty pushing a needle threw the hides. I solved this problem with electric drills and small drill bits, which I bought by the dozens because the scouts kept breaking them.

I taught the scouts how to seed bead designs on cloth and then apply the cloth to their deer hide clothing. They finished up by adding plastic eagle claws, bear claws, small jingles and other decorations. Some of the older scouts were very good at seed beading.

At a farm sale, I bought a box filled with raw cow horns. I showed the scouts how to make powder horns by smoothing the exterior of the horns and carving wood caps for both ends. They braided straps from strips of deer hide. I also asked the scouts to scour garage sales for hats even women’s hats which they converted to hats that looked like what a mountain man would wear.

The troop took first place in the mountain man costume competition at the next rendezvous. Three of the scouts took first through third place in the individual competition. It wasn’t even close. Then the scouts asked me why I didn’t compete in the adult leader mountain man costume competition, which was a good question.

Mrs. Urich insisted on several conditions before she accepted my sincere proposal of marriage including never asking her to do any sewing for me. As a matter of fact, she could tell if I was thinking about asking her by peering into my eyes. Accordingly, I was totally shocked when she volunteered to sew button-down pants and a pull over shirt. I applied seed bead designs directly to the shirt. I was very authentic looking with a powder horn, possibles bag, moccasins and a hat made from a bowler.

I took second place at my first adult leader mountain man costume contest. Another scout leader had a complete leather outfit including vest, pants and coat all with fringe and seed beading directly on the leather which is hard to do. He looked like a mountain man who had just descended from the Rockies with a load of beaver pelts. After some discussion, both Mrs. Urich and I agreed that making a full leather outfit to be more competitive was too much work. Second place at future events would be good enough despite our middle son announcing that second place was actually the first loser.

Several years later, I located a supply of colorful blankets with different plaid designs. The scouts made vests, capes, pouches and other items out of these blankets. Mrs. Urich even got out her sewing machine a second time on my behalf and helped me make a full-length overcoat out of a red and white blanket. With my trousers, shirt, blanket coat and other accessories, I was stunning and very authentic looking, but I still took second place.

During my 13 years as a scout leader, I helped the scouts tan hides every 2 to 3 years, depending on how much material was needed for new scouts to make costumes. Some of the scouts who had tanned hides before elected to use a hair-on tanning technique and supplemented their costumes with capes and hats made with hair-on deer leather. When I think back on my years as a scout leader, some of the best memories were teaching the scouts to tan deer hides, helping them make authentic looking outfits, sparing with Mrs. Urich over the clothes dryer, watching the scouts clobber the competition in the costume competitions, and repeatedly being the first loser in the adult leader mountain man costume contests.

David Urich