Tanning a Buffalo Hide

Reader Contribution by Jason Drevenak
Published on September 17, 2014
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I’ve brain-tanned my fair share of deer, squirrels, groundhogs, foxes and sundry other creatures unfortunate enough to cross Route 9 near our farm and school in West Virginia; but the farmers market seemed nervous about the prospect of giving us the skin when they slaughtered the next in their herd. Either way, we spent months calling, negotiating, anticipating and mostly, waiting.

American Natives weren’t the only early people to practice brain-tanning; it was a wide-spread practice whereby the brain of the animal provides the lecithin needed to naturally tan the hide. Today, modern tanneries use awful chemicals like chromium sulfate, but primitive humans used any source of tannins whether from lecithin in brains, or from certain barks or vegetables.  Many American natives revered the buffalo and tanned its hide in a highly ritualistic manner. Buffalo skins provided homes, clothes and food for the Lakota and other people of the American interior.

As a kid, I remember traveling across the country with a plastic buffalo super glued to the dash board, anxiously peering out the window of the Dodge Caravan, waiting for my first glance of a real live buffalo. The feeling was exactly the same waiting for the call from the farmer’s market that we would be getting a hide.

Brain-Tanning is a Big Job

We knew it would be a big job. Brain-tanning a big deer can take 3 to 4 days for one person, so we definitely wanted help.  We sent out an alert on the Facebook page letting our students and neighbors know that we would be trading brain-soaked, 25-degree-Fahrenheit, stooped-over labor for … well, apple cider.

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