The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 107

"hand working" but sometimes throws the skin over a tree limb. When the skin stretches, it is easy to work, she said. Its strength and flexibility increase with pulling and the center especially becomes tough. The only fragile points are around the edges where the thin skin dries faster. Mrs.

Littleman pulls the skin horizontally. Then she puis her fool on il and stretch until the skin dries, becoming soft and white like felt. The skin is scraped once more for removal of rough spots. The real hand-tanned skin is not perfect white. Mrs.

Littleman recalled the tanning was easier when she and her grandmother worked together, silling side by side and "pulling and pulling" the skin between them. Her grandparents used the skins for clothing, moccasins and ceremonial wear. pulls vertically. She continues to pull and mm The wci deer skin widened and became Softer as the Indian woman stretched it and then kneaded it with both hands. Mrs.

Alice Littleman talked as she pulled the skin, the third stage in the centuries-old process of "tanning" hides. A Kiowa, Mrs. Littleman used the Indian method of converting skin into leather. Her grandmother, Domebeahly. who raised her, taught her how.

to turn hide into beautiful white buckskin. Tanning by hand is fading since few persons are interested in the hard work involved. Skins are not plentiful like they were when Indians depended on animals for food and clothing. Buckskin, once the main material used by Indians and frontiersmen, is now produced commercially. "I try to leach my girls." said Mrs.

Littleman. "It's going away. "It takes a long lime to tan a hide. It's hard work. Thai's why they cost so much." Mrs.

Littleman will use the deer skin: for a pair of Kiowa leggings for herself to be worn for ceremonials. She made a i dress for herself but "sold it to a Coman- che lady." The summer skin was given to her by Pueblo friends at Taos, N.M. A ceremonial buckskin dress requires from four to five skins, she said. The cost of skins ranges from S20 to S50 each. An average size dress will cost about $100.

Mrs. Littleman. who is 60, adds bright, intricate beadwork lo the ceremonial cos- tumes. She was taught beadwork by her mother, Anna Konad. 1 "Seems like I've been doing it all my life." she said.

She has taught beading to the four nieces who are living wiih her I. and her husband. Robert, in their hilltop home south of Washita in Caddo County, ft The three-stage method of tanning takes about a week or 10 days after the animal 'X: is skinned. The processing takes place ouidixirs. Mrs.

Littleman shivered in the chilling wind as she partially dried the skin with a scraper and then started the continuous stretching. If she is unable to finish the stretching, she rolls the wet skin in a plas-tic sack and puts it in the refrigerator to prevent drying out. In the first step, the hide is stretched on a rack to dry wiih air reaching the top and bottom. This lakes from three to four if days. Then Mrs.

Littleman uses a long scrap-Is er to remove the hair. The long-handled scraper has been in her family for dec-; ades. The metal culling edge is fastened by sinew thongs. This process usually 1 takes place on the ground with Mrs. Lii-tleman bending over to use the scraper.

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Littleman mixes up her special concoction for curing the skin. She boils one-half pound of brains and one-half pound of liver. She grinds the liver and puis the ingredients "back in the soup." She adds two tablesptxins of lard. She daubs the "paste" (which she says is stinky) on the skin and leaves it in the sun two or three days, turning il frequently. The final step starts with overnight soaking.

Mrs. Littleman then starts the strenuous "handwork." she scrapes the water from both sides of the skin, using a small hand scraper. She scrapes upward, holding the skin down wiih her feel, and then scrapes the water downward. Mrs. Littleman usually flips the wet skin over a clothesline for stretching and KEEP YOUR GM CAR ALL GM.

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