Palaeoeskimo Skin Processing Experiments

Sinew and Baleen hafted scrapers

I started using the stone endscrapers on the hooded seal skin first thing yesterday morning. In general, I wanted to get a feel for using chert endscrapers to clean a skin, and specifically I wanted to test the durability of sinew versus baleen hafting material. I had one endscraper hafted in a wood handle with sinew and hide glue and a second hafted with baleen and hide glue.

The used sinew hafted scraper

The sinew scraper became loose in the handle after 23 minutes of scraping. The lashings started to soften and the scraper started to wiggle like a loose tooth, although after another 8 minutes of scraping (31 minutes total) it was still secure enough to continue working. The lashings became slightly more flexible, but it really didn't impede the function of the tool.

The oil saturated baleen hafted endscraper

The baleen hafted scraper became loose after 49 minutes of scraping. It lasted more than twice as long as the sinew hafted scraper and after another 10 minutes of scraping (59 minutes total) it was still working. The hard socket formed by the baleen has still not become flexible, as the sinew haft did, and although the glue was no longer holding it in place the haft was still as firm after an hour of scraping as it was at the beginning. Unlike the sinew hafting, where the binding material itself started to become flexible after 23 minutes, it was the glue alone in the baleen haft that was undone by the greasy work after 49 minutes. The baleen socket is still rock solid after almost a full hour of messy greasy scraping.

Scraping with the Palaeoeskimo reproduction endscraper

Regluing the scrapers using seal blood

Since both scrapers popped out of their bindings so neatly, I cleaned them up at the end of the day and reglued them using some of the seal blood, yet another cool traditional use for seals. Lori collected some of the blood from directly out of the seal's heart at the necropsy. Its really sticky - in fact, when you are eating uncooked seal you have to be careful not to glue your teeth together!

The fat and hide

Sinew vs. baleen was the specific question that I wanted to look at, but in general terms, I realized that chert endscrapers are still a bit of a precission tool for the stage of skin working that this pelt is at. I've cut off the thick layer of fat, which weighed in at whopping 125 pounds! Think about that for a minute, that's just the fat that was clinging to the hide when the seal was skinned. One hundred and twenty-five pounds is the equivelant of one whole 105 pound Pamela Anderson PLUS a 20 pound bucket of lard.

Slate ulu pressing out the grease

But the fat and connective tissues that are still clinging to the underside of the skin are saturated in grease and the sharp edged scraper can't start actually scraping until after that grease is removed. Most of what I did with the little endscrapers was squeegeeing out the grease from the skin. I briefly tried a metal ulu and the wider blade did wonders - where the endscrapers were removing the grease a tablespoonful at a time, the ulu was pressing it out by the cupful.

I took a break and did some more reading. Priscilla Renouf and Trevor Bell wrote a paper outlining Dorset Palaeoeskimo Skin Processing at Phillip's Garden, Port au Choix, Northwestern Newfoundland. In it, they identified a set of slate artifacts called tabular scrapers that look to be designed specifically for degreasing hides. I didn't have any of the tabular slate scrapers made up ahead of time but after spending a couple hours pressing out the grease from the hide using the little chert endscraper they seemed like a pretty good idea.

Rough, unhafted tabular slate scraper

I made a rough, unhafted version of the bevelled-edged tabular scraper and tried it alongside a slate ulu reproduction that I found in a box in the basement. It worked great. I probably could have accomplished in 15 or 20 minutes with the tabular scraper what it took me an hour and a half to do with the endscrapers. Next time I clean a skin though, I'll make one with a handle. This is the only tool that tired out my hand from having to pinch it between my fingers.

Degreasing with the tabular scraper

Degreasing with the slate ulu

Next to the metal ulu, the ground slate ulu and tabular scraper were the best suited to degreasing the skin. You can press a wide swath and the grease pours out of the skin. In some ways, I even preferred the slate ulu to the metal knives and I wish that I would have started using it sooner.

Shiny happy ulu

The sharp slate is just as effective in slicing through the the fat layer as the metal knives, but the skin is a bit more of a barrier. Its like cutting with safety scissors - the material that you want it to cut is easy to slice, but the skin that you don't want to damage offers enough resistance that you don't have to worry as much about slips.

End of the first degreasing

At the end of the day the hide is still heavy with grease, but its starting to look much more even and there are dry patches forming. I'm debating now when to cut it into the thong and what to do about the hair. I was kind of hoping that the seal would have been a little more decomposed and the hair would want to fall out on its own, but as it stands now, I'll either have to induce some decomposition to get the hair to fall out or shave it off.

The tools used so far

Shaving the hair seems like the safer, although more labour intensive, option - I'm worried that if the pelt starts to putrefy enough for the hair to fall out that I may not be able to stop the rot before it damages the skin. I also think that the neighbours (and Lori) have been through enough without me intentionally rotting sealskin in the backyard.

Photo Credits:
1, 5-7, 9-14: Tim Rast
2-4 & Video: Lori White
8: From Renouf and Bell 2008