Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1997–1998
Paiute Buckskin Tanning:
Wesley Dick and Donald Hicks
In an unusual apprenticeship where the master was
half the age of the apprentice, Wesley Dick taught
Donald “Ike” Hicks the art of traditional Paiute and
Shoshone hide tanning. Both men live in Fallon, where
Wesley was raised and where Ike has now retired. Ike’s
father was Shoshone from central Nevada, and his
mother was Paiute from Schurz. He grew up ranching,
worked in Carson City for many years, and is now at his
mother’s old place keeping a few cows and horses and
raising some hay. Wesley has been tanning hides for 15
years, and hasn’t found many young people interested
in learning the time-consuming and messy process, but
Ike has the time and interest. The two have hunted
together in the past, although for this apprenticeship
they had to buy deer hides from a friend in Owyhee.
On a warm April day at Ike’s place east of Fallon
on the Stillwater reservation, he has deer hides in several
stages of preparation. A large metal tank holds
some fresh hides soaking in water, where they will stay
for four to six days until the hair comes off easily. Ike
hangs a wet hide over a smooth horizontal log beam
and scrapes the flesh and hair off with a drawknife, a
long slightly-curved blade with handles at both ends so
it can be pulled toward the user. The next step in the
process is to rub brains into the hide, which is the actual
tanning process and leaves the skin soft and white.
Traditionally deer brains were used, but nowadays Ike
has to get beef brains from the local butcher shop. As he
spreads the wet hide on a table and begins working the
brains into it, he says, “I should be singing.” There are
traditional songs used in the tanning process, acknowledging
the gift of the animal for human use, but Ike
never learned them from his elders after he went away
to boarding school.
After the hide is covered with the brains it is hung
up to dray, and then soaked again in water to get the
smell out. The brains are rinsed out, and then the real
work begins – pulling the hide over the end of a smooth
log set in the ground, to dry and soften it. Ike reports
that Wesley told him it takes a thousand pulls to get a
hide done. This is laborious work, hard on the hands
and the back, but it results in an exceptionally soft and
white hide that can be used for dresses, cradleboard
covers, moccasins, gloves and other traditional elements
of Paiute and Shoshone costumes. Hides are often
smoked over wood chips to give them a golden color,
but are usually left white if they are made into dresses.
Ike also uses raw hides, those that are not tanned, to
make drums.
Ike Hicks scrapes the hair off a deer hide in preparation for tanning.
Ike Hicks
54