When brain tanned buckskin is mentioned people automatically think.... Native American, war shirts and pipe bags. Well, I thought it about time to widen my perspective a bit!
Not that there is anything wrong with making Native American inspired art. I have learnt an amazing amount from a lifetime creating Native American styled items and I am sure there is almost an infinite amount still to learn. But, is my focus on the 'New World' blinding me to my own hunter gatherer and early farming heritage and the fulfilment learning more about that can offer me as a European. I am not a fan of this commercial and artificial world and often 'want out!' I believe there is an integrity we have lost that a lot of other 'primitive' cultures still have. (I do not like the term 'primitive culture')
I am inspired by the landscape I was bought up in and love here in the south of the UK. I want to make my own set of 'stuff' I might need and like if I were living the life of a hunter gatherer from this country. So I want to keep away from anything too modern and mass produced, to steer away from the superficiality that our culture today seems to relish. I want to try and create my own 'ethnographic' tools and artifacts. I found it very difficult to pull myself away from Native American art as this has inspired my creativity from childhood. But it has given me a good grounding to start from!
I am, and have been all my life, very interested in bush craft and am highly respectful of hunter gatherer and simple farming societies around the world, and as part of this I am intrigued by our stone age ancestors and how they lived and survived. I am convinced our stone age ancestors had a culture as well developed and complex as any. I think it is a mistake to consider them 'primitive' and having so much difficulty surviving that they had not developed a cultural expression, we know as art today. It is universal to put effort into creating everyday objects, so much so that we may look upon them as art. To beautify daily life and routine with cultural expression is, I believe, a human trait.
I made a bag for my walks in the forest. Made from sinew sewn pieces of smoked brain tanned buckskin. Using brains to cure animal hides is an ancient technique. Leather cured with animal fats and oils were found with Otzi the ice man. Sinew has been used to sew together items of animal hide in the past and are still used now. The Evenk reindeer herders of Siberia are amongst those who still use the back strap sinews as thread.
I decorated it with mallard duck feathers, crow feathers a couple of trimmed buzzard feathers and some green parrot feathers. I am aware that some of these species are not native to where I live! But, it is what I had at the time.
I carry my 'trail' kit in there. This includes a knife, folding saw, matches, candle, my hemp and nettle string, some dried fruit and fruit leathers, a glue stick with resin glue and some plastic bags. The matches are there for an emergency. My flint and steel are in my other work bag. And in time I hope to replace the plastic bags with rawhide (or some such) containers.
It has accompanied me on many forest walks. The plastic bags are very useful for collecting different forage and keeping it separate so I do not have to sort through it later.
Another use of spare buckskin is to cut it into strips and weave it into something useful. Such a valuable resource is worth making the most of. Here I have made a belt using the hand weaving technique called finger weaving. This is an ancient and almost universal technique that needs no tools. All you need to do is fix one end and then alternately weave each strip over and under. It takes a bit of practise. Much more complex patterns can be wrought using this simple technique. I have used mostly smoked pieces here but I have accented it with two strips of un-smoked to create a lightning pattern.
This is a start on a trail I wish to continue. I have done quite a few bits and pieces and plan many more. It, so far, has been a journey of self discovery.
This year I would love to spend more time out there in the forest. I plan to produce more and use a lot of my own tools and equipment from nature where I can. I can't imagine the amount of knowledge that has been lost with the passing of the generations. It is saddening that we value the newest gadget more than what is held within an individuals head and the ability to create something from the environment around you.
To go out into nature and feel perfectly at home there. That is a better goal than owning the best TV or car or newest phone. There is a completeness and peace one can gain from learning the way of nature and becoming part of it.
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