More Thoughts on Leather…

More Thoughts on Leather…


I was laying in bed last night, unable to sleep…I had been lying there four hours, letting my brain run amuck with my sleep time. Not that I could have done anything about it anyway…that’s just the way things go, and anyone who says different, well they just haven’t grown up yet! But, I’m tellin’ ya, I lay there in the bed, with my mind simply roiling with words, thoughts, ideas, and schemes.

One of the things that struck me was this thought. What would we do as a civilization if not for leather? From the dawn of time, when we first realized we needed something to cover our hairy (but not hairy enough,) asses…the first thing we learned to cover ourselves with…(except in tropical climates?) was animal hide.
I’m not sure, but from what I read, one sure way of tanning a hide from the earliest time, was to simply tack the hide to something flat and let it air dry.



Now this really only worked well with small pelts, you know stuff like rabbit and other vermin type of animal. When it came to larger hides like buffalo, deer, or what ever the heck those cave man types would hunt for fur in order to keep their hairy asses warm (would the woolly mammoth do the trick for this?)…the people (anthropoligists) who look into those kinds of things from that period seem to think that perhaps these people had discovered the properties of salt curing. Perhaps later the introduction of Hardwood Ashes and lime water, as a way to remove the hair came into being, allowing for more flexable and ultimately more uses for the hide!



Throughout the ages, peoples from different regions and time periods have found more ways to skin a cat…then we can swing a kitty at! Interesting….

Now don’t forget, in order to cut the hide off the carcass, the primitive man would have had to come up with tools! So in order to keep his ugly, hairy ass warm, he would have to develop hunting weapons, as well as tools to scrape the hides clean of tissue and fat! So all of a sudden, because of man’s need to keep himself covered and warm, he’s discovered how to hunt, how to make stone tools that will make his job easier on him.



Crimminy! Now wonder we started developing so fast! OK so in the meantime…we start to discover all the great uses for leather aside hanging it off our shoulders and hips! We discovered we could carry water in the bladders, we learned we could cover our feet...

,

we could make very decent and warm housing with it!

We could make ropes and tethers with it …the list just keeps on going! We learned to make hardware out of leather. I remember seeing leather used for door hinges!
I’m willing to bet, through out our history…there isn’t a thing that leather hasn’t been used for…or tried to be used for!