WEBVTT

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My name is Gertie Diamond
and I am from Waskaganish.

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I was born in 1944 on the 26th of February.

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I was born in Jack River,
not here in town but on the land.

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I will be talking about preparing moose hide.

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First when the moose is killed and brought home,
the fur is removed

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and the hide is soaked in water,
sometimes for one night.

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The flesh on the skin in scraped off
and then it is soaked in water again.

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The next day the flesh is scraped off again.

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After the flesh is scraped off,
it’s hung to take off excess water.

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After, holes are cut at intervals
around the skin,

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then it’s stretched on
a frame to dry using string.

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It’s freeze-dried and if
there is still flesh on the hide,

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it’s scraped off until
the desired thickness is obtained.

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When you get your desired thickness,
the hide is put in soapy water.

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I tend to leave the hide
in soapy water for one night.

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Then I make a concoction,
referred to as ‘food for the hide’

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out of cut-up soap and lard and sometimes
other types of grease like goose-fat.

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When this mixture is cooled,
it’s added to the water that has the hide.

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This ‘food’ for the moose is mixed with the hide
in the soapy water and left for one night.

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I take it outside to freeze-dry
if it’s winter to whiten the hide.

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In summer it’s stretched
and pulled until it’s dry enough.

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It’s a messy procedure to do during summer.

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As it’s pulled and stretched,
the hide gets drier and it gets whiter.

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Then the moose hide is hung in the sun.

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After, the moose hide
is soaked in water again.

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It’s a long process and usually
takes a whole week to do everything.

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It’s then soaked in soapy water
for one night to tan it.

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After one night of soaking I take it out,

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warm the soapy water
and put the hide back in to soak.

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I take it out and wring out the water
using a piece of wood to twist it.

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This is how I tan and dry a hide.

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When I am satisfied of how it is, I sew the hide
together and it’s ready to smoke.

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This is how I do it,

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I sew a piece of cloth
around the bottom of the hide.

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A bucket is placed inside the hide
for the rotten wood to smoke.

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The holes in the hide can be used
to see the colour of the hide.

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For the small holes,
I cover them with transparent tape

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so I can see the level of colour made by the smoke.

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When I’m satisfied with the colour of the hide,
I take the bucket out.

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I turn the hide inside out and smoke the other side
but only for a short while, like 10 minutes.

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On this side, and the smoking of the hide is done.

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This is the side where the fur was removed.

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I will make the ‘petticoat’, the cloth
around the bottom of the hide before I smoke it.

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I take the hides at our camp,

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this is where I smoke them

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where I have a teepee with spruce boughs
on the floor and a camp stove.

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This part of the hide is scraped
and becomes smoother.

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You scrape the rough parts of the hide like this.

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You see now how it comes off.

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It’s like scraping a beaver skin,
you use the same method.

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I will show you how I sew it for a short while.

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You use a needle and thread like this
if you don’t use a sewing machine.

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This is how you sew the hide before smoking it.

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It’s faster when using a sewing machine

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especially for a caribou hide because it’s thinner.

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With a needle and thread, it takes longer because
the needle can break when the skin is too thick.

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This thimble is too smooth which makes it hard.

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This part is called a ‘petticoat’,

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it’s is a piece of cloth that will be attached
to this part of the hide.

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The ‘petticoat’ is sewn
all around the bottom of the hide.

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Then the hide is hung carefully at the right height
and the bucket of smoke is placed inside.

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This is how I taught the women
I was asked to teach.

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We were teaching in the winter.

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Bill Jolly was the other person
helping me teach the women.

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Before I was married I never knew how to do this.

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My grandmother never taught me.

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My husband’s mother did a lot of this kind of work,
moose hide preperation.

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I learned the method by watching her.

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She used to tell me to soften parts of the hide
that had dried too much by putting grease.

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This is what I used to do.

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She also told me to let it hang outside
for two days and then soak it again.

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I did what she said and after doing this,

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the hide was very soft and all the hardened
dried spots were gone.

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All the hard spots on the leather became soft.

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I learned a lot from my mother-in-law.
She always worked on moose hides.

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We used to help each other in doing this work.

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My late husband and I used to cut moose hide
into strips for lacing snowshoes.

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He was very good at making snowshoes.

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He used to make two different widths of laces,
for the front and the middle parts of the snowshoe.

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We used to make the laces.

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I wanted to show my son Victor how to do this.

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We tried and now we’re getting better at making them.

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He had a pair of snowshoe frames he wanted to finish
with lacing that his father had left over.

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Caribou hide takes less time to tan.

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This is where the ‘petticoat’ will be sewn.

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You see this?

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This is where I will sew it.

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I also make holes through the skin to put in the string
for hanging it up to smoke.

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When I want to smoke the other side of the hide,

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I use these strings to hang and flare it out
the way I want.

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This hide is nice.

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I will probably mend this big hole and the small holes,
I will use tape to cover them.

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This is how it looks after smoking.

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Rotten wood is used to smoke the hide,

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not the powdered type
but the one that’s a bit hard.

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This is what is used to smoke the hide.

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The best kind to smoke the hide is a tree
that’s cut at the top and chopped down.

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You can get a lot of rotten wood from this tree.

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This is deer hide.

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This is deer hide, not caribou.

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This hide doesn’t have to be turned inside
to get the colour on the outside.

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You can see the outside part is also coloured.

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This is how it’s hung with the bucket of smoke
in the middle.

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This hide was bigger

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but I used part of it to make a gun case
for a non-native man.

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I’m not too keen on using this hide for this purpose,
I would rather use it for something else.

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It’s also nice.

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I used to make gloves, moccasins,
mittens, long and short gloves,

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small decorations for hanging inside vehicles.

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When the mittens are washed and lose their colour
you can use red willows to bring the colour back.

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This is what I’ll do for these mittens.

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After sewing these parts together,
the lining is made.

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After the lining, a piece of fur is sewn
on the top part of the mittens.

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Then braided yarn to hold them together
is attached.