28 SOME OTHER USES OF THE DEER: SINEW, GLUE, TALLOW ...

1 From the book Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanningby Steven Edholm and Tamara Wildercourtesy of OTHER uses OF THE DEER: SINEW, GLUE, TALLOW , HOOVES, & HOCKSKINSB uckskin is just one of a bewildering array of practical itemsthat the deer s body can offer. There are a truly staggering num-ber of specific uses for deer parts, which range from everydayand specialized tools to personal adornment and art. There wasa time not long ago when animals provided many essential ma-terials of everyday life for everybody. Following are discussionsof a few uses for deer parts which are not widely put to , or tendons, are fibrous bands and cords which con-nect muscles to bones and allow the energy exerted by musclesto effect movement.

2 To do this work, they must be very dried and then shredded, sinew has many uses . Whenwet, sinew fiber is very malleable and can be wrapped aroundobjects to which it will mould completely, making a very inti-mate fit. Upon drying, the sinew shrinks and takes on a horny,rawhide-like character. The strength, moldability, and charac-ter of the dried material makes sinew very valuable to the ba-sic dried and shredded into its individual fibers, sinew canbe plied into a very strong string. It has often been used formaking bowstrings and can also be used to make a fine sewingthread. There are OTHER uses for sinew which won't. be describedhere. We will, however, describe the making of sinew thread,since it has a use in the context of this book: for sewing up holesin PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY?

3 Some of us like to keep up on the old ways of doing things,not just because we re nostalgic (although most of us are),but because there is some practical value in knowing thehistory of technology; hunter/gatherer technology is thebase line for human/technological development. We see thebenefits of studying basic technologies as follows:-An increased awareness of where our modern tools andproducts came from and where they re taking increased appreciation for, and mistrust of, increased awareness of how technology has shaped ourevolution and still shapes our lives from cradle to sense of the possibilities for self-reliance, as well as theimportance of reliance on possibilities for survival, in the case that thecurrent economic and trade structures should cease orbecome increased appreciation of, and feeling for, who plants,animals, and minerals really are, especially on a grossphysical application in modern life.

4 Such things as gluingarticles back together or making a specialized tool out ofnatural materials, chosen for some specific functional traitwhich you know because you ve dealt with that better sense of how the world increased awareness of your own mortality as well asthe preciousness and/or cheapness of it s find it interesting that many people think of pre-metal technology and living skills as inaccessible and mys-terious. There has, somehow, been a kind of ancient mys-tique attached to a lot of this stuff. It s not uncommon forpeople to express great surprise that we can actually makesay a stone tool or a fire by friction. These are basic (basicdoesn t mean easy) skills that your ancestors used to sur-vive.

5 If they did it, so can 28: OTHER USES257 Sinew thread is best made from the tendons which lie on theback of the deer and are most commonly known as backstrapsinews. They are located on top of a piece of meat called thebackstrap or you check your own back, you will feeltwo long muscles, one running up either side of your are sirloins, and each one has a flat band of sinew on itsoutside backstrap sinew with a dull tool,You cannot see the backstrap sinew on a skinned deer untilyou cut away the meat and membrane under which it is a shallow slit the full length of the spine and just barelyto one side of it. This cut should allow you to peel back a thinlayer of meat and tissue, exposing the tendon.

6 It looks like aband of wet, shiny, bluish, whitish threads, lying on top of themeat. If it is simply filleted off, much meat will have to bescraped from the tendon and wasted. Well, you could scrape itoff and eat it, but a much better method is to remove the ten-don by working it off of the muscle with a dull knife, back of aknife, or OTHER dull edge. Use your dull tool to slide right underthe full width of the tendon and, then, to pull and scrape it freeof the meat. The idea is to leave as little meat on the tendon as258possible. Scrape the tendons free of the meat all the way to thebutt, until you can go no further. Then, go the OTHER way, up tothe you get well up into the shoulder, the ten-don will pull out cleanly.

7 The butt end must then be cut off,since it is more solidly attached. Scrape the tendon free of meatand lay it out flat to dry (safely away from roaming pets: yoursand others .)Cleaning backstrap sinew by OTHER very useful tendons are in the lower legs: one largeone in each leg, as well as several smaller ones if you care toextract them too. The tendons in the back legs are larger andlonger than those in the front. These lower legs can often beacquired from butchers or hunters for free. There is no meat inthis part of the deer , just a lot of potential hardware for theprimitive technologist. Here is a partial list of possibly usefulor decorative items that can be made from this small section ofthe deer s anatomy: fish hooks, awls, string, glue, rattles, beads,thong, rawhide, projectile points, various OTHER bone tools, andmarrow oil for oiling wood, leather, and 28: OTHER USES259260 The largest tendon is located on the back of the leg.

8 To ex-tract it, slit open the skin on the backside of the leg to exposethe shiny white sheath under which the sinew lies. Slice thissheath open (gently, it is thin), and pull out the tendon. It willpull free at the top end (if the leg is already cut off of the ani-mal) but is firmly attached at the foot end and must be cut the foot end, the tendon splits into a Y. Leg sinew will noteasily shred into fiber beyond this point; so, we don t usuallybother to pursue it past where it begins to split. Lay the sinewout to dry flat and straight. The sheath and small tendons whichlie on the top side of the leg can all be dried, to be used in mak-ing dry, all of these tendon and sheath things which you veremoved will keep indefinitely, unless they become wet or pestsget bugs attack your sinew, freeze the dry tendons tokill the larvae.

9 Strong sunlight can also deter leg and backstrap sinew have the same potential uses ,but backstrap is better suited to most of them because its threadsare longer, more cohesive, and easier to process. Backstrap ismuch harder to come by, though, and so, it is best reserved forthe things that it does much better than leg sinew: namely, forsewing and wrapping. Use leg sinew for bowbacking and cord-age. Leg sinew is prepared for use by lightly pounding the driedsinew between two smooth stones and, then, splitting it by handinto fine for OTHER sinew uses in books on primitive technology,which will be cropping up like daisies as the primitive technol-ogy subculture takes THREAD is easily and quickly made.

10 Strip/split afiber bundle the size of your desired thread from a dry strip ofbackstrap sinew. Scrape this fiber with a thumbnail to removeany non-sinew membranes or meat. When you are satisfied thatit is more or less cleaned of extraneous tissue, put it in yourmouth to soften by action of saliva. (If the sinew has been dealtwith in a timely fashion, this is no grosser than eating jerky. Ifyou just can t handle it, the sinew can be soaked in water, in-stead of being chewed, but it doesn t work as well.) When thesinew is thoroughly wet and slimy, roll it on your leg in onedirection to twist it up. Allow the thread to dry twisted beforeusing 28: OTHER USES261A variety of tools, toys, and weapons, all of which use somedeer part(s) or product(s).