Reznjun

got a call a few days ago and someone asked  me that. i know how much hard work is involved in cleaning a buffalo hide. i reluctantly answered yeah, i’ll take it. i also know how hard it is to come across a hide. not often that you can score one. i was still sorting porcupine hair but had to put it aside.

when you get a green hide you have to go to work on  it immediately. if you allow it to dry, then you have to soak it for days to loosen the hair. the hair will come right off though when the hide is still green. the hide is so big that i cut it into pieces. i tacked some pieces with the hair still on it, to some boards. i cut around the legs and the hump. these are drying, they will be rawhide on one side and have the long black hair on the other. i will use them for other things. then i cut out pieces large enough to make a pow wow drum with. i cut my lacing out too. so i started scraping..and scraping and scraping. first i had to scrape the flesh side. then i had to remove the hair. my muscles burned from all that scraping. i remember hearing once that this was womans work. if so, my hat is off to indian women.they were strong people. this is hard work. i had to take a pain pill at the end of the day.

 i had two old oak whisky barrel sections that i bought at a garage sale. i wanted them for drums. i once told these young guys it is ironic that they used the whisky to rip our people off, now we make drums out of the barrels. the two sections i had are about 25 inches across and 18 inches deep, this allows for a good rich bass tone. i had to cut a large section of the bottom, which was a solid 1 inch thick piece of oak to allow the sound to carry all through the drum. if i left the solid piece on it, the sound would bounce back. now the sound goes thru the hide in the bottom and resonates fully. i wish i could post a sound of it on my site here, as my nephew suggested but my computer skills are lacking. you have to hear it to really appreciate the sound.

after i had the hide cleaned i laced the drum up. this took some time. the hide was slippery. i  had to measure the spacing and cut the hide where the lacing went through. a buffalo hide is thick. i had to have a sharp knife. i cut my finger once and had to find a band aid.  i tightened it a few times, pulling in the slack of the lacing each time. i then set the drum out to air dry the first day. i turned it several times so all sides would dry. there was a good breeze and it helped to dry the hide. i even flipped it over so the bottom would dry. it was getting dark so i moved it to my basement. i had a fire going cuz it has been a bit chilly at night. i dried the drum further by the stove. i again kept turning it to dry all sides. next day i got up i moved it back outside to dry some more in the air. it is still drying. i want to dry it slowly. so far it has a real good tone to it. i wonder what it will sound like when it is dried completely.  it will be fully cured in a few days. i was happy it was finally done. it took me a coupla days work but i am happy with the final result. i kinda had to drop everything else to finish this but it was worth it.

this is what it ended up looking like, ko nu gish the wonder dog is in the background. the hide is drying a deeper brown color. i will make a stand for it sometime later. i still have one buffalo hide in the freezer all ready to make a drum with. i have one more tub to use, it is the other whisky barrel. after that is finished, i still have two elk hides in my shed that i will work on next. either i will make anutha pow wow drum or several hand drums.

i never know what i will be doing. have to go with whatever comes along. my gardening is gonna demand attention soon. i just got my tiller out of the shop. i checked my potatoes, they are starting to root out. i was afraid the cold and combination of rain and snow did them in, but they survived. now i have to get ready to plant my warm weather crops.