from:
Prestel museum guide, text by Denise Daenzer and Tina
Wodiunig: Native Museum of Zurich (orig. German:
Indianermuseum Zürich / Indianermuseum der Stadt Zürich);
Prestel edition; Munich, New York 1996; supported by
Cassinelli Vogel foundation, Zurich, by MIGROS percent for
culture, by Volkart foundation in Winterthur; ISBN
3-7913-1635-4
<Wapiti wall hanging
|
A wapiti stag, here a Rocky Mountain wapiti stag
[1]
Skin of wapiti can be worked out as a fine leather
and then as a wall hanging with picture stories as
it happened here:
|
[Painting on animal skin -
feminine geometric abstract design - masculine painting of
wars and chronicles]
Rock paintings and painting of animal skins were the origin
native painting arts. There were two styles:
-- geometric abstract figurines and forms preferred by
women, and
-- natural designs painted by men illustrating their war
adventures and chronicles of their tribes.
Stylized scenery with men and animals were telling real
events and were directly painted on the skins - above all on
skins of bison, stags and antelopes, later also on fabrics.
[A horse raid painted on a
leather]
This painted leather telling a horse raid is a rare peace
because at the beginning of 19th century the wapitis - which
are related with European red deer - had withdrawn to the
Rocky Mountains, and there they were only rarely hunted by
Prairie Natives. The skin of the presented peace here is
parted in four levels by three ribbons in beading technique.
-- The first level above shows six red discs as an
indication of time representing suns during the night, so
they are representing moons, because a horse raid was
executed always during the night.
-- In the second level is already shown the final action of
the horse raid - the thieves are driving home the robbed
horses.
-- The third level shows the horse thieves in different
fights, and
-- the fourth level shows the actions of the skin owner
himself.
[Tanning the skin with fat]
This skin is tanned without tanbark. This means that it's
tanned in the way of fat tanning (chamois). A paste of a
mixture of brain, fat and liver is spread on the skin and
then one lets move into the skin. After this the leather is
wrapped around a wet bundle of grass and after some days the
leather will be wronged out and will be cleaned with a
leather scraper tool getting a very soft leather (p.83).
Painted leather of a wapiti stag with the illustration of a horse raid [12]
