PALEOTECHNICS

THE NATIVE VOICES...
Honoring the Animals

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at the Maidu Interpretive Center in Roseville, CA in 2004
1960 Johnson Ranch Drive Roseville, CA 95661
916/772-4242
website

Gifts From the Deer wall exhibit
designed & materials supplied by Tamara.
Exhibit conceived and installed by Chuck Kritzon.

Our
Tanning
Book

1) Maidu Arrow replicated by Steve Allely

14) Antler baton for flintknapping by percussion.

27) Bone gorge hook with dogbane string

2) Hide glue made from gelatin by boiling deer skin

15) Rib bone

28) Hooves

3) Rendered deer fat (tallow)

16) Shoulder blade

29) Dew Claws

4) Rear leg Sinew

17) Ulna-radius bone

30) Needle bones

5) Toothed flesher from rear leg cannon bone

18) Front leg cannon bone

31) Ulna bone awl

6) Deer toe bones (phalanges)

19) Awl from front cannon bone

32) Ulna bone

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7) Whole rear lower leg (hock)

20) Deer hoof rattle

33) Ulna and radius bone hide scraper

8) Skinned rear lower leg

21) Hairpin made from front cannon bone

34) Shoulder blade saw

9) Astragalus bone

22) Skinned front lower leg

35) Jaw bone

10) Deer jerky (dried meat)

23) Whole front lower leg (hock)

36) Antler tine for flaking stone arrowheads

11) Deer tail

24) Front leg sinew

37) Split antler pressure flaker for flaking stone arrowheads

12) Backstrap sinew, for hafting arrow & sewing thread

25) Flattened dried hock skin

38) Deer antler

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13) Antler chisel

26) Hand game made from cannon bones

39) Sinew backed bow

40) Deer brains dried in doughnut of usnea lichen.

41) Leg sinew halfway shredded to show fibers.

42) Bundle of shredded leg sinew

43) Sinew bowstring made of shredded leg sinew

44) Samples of hide at different stages of the braintanning process

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45) Dried raw skin. Hair on rawhide.

46) Scraped rawhide. The hair and upper grain layer have been removed.

47) Softened white buckskin

48) Smoked buckskin

49) Deerskin braintanned with the hair on.

50) Piece of backstrap sinew

51) Backstrap sinew spun up into a sewing thread for sewing holes in buckskin.

Salmon vertebrae and bone pin catch game.

String is made of deer sinew with a tuft of deer hair on the end of the string.

Bone pin is held in hand and vertebrae are swung into air
and then caught by the pin.

This game requires quite a bit of skill.

Process of making a rabbitskin blanket.
Rabbitskins are twisted into furry ropes and then "woven" together by twining with milkweed string. Blankets such as these are incredibly warm and composed an important part of traditional winter clothing for
many California Indian tribal groups.

Rabbitskin is "case" skinned into a tube and then the skin is cut in a long spiral from tail to nose.

Rabbitskin ribbon from a single rabbit hide. Length can reach 10 feet or more.

Rabbitskin ribbon is twisted into a furry rabbitskin rope. These ropes are often twisted around a fiber string of Dogbane, (Apocynum cannabinum) or Milkweed (Asclepias species)