Maasai Shield

[nkante]

I recently came across a short film from 2012 called "Blood and Leather: The making of a Maasai shield". Although it is technically rawhide and not leather, I was hoping someone could help me out. It appears to be a pretty straight forward process. They stretch the hide, staking it to the ground flesh side up and scrape it. At about 1:50 into the video they cover it with a power substance. That is the part I could use help with. any ideas what the powder is. At first I thought salt, but in my opinion it looks too fine to be salt. Then I thought maybe it was some kind of wood ash. What do you folks think?

[grmnsplx]

Yes I think it's wood ash. It's alkaline and should help de-hair the hide. I think.

Edited February 17, 2016 by grmnsplx

[TinkerTailor]

It may be alum. Alum tanning is much more common in desert regions because it requires less water, and no tree bark, which is rare in deserts. If this is the case, it would mean it is not rawhide at all.

[grmnsplx]

Makes sense

[TinkerTailor]

Makes sense

Alum is a salt so you may have been right at first with the salt. Look up alunite, it looks similar in colour to what they used. They may very well have mixed it with wood ash and normal salt as well. I bet the documentarians would tell all with an email inquiry. .

Edited February 18, 2016 by TinkerTailor

[Thor]

Alum would require access to that chemical compound and since this is supposed to be traditional and the old tribes certainly didn't have access to this I doubt that it is Alum.

Ashing hide is the second step in preparation just after watering. Since the video doesn't really show anything past this point which could be considered tanning this should just be rawhide.

Also you might want to read the article to the video here http://www.conserventures.org/news/ finding this text line "But one icon of Maasai history—those tall, intricately decorated rawhide shields, so universally recognizable that one features centrally on Kenya’s national flag—seemed lost forever, save as dusty relics in museums, rare and expensive objets d’art from exclusive curio dealers, or, tragically, as cheap, undersized, shoddily made tourist souvenirs."

[TinkerTailor]

Alum would require access to that chemical compound and since this is supposed to be traditional and the old tribes certainly didn't have access to this I doubt that it is Alum.

Ashing hide is the second step in preparation just after watering. Since the video doesn't really show anything past this point which could be considered tanning this should just be rawhide.

Also you might want to read the article to the video here http://www.conserventures.org/news/ finding this text line "But one icon of Maasai history—those tall, intricately decorated rawhide shields, so universally recognizable that one features centrally on Kenya’s national flag—seemed lost forever, save as dusty relics in museums, rare and expensive objets d’art from exclusive curio dealers, or, tragically, as cheap, undersized, shoddily made tourist souvenirs."

Alum is a naturally occuring mineral that was used by the egyptions as early as 1500bc, as well as traded around the world from the western egyptian deserts. (ancient borders, not current). Alum most certainly would have been available to these people, however it may have been valuable, and only used for important things like shields. Look it up on wikipedia. It has also been used more extensively as a dye mordant.

From your link:

"a stiff rawhide face backed by a carved, tensioned center stay and handgrip, the perimeter laced with goatskin around flexible Cordia wands. Then, alchemist concoctions of charred bone, ocher, limestone, and cow’s blood (the latter amusingly stored in an old Famous Grouse whiskey bottle),"

Alum and limestone occur in the same places in nature and sometimes are intermixed in the same rock. These people may have a special sacred source for the best limestone for the shields, which just may be an alum containing source.

Another link on alum:

http://www.wovepaper.co.uk/alumessay1.html

"The Ancients had discovered that alum possessed certain valuable qualities not found together in any other common substance: its extreme readiness to crystallize; the absence of colour as an indication of its purity (extremely important in dyeing); and its natural occurrence. Its sources were, therefore, identifiable with relative ease. Singer has pointed out, "that alum was obtainable pure was thus a technical accident and not the result of any considered rational plan or of any refined system of manufacture". The sophisticated methods of manufacture, referred to above, took millenia to evolve. The process that is of most interest to us in the present context, the one used in the alum industry of North Yorkshire, has been described as "a marvel of empirical industrial chemistry".[2]

The extension of the alum industry from Egypt to other regions is an extremely complicated subject, partly due to the linguistic problems it raises, ensuring that one is concerned with alum and not with another substance; and, more important, the confusing effects on trade of one empire after another being superseded in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe, from Persia in the east, through North Africa to Spain in the west, continuing from early periods right up to the Middle Ages. The Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Arabian civilizations were all involved, together with other sources of influence, penetrating this world from India and, by the silk route, from China. For detailed information on the effect they had on the supply and use of alum, reference must be made to Singer's monograph.

It was from all the sources mentioned above that the first methodical statements on the nature of alum were derived. The findings are set out in 8th-10th C. (A.D.) Arabian alchemical documents. By this time the Arabs had conquered the whole of North Africa and thus confronted, and even penetrated, the southern borders of Europe. Trade links between the two were strong and there was no shortage of European scholars who were able to read arabic and assimilate its learning. It might be noted at this juncture that it was just after this period that papermaking was undertaken for the first time by Europeans, albeit the use of alum in this activity lay sometime in the future."

[Thor]

Nothing wrong about that TinkerTailor if referred to the general term Alum.

If we are using Alum for tanning today, we are usually referring to a Chrome Alum sulfate complex (technically chromium and potassium) as pure Alum only provides poor binding features with the fibers. Further tanning by just spreading pure Alum powder (would still be crystals) on the hide and let it cure in the sun doesn't happen. Even with today's Chrome Alum tanning compounds it takes 3 - 6 hours in a drum tanning process.

Anyhow, the shields are obviously rawhide and the limestone is part of the mixture for the colors etc. No point to argue over it.

[TinkerTailor]

Agreed, The only correct answer can come from an analysis of surviving old shields and testing them, as well as testing the fairy dust they used in the video to see if it is historically correct.

It could be mostly sand and just used as a desiccant, and/or as a scavenger deterrent for all we know.

I am quite interested in traditional leather use in Africa, though there is precious little info that i can find. Most of the history is likely lost because it was oral history that was never written down, and has been lost to colonization and all the other stuff that has happened in Africa in the last 250 years.

[Thor]

There's quite a bit of info on that available from organisations from and in Africa. There's even a Maasai Conservation organisation. The most info on leather tanneries etc. in Africa you would find in Morocco. Terms such as Fes Morocco Leather Tannery should return you some search results to start with.