Reindeer skin

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Inuit woman in an amauti made of reindeer skin, Iglulik (1999)

The reindeer or reindeer live almost everywhere around the Arctic Circle, in summer in the tundras and in winter in the taiga of Northern Europe and North America as well as on Greenland and other Arctic islands. Of the various subspecies, including the deer species, only the northern European reindeer has become a real farm animal. The tobacco trade was at times interested in the light-leather, soft, shiny brown, sometimes moiré reindeer skin of European-Asiatic young animals, which was sold under the name Pijiki . Adult reindeer skins are a popular souvenir from Nordland journeys, and are also exported for interior decoration and rugs. The skins of the North American reindeer, known in America as caribou, are also used to an even lesser extent as decorative skins and not for clothing purposes. Only the indigenous population sewed outer garments made from the skins of adult, long-haired reindeer, often combined with seal skin or arctic fox skin , traditional costumes that are still worn today on special occasions.

The durability coefficient for reindeer fur is given as 20 to 30 percent. In a division of the fur types into the hair fineness classes silky, fine, medium-fine, coarse and hard, the hair of the young reindeer (Pijiki) is classified as fine.

There are different landscape protection and hunting regulations for wild reindeer, and the indigenous population is usually allowed to hunt them. Reindeer are considered a non-endangered species.

hide

Scandinavian reindeer fur

Ten to twenty subspecies of the reindeer are differentiated depending on the doctrine. Traditionally, they were often divided into two main forms, one in tundra reindeer and the other in so-called forest reindeer.

The head body length of the reindeer reaches 1.30 to 2.20 meters, the tail length 7 to 20 centimeters, the females are smaller. Forest reindeer are usually larger than tundra reefs; Caribou mightier than Rene.

There is no difference in coat color between the sexes. The summer hair is chocolate brown to gray brown. The mirrors are relatively small and white (including the underside of the tail). The neck hangings and the hair on the hoof are also white, more often the sides of the neck, but mostly they are light brown. The differences in summer color are slight, both between the individual animals and between the different habitats. The contrasting winter color, however, varies considerably. Normally the top of the head, the back, the croup and the legs are gray-brown, the underside of the head, the neck with hangings, the flanks, the mirrors and the hair on the foot are white to light brownish. In winter, the fur usually becomes lighter because the dark tips of the otherwise light guard hairs wear off or bleach from the sun. Even specimens that are very dark at the beginning can therefore be almost white at the end of winter. Domesticated reindeer include black, gray, blue, white and variously pied or spotted specimens. The "Peary caribou" that live on Canada's High Arctic Islands, especially Ellesmere Island , even have an almost pure white fur all year round. Wild pijiki are brighter than tame ones. The hair is easily brittle, the leather coarse.

The tightly standing, firmly matted guard hairs are strongly flattened, pointed and very strong. 9/10 of their cross-section are filled with air vacuoles . This particularly heat-insulating hair structure is the cause of the great hair fragility typical of deer species, which is even more pronounced in reindeer. The guard hair length is 5 on the body sides, 9 on the back, 10 on the cross and up to 30 centimeters on the hangings on the underside of the neck. The tip of the nose is also hairy. The hair on the limbs and the longer hair on and under the claws are much more stable and elastic. The woolen hair is thin and curled, it is also very dense. Like the short guard hairs in summer, the woolly hair contains only a small amount or no air vacuoles at all. This also applies to young animals up to one month of age.

The hair change only takes place once a year, but it takes a long time. It starts in March, usually the undercoat falls out first. The peak of the hair is in May / August, the end in August. The short summer hair mainly consists of a dense undercoat, which forms anew from May, as well as short guard hairs. The awns grow back strongly in August and soon cover the undercoat.

History, trade, processing

Reindeer fur, partial view

The domestication of the Eurasian reindeer began around 700 to 500 years before the Common Era. It did not take place in North America; only in modern times have tame Eurasian reindeer been successfully introduced on various occasions, for the first time in 1898.

For the fur processing, the skins of different ages of the young animals come into question, they were in the trade under the name Pijiki (earlier spellings also Pijiky, Pijicki, Piyiki): On the one hand it was the skins of animals a few days old. These have a length of about 50 centimeters. Her hair is of medium length, thick, soft and fashion brown. A trade name for skins from reindeer calves that have just been thrown was “Renno”. The skins from premature babies were also used. While head teacher Friedrich Kramer said in 1937 that only the skins of the very young animals could be used for skinning, the specialist fur authors Dathe / Schöps wrote in 1986 that the blankets of four to six month old calves were preferred. (Pyshiks = Pijiki). According to Dathe / Schöps, calves up to one year old also produced fine, sometimes silky skins (Nebljuis, coat length up to 80 cm). The animals were killed in the summer while they were changing to a new coat, the coarse awn is not yet formed. Only the reindeer of Eurasian origin were used. Fur clothing made from pijiki skins was at times quite popular because of the low amount of fur. Pijiki was made into automobile furs, fur shirts, trimmings, hats, coats, hunting skirts, sports jackets and the like. After the Second World War , the article, which was never very common anyway, became even rarer, but it does not seem to be known whether there has been any delivery at all in the last few decades.

The best blankets (skins) of adult animals are those from autumn and the beginning of winter. The autumn hair is shorter and less brittle. Dark skins are perceived as particularly beautiful. Furs made from reindeer skins keep you very warm, are water-repellent and offer good wind protection, but because of the poor durability due to the brittle guard hairs, they have only a low practical value; their shelf life is given as “a year at most”. That is why the skins are rarely used for jackets or coats outside the areas of origin, but are used almost exclusively by the animal owners or local hunters themselves ( Eskimos , Sami , Samoyed and others). A family of five to six is ​​said to have used around 30 skins annually for clothing purposes. According to Russian polar explorers, a family of six North Asian nomads needed around 300 reindeer to live on them “with some comfort and moderate prosperity”. Although there are certain differences in the national costumes of the individual polar tribes, the type of clothing is almost the same everywhere: Over the parka , an inner suit with the fur on the inside, outer clothing is worn with the hair on the outside white peritoneum is used as an ornament. The inhabitants of the far north still process reindeer skins into traditional clothing, they serve or also served as warming sledge blankets and as a floor mat in their winter tents. Characteristic for the women of the Eskimos was the caribou or seal skin adorned with inlays, which is still worn at festivities - Amauti with the large hood under which they carried their babies on their backs (not in the hood). The back extension for the baby was lined with a reusable "diaper" made of caribou skin or with moss. The best boots in the developed from the seeds Finn Shoe -Machart ( norw. Finnsko , Engl. Finnesko ) are made of fur from the legs of the reindeer made. Shorn caribou skins are used for Eskimo boots and by the Eskimos also as a parka trim.

Fur trader Francis Weiss described that Siberian tribes and their successors, such as the Chukchi , Evens , Tungus and Yakuts, had been making forerunners of the later boas from reindeer skins since ancient times by folding them lengthways and sewing them one behind the other. In the Rankin Inlet area , Canada, the women's and men's gloves are cut according to their role in social and work. Women's gloves are made from the front legs of the caribou because of the elegant white stripe. The men's gloves are made from the warmer hind legs and cut off at the tips to make it easier to build igloos and hunt. The soft, short-haired fur of the caribou calves is used for the children.

Reindeer hair was used to fill life jackets because it is lighter than cork. A jacket with a quilted lining filled with reindeer hair keeps a grown man afloat. No larger items of clothing are made from the old animal skins outside of the countries of origin; they are made into hangers, bed rugs, sleeping bags, ski skins, bags, shoes and gloves, and in their homeland they used to be made into tent covers. In addition, the skins of the Altrene are sold to tourists or go into the hide trade, especially from Finland. A specialist book even says: "The skins of adult reindeer can only be used to make blankets and rugs, but not always for that either". An excellent chamois leather is tanned from the blankets of adult animals that are not used with their hair , for clothing and shoes, and formerly also for fine bed pads.

The Leipzig tobacco shop Arthur Hermsdorf said that pijikifelle first found their way into western fur fashion around the 1920s, shown by the Paris company Ruzé .

The young animal skins traded as pijiki were divided into:

Skins of premature babies: flat in the hair (1 centimeter)
Milk calf skins: as long as they are suckling they have shiny, light, silky hair. Moirized pelts only occur occasionally.
Skins from grazers (Niebliouy) who have stopped consuming only breast milk.

A special feature is the grading into three qualities, which depends on the number of holes that the horsefly larva, called the grub , has left:

1st variety up to 10 grubs, 2nd variety up to 20 grubs and the 3rd variety up to 40 grubs.

The raw fur delivery is open to all ages, not peeled off.

In 1965, the fur consumption for a skin table with 16 to 22 young animal skins sufficient for a pijiki coat was specified (so-called coat "body" ). It was based on a board with a length of 112 centimeters and an average width of 150 centimeters and an additional sleeve section. This corresponds roughly to a fur material for a slightly exhibited coat of clothing size 46 from 2014. The maximum and minimum fur numbers can result from the different sizes of the sexes of the animals, the age groups and their origin. Depending on the type of fur, the three factors have different effects.

Pijiki skins were processed in natural and dyed colors (mostly sable colored).

  • Reindeer clothing of the local population

  • Inuit women's parka made from Pijiki summer fur (North America, early 1900s)

  • Maliza (throw) of an Awam Samoyed

  • Inuit Girls' Boots (North America, 1910-1914)

  • Shorts (Greenland)

  • Women's hat (North America)

Numbers and facts

  • In 1925 , the tobacco merchant Emil Brass estimated the amount of fully grown reindeer pelts that came onto the world market annually at around 50,000 pieces. However, most of the skins were consumed locally. The value of the young animal skins (pijiki), which are more important for the trade, was around 5 to 15 marks per piece (1911 = 3 to 10 marks). Brass also pointed out that it was not uncommon for anthrax to wreak havoc and pull away large herds.
Floor-length men's coat made of young reindeer skins (1903)
  • 1956 Commercial description for "dry Finnish reindeer skins":
Dry Finnish reindeer skins
Range : 75% Ia, 15% IIa, 10% IIIa or 70/20/10%.
Weight : 1.8 kg, 1.9 kg, 2 kg per BVG.
Average size : 12 to 16 qfs.
quality
Ia : The skins are well stripped off and show light-colored flesh sides with in part a slight addition of fat; Cut holes only occur occasionally. Reindeer skins are dried stretched and not folded. They are full-haired, with no visible scarring defects and fairly even in size, according to their weights. Up to 10 open grubs per fur are permitted. 1–3 bullet holes approx. 20%.
IIa : Good trigger, partly strong fat appendage, dried when tensioned, more damage to the bullet. Depending on the contract, 20 or 25 open grubs per hide are permitted.
IIIa : Darker sides of the flesh, partly shriveled, older skins, badly slaughtered or badly bullet-damaged; more than 20 or 25 open grubs per coat permitted. A part of the 3rd variety is mostly practically worthless due to the strong grub infestation (40–45 open grubs per coat).
Mats : “Mats” are skins that are prepared from the rags and used as floor mats or flooring in their homes. Not only the fact that the mat is devalued by constant walking, but especially the preparation reduces the value of the fur considerably. The reduced value of the mats is 50%. Mats can be contractually excluded from delivery.
Broadly slaughtered skins : Broadly slaughtered skins are those in which the front and rear legs are completely present. Skins which are missing the hind legs are not slaughtered; the unloaders almost never give a guarantee that the fore legs are present.
If it is not expressly agreed in the contract: “% broadly slaughtered”, the supplier is not obliged to deliver broadly slaughtered skins. Unless otherwise agreed, this clause only applies to the hind legs.

See also

Commons : Reindeer Hides  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Commons : Reindeer Skin Clothing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

annotation

  1. ↑ The specified comparative values ​​( coefficients ) are the result of comparative tests by furriers and tobacco shops with regard to the degree of apparent wear and tear. The figures are not unambiguous; in addition to the subjective observations of durability in practice, there are also influences from fur dressing and fur finishing as well as numerous other factors in each individual case . More precise information could only be determined on a scientific basis.

    The classification was made in stages of ten percent each, only the weakest species were given the value class of five to ten percent. The most durable types of fur according to practical experience were set to 100 percent.
  2. ↑ The information for a body was only given to make it easier to compare the types of fur. In fact, bodies were only made for small (up to about muskrat size ) and common types of fur, and also for pieces of fur . The following dimensions for a coat body were taken as a basis: body = height 112 cm, width below 160 cm, width above 140 cm, sleeves = 60 × 140 cm.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Paul Schöps; H. Brauckhoff, Stuttgart; K. Häse, Leipzig, Richard König , Frankfurt / Main; W. Straube-Daiber, Stuttgart: The durability coefficients of fur skins . In: Das Pelzgewerbe , Volume XV, New Series, 1964, No. 2, Hermelin Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin, Frankfurt / Main, Leipzig, Vienna, pp. 56–58.
  2. ↑ Paul Schöps, Kurt Häse: The fineness of the hair - the fineness classes . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. VI / New Series, 1955 No. 2, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 39–40 (Note: fine (partly silky); medium-fine (partly fine); coarse (medium-fine to coarse)).
  3. ↑ Peter Gravlund, Morten Meldgaard u. a .: Polyphyletic Origin of the Small-Bodied, High-Arctic Subspecies of Tundra Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 10, 1998, p. 151, doi: 10.1006 / mpev.1998.0525 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Heinrich Dathe , Paul Schöps, with the collaboration of 11 specialists: Fur Animal Atlas . VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena, 1986, pp. 279-281.
  5. ↑ a b Friedrich Lorenz: Rauchwarenkunde , 4th edition. Volk und Wissen publishing house, Berlin 1958, pp. 121–122.
  6. ↑ a b c Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel's Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 . 10. revised and supplemented new edition, Rifra-Verlag Murrhardt, pp. 248–249.
  7. ↑ a b c d Emil Brass : From the realm of fur . 2nd improved edition, publisher of the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin 1925, pp. 844–846.
  8. ↑ a b c d Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and rough goods. XX. Tape. Alexander Tuma publishing house, Vienna 1950. Keyword “Pijiky”.
  9. ↑ a b c Friedrich Kramer: From fur animals to fur . Arthur Heber & Co, Berlin 1937, p. 88.
  10. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and rough goods. XXI. Tape. Verlag Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1951. Keyword "Renno"
  11. ↑ Hans Damm: The furs of the Eskimos and Siberian peoples . In: Das Pelzgewerbe , supplement to the "Hermelin" newspaper, issue 11/12, 1950, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Leipzig / Berlin, p. 19.
  12. ↑ Fritz Schmidt: The book of the fur animals and fur . FC Mayer Verlag, Munich 1970, pp. 378-380.
  13. ↑ Jonquil Graves, Anne Gunn: The fauna of the north . In: Wolfgang R. Weber: Canada north of the 60th parallel . Alouette Verlag, Oststeinbek 1991, ISBN 3-924324-06-9 , p. 95.
  14. ^ A b Valeria Alia: Arts and Crafts in the Arctic . In: Wolfgang R. Weber: Canada north of the 60th parallel . Alouette Verlag, Oststeinbek 1991, ISBN 3-924324-06-9 , pp. 101-102.
  15. ^ Beau Riffenburgh: Nimrod . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8270-0530-2 , pp. 168-169.
  16. ↑ Jill Oakes, Rick Riewe: The art of Inuit women: proud boots, treasures made of fur . Frederking & Thaler, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89405-352-6 , pp. 44 .
  17. ^ Francis Weiss: From Adam to Madam . From the original manuscript part 2 (of 2), (approx. 1980 / 1990s), in the manuscript p. 178. (English)
  18. ^ Philipp Manes : The German fur industry and its associations 1900-1940, attempt at a story . Berlin 1941 Volume 4. Copy of the original manuscript, p. 397 ( → table of contents ).
  19. ↑ Paul Schöps u. a .: The material requirements for fur clothing . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. XVI / New Series 1965 No. 1, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin a. a., pp. 7-12.
  20. ↑ Emil Brass : From the realm of fur . 1st edition, published by the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin 1911, pp. 697–699.
  21. ^ John Lahs, Georg von Stering-Krugheim: Handbook on wild hides and skins . From the company Allgemeine Land- und Seetransportgesellschaft Hermann Ludwig, Hamburg (ed.), Hamburg 1956, p. 213.