A hide or skin is an animal skin treated for human use. The word "hide" is related to the German word Haut, which means skin. The industry defines hides as "skins" of large animals e.g. cow, buffalo; while skins refer to "skins" of smaller animals: goat, sheep, deer, pig, fish, alligator, snake, etc. Common commercial hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, buckskin, alligator skin and snake skin. All are used for shoes, clothes, leather bags, belts, or other fashion accessories. Leather is also used in cars, upholstery, interior decorating, horse tack and harnesses. Skins are sometimes still gathered from hunting and processed at a domestic or artisanal level but most leather making is now industrialized and large-scale. Various tannins are used for this purpose. Hides are also used as processed chews for dogs or other pets.
The term "skin" is sometimes expanded to include furs, which are harvested from various species, including cats, mustelids, and bears.
Archaeologists believe that animal hides provided an important source of clothing and shelter for all prehistoric humans and their use continued among non-agricultural societies into modern times. The Inuit, for example, used animal hides for summer tents, waterproof clothes, and kayaks. In early medieval ages hides were used to protect wooden castles and defense buildings from setting alight during a siege. Various American Indian tribes used hides in the construction of tepees and wigwams, moccasins, and buckskins. They were sometimes used as window coverings. Until the invention of plastic drum heads in the 1950s, animal hides or metal was used.
Parchment and vellum—a kind of paper made from processed skins—was introduced to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Iron Age, supposedly at Pergamon.
The Assize of Weights and Measures—one of the statutes of uncertain date from c. 1300—mentions rawhide, gloves, parchment, and vellum among the principal items of England's commerce. A standardized shipload of leather (a last) consisted of 20 dicker of 10 cowhides. Rabbit and squirrel skins were traded and taxed in timbers of 40 hides each. Skins were also traded in binds of 32 or 33 skins each, while gloves were sold in dickers of 10 pair and dozens of 12 pair. The parchment and vellum was traded based on dozens of the original sheepskins from which they were prepared. [1] [2]
Rare furs have been a notable status symbol throughout history. Ermine fur was particularly associated with European nobility, with the black-tipped tails arranged around the edges of the robes to produce a pattern of black diamonds on a white field. Demand for beaver hats in the 17th and 18th century drove some of the initial exploration of North America, particularly in Canada, and even prompted wars among native tribes competing for the most productive areas. Natural leather continues to be used for many expensive products from limousine upholstery to designer cellular phone cases. There are, however, many forms of artificial leather and fur now available, which are usually cheaper alternatives.
Animal hides and skins are usually processed fresh or salted and tanned. Skins sometimes are stretched, dried, and tanned. Most hides are processed from domesticated animals; the most common wild animals used for fur—mink and rabbit—are similarly raised in captivity and farmed. Some others—including lynx and wolves [ citation needed ]—are still trapped in the wild for their fur.
Currently, hides are mainly used for footwear, upholstery, leather goods; skins are used for clothing, particularly as coats, gloves, leather goods and footwear. It is also used for bookbinding.
Many traditional drums, especially hand drums like the pandeiro, continue to be made using natural skins. The alligator drum was formerly important in Chinese music. The Chinese sanxian and Okinawan sanshin are usually prepared from snakeskin, while their Japanese equivalent, the shamisen, is made from dogskin in the case of students and catskin in the case of professional players. The African-American banjo was originally made from skins but is now often synthetic. "Hides" is used as a slang term to refer to a drumset. [3]
Kangaroo leather is the most common material for the construction of bullwhips. Stingray rawhide is a common material for the grips of Chinese, Japanese, and Scottish swords.
Pig skins are processed as pork rinds.
Rabbit fur is popular for hats, coats, and glove linings.
Animal rights activists generally protest the use of animal hides for human clothing. Forms of protest range from PETA's "I would rather go naked than wear fur" campaign, although more shocking and direct action, like damaging furs with red paint in imitation of blood, has been toned down, like the "Ink, not Mink" campaign. Roadblocking and break-ins against meat/fur/leather industry is also used and extends to personal campaigns against such companies and also hunters which have included arson and assault in some cases.
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, and aquatic animals such as seals and alligators.
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves.
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin, or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellum is prepared for writing and printing on single pages, scrolls, and codices (books).
Tanning, or hide tanning, is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed.
Suede is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French gants de Suède, which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was first used by The Oxford English Dictionary in 1884.
Rawhide is a hide or animal skin that has not been exposed to tanning. It is similar to parchment, much lighter in color than leather made by traditional vegetable tanning.
Buckskin is the soft, pliable, porous preserved hide of an animal – usually deer – tanned in the same way as deerskin clothing worn by Native Americans. Some leather sold as "buckskin" may now be sheepskin tanned with modern chromate tanning chemicals and dyed to resemble real buckskin.
Fur clothing is clothing made from the preserved skins of mammals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing and is thought to have been widely used by people for at least 120,000 years. The term 'fur' is often used to refer to a specific item of clothing such as a coat, wrap, or shawl made from the fur of animals.
Sheepskin is the hide of a sheep, sometimes also called lambskin. Unlike common leather, sheepskin is tanned with the fleece intact, as in a pelt.
The conservation and restoration of parchment constitutes the care and treatment of parchment materials which have cultural and historical significance. Typically undertaken by professional book and document conservators, this process can include preventive measures which protect against future deterioration as well as specific treatments to alleviate changes already caused by agents of deterioration.
Calfskin or calf leather is a leather or membrane produced from the hide of a calf, or juvenile domestic cattle. Calfskin is particularly valuable because of its softness and fine grain, as well as durability. It is commonly used for high-quality clothing, shoes, wallets, and similar products, as well as traditional leather bookbindings. In these contexts, just "calf" is commonly used. Fine calfskin is one of the skins used for vellum and parchment manuscripts.
Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of almost all mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket that keeps the animal warm.
A leather jacket is a jacket-length coat that is usually worn on top of other apparel or item of clothing, and made from the tanned hide of various animal skins. The leather material is typically dyed black, or various shades of brown, but a wide range of colors is possible. Leather jackets can be designed for many purposes, and specific styles have been associated with subcultures such as greasers, motorcyclists, and bikers, mobsters, military aviators and music subcultures, who have worn the garment for protective or fashionable reasons, and occasionally to create a potentially intimidating appearance.
Humanity has used animal hides since the Paleolithic, for clothing as well as mobile shelters such as tipis and wigwams, and household items. Since ancient times, hides have also been used as a writing medium, in the form of parchment.
Kazakh clothing, worn by the Kazakh people, is often made of materials suited to the region's extreme climate and the people's nomadic lifestyle. It is commonly decorated with elaborate ornaments made from bird beaks, animal horns, hooves and feet. Although contemporary Kazakhs usually wear Western dress, the Turkic people wear more traditional clothing for holidays and special occasions.
Kidskin or kid leather is a type of soft, thin leather that is traditionally used for gloves. It is widely used for other fashion purposes such as footwear and clothing. Kidskin is traditionally made from goatskin - more specifically, the skin of young goats, although equivalent leathers such as lambskin and chickenskin give the same effect.
Crocodile skin either refers to the skin of a live crocodile or a leather made from dead crocodile hide. It has multiple applications across the fashion industry such as use for bags, shoes, and upholstery after being farmed and treated in specialist farms and tanneries.
Leather is created when an animal skin or hide is chemically treated in a process called tanning to preserve them for long term use as material for clothing, handbags, footwear, furniture, sports equipment and tools. Alligator leather is also commonly used to create similar items as mentioned above.
Traditional Inuit clothing is a complex system of cold-weather garments historically made from animal hide and fur, worn by Inuit, a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic areas of Canada, Greenland, and the United States. The basic outfit consisted of a parka, pants, mittens, inner footwear, and outer boots. The most common sources of hide were caribou, seals, and seabirds, although other animals were used when available. The production of warm, durable clothing was an essential survival skill which was passed down from women to girls, and which could take years to master. Preparation of clothing was an intensive, weeks-long process that occurred on a yearly cycle following established hunting seasons. The creation and use of skin clothing was strongly intertwined with Inuit religious beliefs.
Bating, a technical term used in the tanning industry to denote leather that has been treated with hen or pigeon manure, similar to puering where the leather has been treated with dog excrement, and which treatment, in both cases, was performed on the raw hide prior to tanning in order to render the skins, and the subsequent leather, soft and supple. Today, both practices are obsolete and have been replaced in the tanneries with other natural proteolytic enzymes.
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