F. G. Speck Hair Analysis

In this article by F.G. Speck, a former American Anthropologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, discuss the use of moose, caribou, and reindeer hair for embroidering multiple buckskin items; as well as the wide distribution of it among Indian tribes. In 1908 to 1909 Specks had made several visits to the Huron tribe, in Lorette, P. Q., Canada, were the decorative technique took place of quilt work and bead work almost entirely. Speck refers to anthropologist Boas’ work on Indian tribes and notes that the hair techniques being studied are consistent with various Indian tribes around the world. Since Specks has study the Huron tribe the examples he provides are most likely references to the practice of the Huron tribe.
Speak explains that the fields of decoration have no limits, being placed where ever possible. The embodied …show more content…
Each a different way of applying the hairs. A line is when the hair is simply stitched down by curling them in a spiral or crowding the lines together to cover a more solid area. In contrast, the zigzag is bent at an angle and “is most characteristic” (P. 5), bent-over hairs conceal the thread of each stitch. Overlapping gives body to the design, making it appear fuller, and is most commonly used in creating flowers, the stitches concealed in the fold of the hair. Specks notes that the fourth technique, bristle, is also used by “Eskimo specimens”. Bristle, along with metal, is used to create fringe or edging. Specks observed that there are two verities of this technique among the Huron, describing one as consisting of “little clusters of moose hair, horse, or caribou bristles, white or red, with a cone of tin around the base, the series usually being arranged in a compact fridge” (P. 6). The other is similar in all ways except that it has a few beads to make it longer and the clusters of hair are farther