Re: MtMan-List: Leggings into pants

[Roger Lahti <lahtirog@gte.net>]

Dear Sir:

My first effort at brain tanning back in the late 60's went into a pair of
leggens of no particular tribal style. If anything they were more eastern than
plains but too long for traditional eastern, well anyway. I got the idea after
a few years to turn them into a pare of pants with some scraps of the same
brain tanning efforts.  It wasn't all that difficult to make a seat piece and
a front piece and sew them in. I used a straight or french fly rather than
drop front and that seemed to work the best. I wore them for several years and
finally made another pair of leggens out of two other brain tan deer hides,
again in an eastern style.

My conclusions on the whole project was that I should have left the leggens as
leggens in the first place. I did not find that making them into pants was a
very satisfactory enterprise. My advice is to leave them be. If I had some
leggens potlached onto me as you did and they were of sufficient girth, I
would be inclined to make a pair of cloth britches to wear under them and make
them look more like the leggens worn by the whites in the fur trade era as
depicted by Miller et.al.

Hope my thoughts have been of some help. I remain...

YMOS
Capt. Lahti

Henry B. Crawford wrote:

> Friends,
>
> A friend gave me a pair of brain-tanned Lakota leggings he made.  I'm
> thinking of making a pair of pants out of 'em.  I've got some brain tan to
> match.  Are there any special techniques for patterning the front and seat
> and attaching them to the existing legs?
>
> TIA,
> HBC
>
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> Henry B. Crawford        Curator of History
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