I learned how to do this from a naked guy I met out in the deep desert in southern Arizona. You stretch and scrape the hide with a flint tool, then soak it in a hot broth of the brains of the animal ( deer in our case ) over the fire. This made a buttery soft leather that was fine indeed, and required nothing more than tools found in the rough.

I think the bird shit is a clever substitute, but clearly we have a different way of looking at things. The average Native American would have been considered very wealthy by these people's standards. As indeed they were.

It keeps using phrases like "there's no other way" and "he has to" but c'mon. I'm just not so sure that's the case. Just gotta stand in shit water for three hours, and that's that, huh?

Also if Mr. Shitwater there is making two bucks a day producing materials for leather shoes, then somewhere in that chain is someone or someones getting paid waaaay too much for not standing up to their waists in filth.

That kid is really handsome. Too bad there aren't better opportunities for dumb, attractive people in his country.

I met someone whose last name in yiddish meant "tailor", something that used to be a respectable profession. It turned out that the family had deliberately changed it from the word for '"tanner" (which sounded similar).

Tanning was not a respectable profession, as suggested here.

"Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred
Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred

So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde,
and that's it hanging on the shed."

All together now!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gru7Ial3k