| Corina Castellon (left) and Eugene Albitre work together |
 |
Bosals, reatas and reins made of braided rawhide are some of the horse gear used by the vaqueros or cowboys of the Central Valley. As a teenager growing up on a ranch, Eugene Albitre learned rawhide braiding from a neighbor Salvador Carmelo, a Native American vaquero from the Tejon Ranch. From that introduction to making the essential equipment necessary for ranching activities, Albitre proceeded to learn other western ranching and Native American arts including hide tanning and beading. He will share these with his apprentice, Corina Castellon, who is of Apache descent. She will learn to tan deer, elk, and cow hides without toxic chemicals, braid rawhide, and to make the bead and feather articles used in her Native American dance regalia.
 |
(left) Eugene Albitre with examples of
his articles made from hides
(top) Deer skins dry in his back yard |
| Gene works with all kinds of hides—beef, deer, elk, and buffalo, among others—to make a variety of products including ranch gear, drums, and rattles. Beef hides are strong and are used to make rawhide string for reatas, bosals, quirts, and the ties on drums. It takes about six hours from start to finish to remove the hair from a beef hide and to cut, flesh, stretch, and bevel strips of rawhide, producing up to 400 feet of string. Here Gene is fleshing rawhide string. |
 |
 |
Before being cut into rawhide strips, the beef hide is stretched and dried in preparation for having the hair scraped off. |
| Working in a spiral motion around one quarter of the beef hide, Gene cuts the rawhide into a continuous strip that will become the rawhide string. The front shoulders of the hide are thinner than the hide covering the hindquarters. |
 |
| After fleshing the rawhide strip to remove any remaining flesh on the underside, Corina bevels the rawhide string, first on one edge, then the other. |
 |
 |
This narrow rawhide strip is ready for later use in braiding projects. Because it dries very hard, it will have to be soaked again before braiding. A bosal for a hackamore may take up to 200 feet of sting or about a half a beef hide. |
| Gene Albitre and Corina Castellón |
 |
ACTA Archives, photos by Mary MacGregor-Villarreal
top
