The other day I was speaking with professor William Wroth, an author and specialist in Hispanic material culture. He happened to remark that very little had been written on the subject of leather and leather-working in old New Mexico.

I was startled to hear that such a basic industry had been seemingly overlooked by writers and scholars. Checking my shelf of books on New Mexico arts and crafts, I found only a few incidental mentions of leather, thereby confirming Wroth's observation.

However, I next examined an old vertical file of mine, started years ago. It contained assorted scraps of information on leather processing and products, enough to present a column's worth of highlights.

Since New Mexico remained a raw frontier zone for almost 300 years, it should come as no surprise that the skins of animals, preserved in various ways, offered a useful material for the fabrication of assorted goods.

Examples included clothing, shoes and belting; horse gear of all kinds, plus mule harnesses; leather water bags and sacking for grain transport; and military equipment such as rawhide shields (ardagas), musket slings, shot pouches, knife and sword scabbards, and quilted leather jackets serving as armor.

A distinctive product of New Mexico was the leather hanging made of elk hide, painted with religious figures. Beginning in the 17th century, these were suspended over church altars, although later they were mostly displaced by wooden altar screens (reredos).

From an early date, leather goods made up a significant part of New Mexico's exports. Mining communities in Chihuahua and Sonora readily snapped them up.

New Mexico Gov. López de Mendizábal in 1660 shipped south on his own account 1,350 deerskins and a lesser number of buffalo hides and leather jackets.

The production of soft, flannel-like buckskin (gamuza) became a major cottage industry on the upper Rio Grande. As early as 1602, Oñate colonist Juan de Montoya wrote that most of the people wore buckskin clothing because of its warmth in winter. This "fashion" lasted until the onset of the 20th century, especially among shepherds.

The operation that produced leather involves heavy and prolonged work that advances in stages. The basic tools used in New Mexico were a beam knife made of a steel blade inserted in the angle of a curved juniper stick, a butcher knife, and a steel awl or punch.

In addition, a tanner's vat was an essential piece of equipment. Here, a large hollowed out cottonwood log (canoa) served that purpose. But a different kind of vat sunk in the ground also existed.

One like that survives on the property of the José Albino Baca house in Upper Las Vegas dating from 1850. It was built of stone masonry in a pit, the rectangular walls measuring 14 feet by 9 feet. Another of this type, that can no longer be located, was reported in La Cienega.

The first stage involved soaking and cleaning the fresh hides and skins. If a stream or acequia was available, the soak could be done there. If not, the vats had to be used.

Next, the flesh side was cleaned of lingering meat and fat using the beam knife. Usually this work was done by draping a hide over a peeled log or beam. However, smaller skins could be stretched and laced wooden frames for scraping.

Then the material was placed in vats of limewater, or lacking lime, both Spaniards and Pueblos resorted to a lye bath of wood ashes. This operation loosened the hair so that the laborer could remove it by using the back of his knife as a dull scraper.

All of this prepared the heavy hides for tanning. Tannic acid, or tannin, derived from oak bark, was the chief ingredient in the next stage. But since oak trees were not plentiful in New Mexico, canaigre, a plant whose roots were rich in the same acid, was used as a substitute.

The hides and some skins that were immersed in the tanning vats for a month or longer had to be stirred frequently. The tannic acid in time combined chemically with the gelatin in the hides and formed what we know as leather.

Properly speaking, buckskin was not tanned at all. Instead, to break up and soften the fibers, it was repeatedly stretched and pummeled by hand, while rubbing in animal brains as an oil to render it pliable.

The Utes of Northern New Mexico, known as the best Indian gamuza-makers, beat their buckskin with rocks. Men at the villages of Manzano and Placitas in the central mountains pounded skins with wooden mallets, which was probably the rule among Hispanos.

In delving into everyday occupations, like the one I've outlined today, we open small windows on New Mexico's early economic history.

In doing that we can gain a new appreciation and deeper understanding of the old culture and of the people who lived by it.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.