As when the slaughter’d bull’s yet reeking hide,
Strain’d with full force, and tugged from side to side
The brawny curriers stretch; and labour o’er
The extended surface, drunk with fat and gore....
The untidy process here alluded to as currying was doubtless one of man’s first methods of making leather. It consisted of laboriously working into a hide or skin such greasy and albuminous substances as animal fats, brains, blood, milk, and so forth. The product, although technically not “leather,” had many of leather’s characteristics; this is a paradox that calls for some definitions. In the terminology of the trade:
Hides are the pelts of the larger animals—cattle, horses, buffalo, elephants, and so on;
Skins come from smaller animals—calves, sheep, goats, pigs, deer, beaver, etc.—and from birds, fish, and reptiles;
Leather is any hide or skin after it has been tanned.
As the legislature of colonial Virginia put it in 1691 (in an act that will shortly engage our attention again):
And for the avoyding of all ambiguities and doubts, which may and doe grow and arise upon the difinition and interpretation of this word leather, Be it enacted and declared, that hydes and skinns of oxe, steer, bull, cow, calfe, deer, goats and sheep being tann’d shall be, and ever hath been reputed and taken leather.