Brains, Buckskin & Beads

Agnes Oshanee Kenmille, eyes bright in her lined face, remembers the exact moment her long hide-tanning career was launched. Her mother-in-law, examining the deer hide that 14-year-old Oshanee had arduously scraped of hair, nodded approvingly. “That’s a good job,” she told the girl.

“I was started then,” Kenmille says, smiling. Now 88, she has been turning animal hides into clothing for more than 70 years, and beading the garments even longer—since her first cloverleaf at age 11.

A revered Salish tribal elder, Kenmille has beaded hundreds of traditional ceremonial items, from gloves and gauntlets to moccasins, capes and dresses. Her favorite design is the rose, and she holds up a buckskin dress that will feature a motif of dark blue roses, made of thousands of tiny beads that seem to glow against the golden leather. Like others she has made, she hopes this dress will be worn at powwows where Oshanee herself is the lead dancer.

Her workshop is a shed behind her ranch-style home in Pablo, Mont. (pop. 1,814). Hides are stacked or hung in various stages of the tanning process. Because neighbors leave hundreds of hides on her doorstep, she never has to buy them.

She orders cow brains from a supermarket which she uses to soften the hides .

“They call me and say, ‘Your brains are in!’” she says, chuckling. After scraping the hide of hair, she dips it in a milky mixture of hot water and brains, wrings it out thoroughly, stretches it, and hangs it up to dry. The process is repeated three times, until the hide looks and feels as soft and white as a baby’s diaper before it is cut, beaded and sewn.

Oshanee’s tanning skills are truly exceptional, says Dalon Weaselhead, manager of The People’s Center, a Salish-Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille Indian Museum in Pablo. “If we had to put this craft—tanning hides—on the endangered list, it would be right up there,” he says. “She is the only one known to still tan hides this way,” referring to their pure whiteness and velvety softness.

Oshanee admits the tanning, particularly the hair-scraping, is exhausting. “I ache for three or four days after that,” she says.

Cleo Kenmille, a former daughter-in-law, danced with her at the powwows for many years in a dress her mother-in-law made. “I felt proud because she was my mother-in-law, and because she had made my dress, and had worked so hard and long,” she says. “It took at least two years to make.”

Beading has been Oshanee’s solace during the bad times. Born in 1916 in nearby Arlee, Mont., the youngest of six, she was named Agnes by nuns at her Catholic boarding school. But she prefers her Salish name of Oshanee. Orphaned at 12, an aunt married her off at age 14 to a man who spoke only Kootenai, while she spoke only Salish. Her husband died of tuberculosis two years later, and a landslide killed a second husband. She left her third husband, taking her seven children with her.

Her work has always provided financial support as well. She recalls a time in 1934 when she sold a pair of gloves for $1.25, enough to feed four families a meal of short ribs and boiled potatoes. “Pretty good, for the Depression,” she says.

Today, her hides sell for $150 to $300, while a beaded dress goes for $2,000. The shawl she wears at powwows, a design of dark orange roses against a field of turquoise blue, took seven months to make. She’s crafted gloves for former Vice President Al Gore and boxer Muhammad Ali. In 2001, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Montana Arts Council and a Governor’s Arts Awards.

Her greatest honor came in June 2003, when she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. “I was surprised I had won,” she recalls. “My daughter-in-law called me and told me to turn on the radio. They announced it on there. I went to Washington, D.C., to collect my award; it was $20,000. Oh my gosh, that was something. It was exciting.”

Kenmille hopes to keep her craft alive through her granddaughters and her students at Salish-Kootenai College, where she teaches two courses in tanning and leathercraft each year.

As for where she gets her elaborate designs, she points to her head. “They’re all in here,” she smiles.

Chris McGonigle is a freelance writer in Helena, Mont.

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