FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
Sc.. '(' \ VY\ S ""a..W
INTERVIEW IUTH: DELBERT BREWSTER
PLACE: Oral History Office , ITC
DATE : August 6, 1982
I NTERVIEWER : Esther MacMillan
M: Delbert Brewster is from Andrews , Texas. That ' s a fur piece , isn't
it?
B: Yes . It is. Almost in New Mexico .
M:Mr. Brewster is a scrimshaw expert and that's what we 're going to talk
about today. To begin with, the word scrimshaw is a fascinating word.
I' ve always loved the sound of the word ; what does it mean?
B: Scrimshaw means .•. it comes from two words : scrim, which is to scribe or
to write ;shaw,in the 1800's, was sort of like a gold brick. YOu sat around
and got by with as little as you could. And scrimshaw is a combination of
the two words. It just means someone who sits around and whittles or does
the scrimshaw •. the work on horn,bone or ivory.
M: That's how it came about! I always thought somehow it started with sea-faring
people and whale bone and things like that. Did it?
B: We ll, the actual word , scr imshaw , may have but the art form is pre­historic.
It's very old. 1hey have found evidence of scrimshaw , or at
l eas t bone engraVing )in the caves in central France . Pre-historic caves.
And then the Eskimos do t he scrim sh~won bone and walrus ivory and mastod-on
tusks. And the American Indians did scri~shaw. Or at least, the bone
engraving .
Now the actua l word , and the terminology, scrimshaw, may have come from
the sailors in the 18th century .. in the 1800 's, 19th century.
M:You r ead MOby Dick when you're a kid and you begin to hear about the lO~~
journeys, something to while away the time.
B: Many o f the journeys lasted up to 4 years . The sailors would use these
Bre,,,ster 2 •
B: as money when they got into port .l f they didn't get any wha l es , to divide
and get a pay check, then they didn ' t get any money. But they always had
bones and teeth from previous kills and they would take th~crimshawed
whale 's teeth and use it as barter. They would trade with it and use it
as money.
M: It was marketable then?
B: Oh yes. Ivory has always been marketable. It's a l ways been prized.
The Egyptians, all of them, used ivory as trade but it wasn't always de-corated
.lt would be just a weight of ivory that would be valuable.
M:ln a museum , when you see a Chinese carved ivory scent bott l e or some-thing,
even though it's carved very intricately, wou l d that be called
scrimshaw?
B: Yes, it could be.There are a lot of different explanations. A lot of
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peoPleA~all themselves authority but they're very knowledgeable on scrim-shaw.
~ome people say that it has to be done on board ship in the 1800 ' s
by a sai~ , to be called scrimshaw . Some peop l e say that any object that is
made of bone or ivory or horn, whether it has the cut and the ink decorating
or not, is scrimshaw .
The little pie cutters , the pie decorators , that were made of bone ..
they didn ' t have any decorated pieces on it; they didn't have any cuts and
ink, but they were made of bone and some people call this scrimshaw.
The Chinese work, since it is made of ivory, or a few times made of
bone,then could actually be c a lled scrim shaw.
~
M: It could.
B: Yes.
M How did you get started with this?
B: Well , I grew up on a ranch in central TExas and I always enjoyed
whittling. I've alw~ys whittled on wood. Then I got started on hornfe­cause
we did have quite a few of those . First I started making blowing
horns . Just cut the end off; I would bor~ a hole in the end of it with a wire.
B:At that time I d idn' t have an electric drill at home. And then work
the hole out to a mouth piece and blow on the horn and play with it. Then
I started making litt l e cuts on it, decorating it. I had been doing this
for quite some years a nd my wife and I went to Al aska . Saw the ESkimos!
scrimshaw . And I told her ,"My goodness , I ' ve been doing this for years
and never knew what it was ca lled ." Neve r had a name for it and I' d neve r
seen anybody do it. It was j ust something ..• I think it's somethi ng
primitive because t he horn engraving or t he cutting and decorating of
bone is a primitive art . The American Indians did it; the ESki mos do it;
many of the primitive tribes around the world decorate horn for jewe lry
or sometimes fo r ritual ceremonies they will have decorated bone .
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M: You mentioned th~re -h istoric caves of France. That's pretty primitive.
NOw/when you reach back that far, what did they use for tools?
3 .
B: They would use a flint; a stone . You see bone won 't cut bone but they had
crude .. we ll we call ' em crude . • but at the time they were quite serviceabl~
and you can flake flint and get a very sharp edge . They would use the flin t
to cut i nto the bone . Many times they ' d use berr y juice or like a pecan
hull o r wa lnut hul l when they're green . They are definitely a good stain for
scrimshaw work. Anyt hing that wi ll get down in the cut and not wash out
is a good stain.
M: Do you have to hav e s tain with scrimshaw?
B: To make it show up .In actual engraving a nd decorating , you have to have
a stain.If you just make a cut on bone , it would no t just show up . YOu need
some stain. I use India ink to put i n that; to make it ..
M: And that doesn't wash out? I t says in .
B: It stays in.
M:In the early cave carvings , for instance , did they use vegetable and
fruit dyes and things like that? Were they dy\ng?
B: They feel like they did . Yes . Of cours~y now the dy~is gone but they
hav e taken sci~tific X-rays and they have taken like acid t e sts and the re
Brewster 4.
B:was something there. Likely it was berry juice that they were using.
M:When this carving of bone and horn and what-not started, do you suppose it
was for decoration or was it from necessity; tools, maybe hunting thingS)
was it a l ways decorative?
B: I feel like it was always decorative . You know people always want something
that's decorated and l ooks nice. Now it could be that the handle, like when
they started tying the flint onto bones and onto sticks to make instruments
and tools, then that itself was a service~ble tool . And I feel like the
scrimshaw has always been a decorative item. Because on a powder horn, the
hor~tself is the item . And a person would always would want something a
little different; to make his horn different . They would carve their name
on i t; put the date; many time s a poem. Some of the better craftsmen would
maybe put a picture of their girl friend, even as crude as it was, it wo1d
look enough like the girl friend to him that it would r emind him of her.
I f ee l like even in prehistoric times, any decorating like this would just
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be strictly to enhance the piece to make itAsome beauty.
M: I noticed on the board that you've got there in your booth, you say that
the chili spoon is going to be aucti oned off and I looked just now and it
isn't there. What is a chili spoon?
B: A chili spoon is an item that I have started making. I make 'em out of
mesquite , a large of mesquite, maybe 6 to 10 inches in diameter. Split it
out and just let the wood split with the grain. And then I work a head on
which looks to be the best end of the log that I start with. I always let
the wood split out with the grain and dress it down, rasp it, and sand it.
Each one is different. Like you might be able to make 5 or 6 out of I log
of wood, one stick of wood, probably 18, 24 inches long. And even out of
that you'd think there'd be some confOrmation to the spoon but they're al l
di ff erent. And then I a lways put a horn or a bone, the bone that I use
on the e nd of the chili spoons is a deer antler.
Brel"ste r
M: Where is it? Why isn't it on the board?
B: I guess it just fell off. It was hard to hang up there.
M: I wante d to see what it looked like.
B: It '''as up there and it will be back.
M: When you get through carving, do you polish in any way?
B: No , nothing other than the ivory. The ivory I polish before I start
carving, before I start the scrimshaw . Then with the polished surface it
would be like putting ink on glass. You can just wipe it off. Then on
the horn, when I scrimshaw the horn, I scrape it to get the ink off it.
I don 't ever polish my horns . I just scrape ' ern down and get 'ern scratch -
free because any scratches that are on the horn will show up . So I get
'ern scratch-free and then do the cutting and the inking and I scrape the
excess ink off.
On the bone, like the bone handles on the knives, I po lish them and I
polish the ivory and the jewelry .
M: YOu make bone handles for knives, eh?
B: YEs.
M: What kind of bone ?
B: It's a deer that's native to India and Pakistan, called an Indian stag.
It has a blood vein that feeds the antler instead of having more of a porous
center like the white tai~ed deer , the mule deer and the elk have more
of a porous center and a thin layer of bone on the outside. This one
actua lly is solid bone with this blood vein through the middle.
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M: Re ally? I wonder. they're different?
B: It 's just a different deer. It ' s such a different antler that it's
excellent to work with.
M: That's what you like, the bone. Now what about the horn?
B: The horns are all cow horns. All cattle.
I made some blowing horns out of goat horns and sheep horns. But all
the powde r horns are cattle horns.
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Brewster
M: Do you work very much with ivory: That must be kind of expensive .
B: Well/it is. It is quite expensive. I do small pieces of ivory like for
jewe lry. I don't use big pieces.
M: Do you make stuff to sell? Do you sel l?
B: Yes.
M: Pretty good market?
B: Yeah, there's a good market. Especially for hunting knives and some
jewelry.I have sold quite a few powder horns. People would want a horn
made that are just getting into muzzle loading and they want a horn. Or
if they have inherited a gun from their great grandfather or something
like this or from a fami l y membe r, they would like to hang it on the wall
with a nice horn to go with it. I make quite a few hor~for that.
M: What about jewelry? What kind of jewelry?
B: I make ear rings, rings, pendants, bolos for the men and belt buckles.
These are set in sterling silver . And the set in it is elephant ivory
that has been scrimshawed.
M: What kind of tools go with this operation?
B: For the actual scrimshaw , I just use a knife with a very sharp point
and I use it as a knife. Some people use a scribe. They hold it like a
pencil. And they will move their fingers as if they were writing . They
will do the cuts with a sharp-pointed needle. But I do it with a knife
and I hold it in my fingers and use my thumb as a back-up so my stroke is
from the finger to thumb on the piece that I'm working.
M: Sounds complicated to me . You said they use a scribe. What's that?
END OF TAPE I, Side 1,30 minutes
TAPE I , Side 2
B: A scribe is a penci l-looking piece that has a sharp needle or a nail
or anything that you can sharpen to a very sharp point. And use it as
a pencil that wi l l cut or scratch into this materia l you 're working with .
6.
Brewster
M: If you're working on bone or horn, is that a very hard substance to
cut?
B: Bone is very hard 4
M: Harder than horn?
B: Yes mam. Bone is the hardest; ivory would be next; and then horn
would be the softest.
M: you have to exert quite a bit of pressure, don't you?
B: You do on the bone. On the horn, it's not quite as much pressure.
M: When you start out to do a piece .. say you're going to do a horn ,
a powder horn .. do you draw a design on a paper that yoLre going to
fOllow or do you just do it as you go or have you got something in your
mind?
B: It depends on what it is. If it's a landscape or a windmill scene
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type of thing)of that nature,then I'll just start out. I'll start with the
mos t important item .. l et ' s say we're going to do a windmill on horn. I
start with the windmill; then I'll put in the water tank and then maybe
a tree. Then from that, I'll go to the horizon whether they want a
mountain or a more flat area . Then go with grass and weeds and maybe
a few smaller trees.
If I'm going to do a person 's face,an animal, or something that is
quite particular and it has to look correct, then I will draw it on
there to get it correct. And I'll have another master drawing that I
will refer to.I will start on the outside , make sure the outside is right,
and then I'll refer back to the master drawing and get in .. let's say
we're doing a person's face •. then I'll get in the eyes and the nose and
the mouth .. these are just sort of roughed in. Then start with more
details and more de tails until I get the finished piece.
M: How long have you been doing this?
B:Well, I hate to tell you.I don ' t know. I've been doing it and making
shows like the Texas Folklife Festival , the other shows/for about 13,14 years.
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Brewster
B: Before that, I had been doing it on horn for many years.
M: What I'm getting at is, you 're quite expert in i t now.
B: Thank you very much.
M: When you start out with a comp licated piece , like a face, you know
what you're doing . What happens if your knife slips and you make some
terrib l e mistake?
B: If you make a mistake on an animal or a person's face, you just have to
resurface the horn or ivory and start allover again.
M: YOu can do that.
B: You see there is no way to erase. You can 't erase one little line.
YOu 've got to resurface the whole thing and start again.
H: I saw up there in your booth what looked to me like a rasp. Do you
use a rasp?
B: YEs mam, I use a rasp on my horns. When you start with a rough horn
that's been weathered , you have to rasp the outside of it to get it down
to the point that you can start scraping it. Then after you have scraped
it clean then you can put decorations on it.
M: What do you scrape with? What kind of a tool do you use for that?
B: I scrape with a knife.
M: Not the knife you cut with though?
B: No . I have a knife that's just strictly a scraping knife. This knife
doesn't have to be sharp but it doe s have to have a very smooth edge
where there's no irregularities in the edge because if there i s, then
you 'll get lines and deep areas and high areas , uneven areas.
M: YOu don 't use sandpaper?
B: No mam. I don't use sand paper or a buffer for po lishing of any kind
on horn. I do on the bone and ivory.
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M: When YOU~Polishing, what do you polish with, a cloth, or your hand
or .. ?
B: I polish with a cloth . With jewe ler's rou~e on an emery wheel.
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Brewster
B: Excuse me, I don't mean that. A muslin wheel.
M: Do you have another business that you do besides this?
B: Yes mam. I teach school. I teach art in e l ementary school·
M: Do you? I n Andrews?
B: Uh huh.
M: I bet you're doing a good j ob .
B: I hope so.
M:You don 't approve of handing out pictures to color do you?
B: Oh no. Now if the lowe r grades are teaching color or they're teaching
something like this, it's acceptable.
M: But not for creative work.
B: Not for creative .• no
M: Are the kids interested in what you do? Do you ever bring things
and show them?
B: Yeah. I bring it up. Mostly in the class room. Like when the teacher
is teaching Appalachia or something , I'll bring up a muzzle loader
that I have inlaid bone into and horn; I'll bring the blowing hor~~and
powder horns in and show the class and they get all excited about that.
They enj oy that.
M:I've talked to so many peop le whose crafts were a necessity in the
early days . Is there any history or any documentation that the early
people ... they had wooden spoons and things to stir with but~;~hey ever
convert bone into a a spoon or a paddle or a ladle for cooking?
B: Not the bone; but the horn yes . The American INdians had horn
I
dippers and horn bowls that they served their food in. Some of the most
beautifully carved handles on dippers are the NOrthwest coastal Indians.
The Athabast and the Klinget Indians.They would take a mountain goat
horn and work a dipper into the end of it br boiling it and putting a
rock in there and spreading it out. They'd make a dipper . And then on the
handle, they would carve their charms. Like totem poles, the different
10.
Brewster
B: totem. They would carve the totem charms on the handles and they
were fanta~icallY beautiful. The Sioux and the Black Foot used buffalo
horns to make dippers and serving bowls.
M:You talked about making chili spoons; about splitting the logs .•
Have you talked to the treen ware lady? Here in the Folklife Festival?
B: Yes,. WE've talked.
M: I interviewed her last year and that was interesting . She's done it
so long she can look at a piece of wood and see if it's going to have
a pretty heart. Can you, too? Can you pretty much tell?
B:Pretty much. Of course mesquite will always surprise you. You look at
it and you think you see something there and many times you do; and
many times the grain changes and the heart changes and you have not
really gotten out of the wood .That you thought was there. But if the
wood runs true, you can pretty well tell what':; there.
M: I've got to see that chili spoon with the bone on the end of it.
~hat sounds interesting. Do you have a store? What' your outlet for
selling these wonderful things?
B: My out let is just personal contacts. Like I'll talk to peopl e here
at the Folklife FEstival and they'll think about it for a while and
many times they'll get back with me and say,"I would like to have this
and I'd like to have this particular thing." For example , if someone
wanted a powder horn and they didn 't know right at that time what they
wanted , then they would think about it and they would say."All right,
I want a powder horn, and I want a buffalo carved on it, scrimshawed
on it." Or they want a turkey and this type of thing. And they'll get
in touch with me . Anqwe'll work it out what they want. I'll work it up
and get it to them.
M: In other words, you don 't depend on your scrimshaw for a living.
B: No . The scrimshaw is just fun. It's relaxing to me. I can come in,
sit down, start working with my hands and I fee l more relaxed.
11.
Brewster
M: After teaching, you need that . It's nervous work. It's a wonderful
thing you're doing .. you're preserving a craft. po people ask you any
particular kinds of questions when they come by or is it just a general
curiosity?
B: It 's a general. Basically, the questions are quite a bit the same.
They want to know if the horn is actually hollow or if I have to hollow
it out . They are hollow. There is a bone that grows on the skull and it
goes up into the horn and if the horn is de-horned, then you have to
either boil the skull and hit it against something solid like a tree
trunk and it will come out .
Many times if the animal dies in the pasture, you let it lay for a
couple of weeks , about that, depending upon the weather , and then
just go out and twist the horn a little bit and it will slip off.
But the horn is hollow; it has the bone of the skull in it.
M:You see a cow horn, it's white; when you look at it you get the general
,
impression of whiteland yet ~ve seen polished horn and bone that picks
up a color. I~there color inside, someway?
B: Yes. There'~ywhere from a white to a cream color to brown or
red and some are black. this just depends on the breed o f animal.
The coloration there comes from pigment like some people's hair is blond ,
some is red, some is black,brown. It's a thing with horns, there are
just different pigments.It depends on the cattle; and it depends on the
pigment. On some of the horn I work with , they're basically a cream color
and they have a brown streak goes the full l ength of the horn.
M: YOu see that sometimes, on combs and things like that.
B: They're decorative com~s like if a lady put her hair up in a bunj
just be a stick comb. There were horn smiths in Colonial America that mad ..
actual horn combs that you combed your hair with .,ith several teeth in
the comb.
Brewster
M: They were called horn smith?
B:Yes. The horn smith .. it was a job just like a furrier, a blacksmith.
M: I didn 't know that. Did they make kitchen utensi ls do you sup po s e ?
B: They made shoe horns, diffe rent items.
M: That's .why they 're called shoe horns?
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B:Ye s ma~. That's why theyre calleda shoe horn be cause you can cut a
horn at an angle and get the solid part for the handle and just where
the hollow of the inside starts, is the area you work out for the shoe
horn. Your heel fits in the concave area of the horn and you just slip
your shoe on. That's where the terminology,shoe ho rn, came from.
M : And now they ' J·e all plastiC!
B: I 'f'ljafraid s r .
N: Do you ce c ] g o oa =-:bout. being here at the Folklife Fe stival?
B: I feel excellent. Ye s mam.
M: You think it's a good thing to do, don't you?
B: There are so many young people that come by that have heard their
12.
grandparents talk about these things but they 've never had the opportunity
to see them. And there are s ome old folks that come by and they love to
tell stories about : "Oh, I remember when I was a kid .. my brother and I
would do this or that. We had a horn." It's just faSCinating It's
won de rful.
M: It's k ind o f a family affair; that 's what I like about it.
B: It is.
M: As I walk around I see all thes e little kidS, they 're just so
curious. They're behaving themselves because they've got something
interesting to do .
B: We look forward to it. This is our 5th year.
M: Have you been here for 5 years: How did I miss you al l these years?
B: We look forward to this as much as we do to a family reunion. WE
have friends that e xhibit he r e and we l ook forward t o meeting them
13.
Brewster
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and their family and visiting; seeing what has happened over thevear
We just enjoy each other. There's a fellowship between craftsmen.
It's like the fellowship between hunters, fishermen. A craftsman can
look at another person's craft, even though it's foreign 1o what he does ..
like I can enjoy a potter and know the work that goes into it) the skill
that goes into it. And in turn, he can look at my work and admire it
for what it is.
WE have the weavers . The people that weave the wool in one booth and
then the white oak •. they can admire each other's work and understand
the work that's involved in the finished piece.
M: The average person just sees the finished product ...
B: That's all.
END OF TAPE I, side 2, 30 minutes.