Rawhide is a hide or animal skin that has not been exposed to tanning and thus is much lighter in color than treated animal hides (leather). The term hide refers to the covering of a large adult animal such as a cow, buffalo, horse etc. The term skin refers to the covering of a small animal, such as a sheep, goat, pig etc or the young of a large animal.
The skin from buffalo, deer, elk or cattle from which most rawhide originates is devoid of all fur, meat and fat. The resulting material is often only semi-pliable and permeable to light.
Uses
As such, it is considered suitable for use in objects ranging from drumheads to lampshades, and is often used to make chew toys for dogs. Rawhide is also used to cover saddle trees, which make up the form or foundation of a western saddle, while wet: it strengthens the wooden tree by drawing up very tight as it dries. Wet rawhide has been used by some earlier cultures as a means of torture, gradually biting into flesh it's bound around, or execution of enemies. A strip of wet rawhide would be stretched tightly around the forehead of a bound victim and when exposed to sunlight the material would shrink; as the material dried and if left unattended, the victim's skull slowly cracks as a result of the pressure.
References in pop culture
In the movie Man of the House (1995 film), as the hitmen try to figure out a way to kill Jack Sturgess (Chevy Chase) and Ben Archer (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), Ben says: "If you really wanted to kill us, you'd wrap us in wet rawhide and leave us in the sun and all of our organs would ooze out of our orifices like a tube of toothpaste."
