ABSTRACT
Hide boats are found today in many parts of the world: the Americas; Siberia and Mongolia; Greenland and the Aleutians; Ethiopia; Tibet; India; Arabia; and Britain and Ireland (McGrail, 1998: 173). In earlier times, late Roman authors described their use, both at sea and on rivers, in Arabia, Italy, Spain, Britain and Ireland. Simple forms of this boat type can be made from a single hide: a ‘leather bag’ reinforced at the rim. Generally, however, a framework of wood, bamboo or, in Siberia, whale bone is first built to the required shape and a ‘skin’ of several hides sewn together is then fastened to it, often by leather thongs: these boats are thus built frame first. In Britain and Ireland animal hides began to be replaced by tarred canvas from the mid-twentieth century.
