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Hair Chaps. Paradise Valley, Nevada Folklife Collection
Summary
Also called "woolies," made of angora goat hide, ca. 1935; later hair chaps began to be replaced by hairless, wider "batwing" and "chinks" type chaps
Source: Cassinelli, Bob
The Paradise Valley Folklife Project was a cultural documentation project undertaken by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in the 1970s. The project focused on the African American community of Paradise Valley, a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, that was a center of black culture and business in the mid-20th century.
The project sought to document the oral histories, music, and cultural practices of the community, with the goal of preserving and sharing this cultural heritage with future generations. The project was led by folklorist Marsha J. Bonner, who conducted interviews with residents of Paradise Valley and recorded their stories and songs.
The resulting collection includes over 100 hours of audio recordings, as well as photographs and other materials. The collection is housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and is available for research and study.
They are buckled on over pants with the chaps' integrated belt, but unlike trousers, they have no seat (the term "assless chaps" is a tautology) and are not joined at the crotch. They are designed to provide protection for the legs and are usually made of leather or a leather-like material. Their name is a shortened version of the Spanish word chaparajos. Chaparajos were named after the chaparral (thick, thorny, low brush), from which they were designed to protect the legs while riding on horseback. Like much of western American horse culture, the origin of chaparajos was in the south of Spain, from which it then passed on to the part of New Spain that later became Mexico, and has been assimilated into cowboy culture of the American West. They are a protective garment to be used when riding a horse through brushy terrain.
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