The Human Skin Binding: A Symbol of Incorporated Violence

What Is the Human Skin Binding?

In The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, the most visceral symbol of the novel’s central violence is the binding of Arthur Beaucarne’s journal. The journal that Etsy Beaucarne discovers hidden in a parsonage wall—the same text she transcribes to build her tenure book—is not bound in deerskin or calf leather. It is bound in human skin. The novel reveals this in its final chapter: forensic testing confirms the material came from a person, specifically Benjamin Flowers, Arthur’s own son. This discovery transforms the physical object from a historical document into a relic of consumptive violence, forcing both Etsy and the reader to reckon with the literal incorporation of atrocity into the act of storytelling.

Where the Motif of Skinned Skin Recurs

The human skin binding is the culmination of a recurring motif of skinning and flaying that runs throughout the novel. The story opens with a man found skinned on the Montana prairie, his face painted yellow and black, his tongue removed. This unnamed victim is the first of many bodies reduced to meat by violence. Early in the narrative, Arthur Beaucarne witnesses the same kind of mutilation: a corpse with “the skin of his back and torso removed,” a sight that the local men interpret as the work of Indians leaving “missives” for the town.

The motif extends beyond humans to animals. Good Stab recalls fields of “skinned blackhorns,” buffalo left to rot after hide-hunters stripped them for commercial profit. In one of his early confessions, he describes a buffalo that had been skinned alive, its tongue cut out, and then abandoned to die. The novel layers human and animal skinning in parallel, suggesting that colonial violence treats both bodies as raw materials.

The recurrence deepens when Good Stab himself is hunted and skinned by the Nachzehrer—the “Cat Man”—who breaks his bones and leaves him as a “skin bag of slivers and rocks.” Good Stab survives by drinking blood, but the stripping of his flesh becomes a form of punishment and transformation, linking skin removal to the vampire’s need to consume. By the final chapter, the journal’s cover is revealed to be human skin, completing the cycle: the skin of Arthur’s own son is literally wrapped around the text that records Arthur’s crimes.

How the Meaning of the Binding Changes

The human skin binding’s significance shifts depending on who holds it. For Arthur Beaucarne, the journal is a confessional space where he records his investigation, his guilt about the Marias Massacre, and his fear of Good Stab’s vengeance. He never mentions binding the journal in human skin, and the text itself does not show him doing so. The binding is an after-the-fact horror—something done to the object after his death, likely during the transformation that makes him a monster. The journal as artifact thus carries a meaning Arthur never intended: his own words are literally encased in the skin of a victim, implicating him in a crime he may not have committed directly.

For Etsy Beaucarne, the discovery of the binding shatters her academic detachment. She has spent months transcribing the journal, treating it as a primary source for her scholarship. When she learns the cover is human skin—specifically that of Benjamin Flowers, her own ancestor—she can no longer separate the text from the body that produced it. The journal becomes a confrontation with complicity. Etsy has been handling, reading, and digitizing the skin of a murdered man. Her role as a neutral historian collapses into personal guilt. She later destroys the journal with her father’s ashes, an act that suggests absolution through fire, but also a refusal to let the object continue to circulate as a commodity.

The binding also carries meaning for Good Stab. He is the one who originally found the journal in the wall and gave it to Etsy anonymously. His act of giving the journal away is a deliberate transmission of testimony. He wants the story told. But the human skin binding is a remainder of colonial consumption—the physical residue of a people who were hunted, stripped, and turned into objects. By leaving the journal for Etsy, Good Stab forces her to inherit not just the story, but the material truth of violence.

Character Connections

The symbol ties together multiple characters across generations:

Arthur Beaucarne: The Lutheran pastor who writes the journal and is later transformed into a monster. The human skin binding is connected to his son Benjamin, whom Arthur presumably killed or allowed to be killed. Arthur’s guilt is made literal: his words are wrapped in his son’s flesh.
Etsy Beaucarne: The contemporary professor who discovers the binding. Her reaction—horror, then destruction—mirrors her journey from academic observer to engaged participant. She can no longer claim neutrality.
Good Stab: The vampire-like witness who gives the journal to Etsy. He embodies the Indigenous perspective on colonial violence. By handing over the skin-bound book, he ensures that the wound is not forgotten but is instead read and felt.
Benjamin Flowers: Arthur’s son, who is never a character in the timeline of the novel, except through this symbol. His skin becomes the ultimate evidence of the cost of Arthur’s actions. He is the silent victim whose body literally contains the story.
The Nachzehrer (Cat Man): The European vampire figure who skins and breaks Good Stab. His methods mirror the skinning of the buffalo and the skinned men of Miles City. The human skin binding can be read as an extension of his dark gospel—the reduction of life to consumable hide.

Theme Connections

The human skin binding is a master symbol that connects several major themes:

Colonial Violence and Genocide: Skinning is a method of dehumanization, used against both people and animals. The journal’s cover literalizes the extraction of value from bodies that underwrote westward expansion.
Vampirism as Consumption: Good Stab and the Nachzehrer both survive by drinking blood. The skin binding is a form of preserved consumption—a hide that once covered a living person, now repurposed as a cover for a history of consumption.
Justice and Revenge: Good Stab’s revenge is not physical violence but forcing the truth to be known. The skin-bound journal is the tool of that revenge: it cannot be ignored. It demands a response from anyone who touches it.
Identity and Cultural Erasure: The skin of Benjamin Flowers (a mixed-race child) is used to bind the journal of a white pastor. This act erases his individual identity while preserving his body as an object, mirroring the ways colonial structures erased Indigenous and mixed-race people.
Guilt and Absolution: Arthur seeks forgiveness but never achieves it. Etsy inherits his guilt by handling the journal. Her destruction of the book becomes a private ritual of absolution—a way to end the cycle of trauma that the object perpetuates.

Study Questions

How does the human skin binding change Etsy's relationship to the journal?
Before the revelation, Etsy treats the journal as a scholarly artifact. After learning it is bound in Benjamin Flowers’s skin, she experiences visceral horror and personal complicity. She can no longer maintain academic distance because she has been literally touching a victim every time she turned a page. Her reaction forces the reader to consider how material evidence transforms historical inquiry into ethical confrontation.
Why might the novel choose to make the cover human skin rather than a more abstract symbol?
The concreteness of the symbol prevents the reader from forgetting that violence is always performed on actual bodies. Abstract symbols of “injustice” or “trauma” can be intellectually processed. But a book bound in human skin demands a somatic response: disgust, shock, horror. This aligns with the novel’s strategy of using vampire fiction to make colonial genocide visceral and impossible to ignore.
What is the significance of the binding being made from Benjamin Flowers, Arthur’s son?
The use of Arthur’s own son’s skin personalizes the guilt. Arthur’s role in the Marias Massacre was a public crime, but the journal binding makes his private failure—his inability to protect his own child—inseparable from his historical sins. It also echoes the novel’s theme of consumption turning inward: the father consumes his own son in a literal sense, just as the colonial machine consumed Indigenous people.
How does the human skin binding relate to the motif of “the hump” (the skinned corpse)?
The skinned corpse early in the novel is referred to as a “hump,” a term used for buffalo remains. This dehumanization is reversed in the binding: the skin of a human is reused as a functional object. Both examples show violence reducing living beings to material, but the binding adds a layer of ironic preservation—the skin now “speaks” by enclosing the very words that document the culture that killed him.

Conclusion

The human skin binding is not merely a shocking detail; it is the novel’s central symbol of incorporated violence. From Arthur’s guilt to Etsy’s complicity, from Good Stab’s quest for justice to Benjamin’s silenced body, the book’s physical cover ties together the themes of consumption, erasure, and reckoning. By making the reader and the characters literally hold the skin of a victim, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter insists that history is not abstract—it is something we carry in our hands.