Why buckskins are awfull in the bush and why natives loved beads.
When soaked, they are sloppy, slimy, and uncomfortable. After they can dry, shrink, and stiffen. Following many years of use, this is one of the only reasons I know that buckskins are bad in the bush. The material also readily molds, and this black mold is very irritating to the lungs at best and cancer-causing at worst; this mold also spreads and appears shockingly fast, like within the few hours of drying, and readily spreads to other things.
The final reason buckskins suck and this can be a suck and a win is that they so easily blend into the environment such that sheaths and tools sheathed can be so easily lost. I recommend using exposed white rawhide often if you want to find something easily and go the old-fashioned natural way, but to understand why native tribes today love an uncommon addiction, garish costumes, rocks, ribbons, and other color-containing items, the answer, I think, is here: they instantly made things in their world stand apart from every other thing in their environment. If you spend little time in the woods, you won't appreciate this; however, if you do, this could be attractive for many reasons, if just to find a knife easily in their environment. It is also believed that deer don't perceive color as we do, and the natives may have realized this enough to take advantage of colored beads without worrying about hindering a hunt.
