MOCCASIN EXHIBIT IX THE AMERICAX MUSEUM 



313 



and if we considtT the whole of tin- Old 

 World we find the leather shoe and hoot 

 strictly confined to the northern part as 

 was the case in the New World. In 

 hoth hemispheres, sandals are found 

 among the peoples next south of the 

 shoe wearers, and still farther south, in 

 Africa, Australia, and lower South 

 America, barefooted peoples are found. 

 In the New World the area of the 

 moccasin is also the area of skin clothing, 

 while the area of the sandal is where 

 woven cloth prevailed. Practically the 

 same relation obtains in the Old World. 

 This curious parallel has been remarked 

 upon many times as due to climatic 

 differences, skins being indispensable in 

 the far north and unendurable in the 

 south. Yet, this can scarcely be the 

 whole story, for leather shoes are far 

 from being a burden in warm countries. 

 The probabilities are that the absence of 

 leather or skin footwear in aboriginal 

 textile areas is due to the difficulty of 

 maintaining textile and skin dressing 

 arts sinuiltaneously. We must remem- 

 ber that it is but yesterday since cloth 

 was essentially homemade l)y the house- 

 wife and if we go back still further, so 

 was the dressing of skins. But nowhere 

 in the world of uncivilized peoples do we 

 find the women extensively carrying on 

 weaving and skin work simultaneously 

 to an equal degree. One or the other 

 predominates. There was no doubt a 

 limit to the trades a woman could master 

 and since there was nothing like modern 

 division of labor, only the one of these 

 arts best adapted to the climate would 

 prevail. So when a people came to be 

 wearers of textile clothing, they would 

 not make skin or leather shoes. 



W'hile the moccasins of our Indians 

 appear to the casual observer as of great 

 variety, a little analysis will show a few 

 common structural features. Among 

 these are the manner of tucking in the 



Pattern for Apache moccasin, with sole separate as 

 in a shoe. The upper is cut nearly its whole length to 

 receive a narrow V-shaped insert, which is usually 

 painted as well as decorated at its edges with fringe 

 and beads. 



surplus skin over the instep and the 

 method of lacing. Now these same 

 features are found in Siberia, and defi- 

 nitely raise the question as to one having 

 been borrowed from the other. Since 

 the skin-shoe-wearing natives of Siberia 

 were in contact with the natives of 

 Alaska, there is no good argument 

 against their common origin. The most 

 natural explanation of the observed 

 similarity would be that this type of shoe 

 was perfected in one place and from 

 thence distributed as we now find it. A 

 careful comparison of the shoes in our 

 collections will suggest the direction in 

 which they traveled, 



A point of more general significance 

 may appear if we consider the kinds of 

 skins used for clothing. The predomi- 

 nant kind is reindeer in the Old W^orld 

 and caribou in the New, two closely 

 allied species. If we take an outline 

 map of the world and indicate the re- 

 spective ranges of these animals, we 

 shall have in the main the area of skin 

 clothing. It thus turns out that the 

 skin shoe is a correlate of reindeer cul- 

 ture, a suggestion that will no doubt 



