Pair Moccasins

Item number E411790-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

From card: "Small, soft-soled, curvilinear pattern of bead embroidery in blue, yellow, pink, ecru and black. Ankles edged with black velvet. Mrs. Delores Churchill, a Haida woman participating in the 1984 Folk Life Festival, states that the interior leaf outline color on the vamp of the moccasin indicates the season of a child's birth - black for winter; green for spring. The black outline on the interior leaf motif would indicate that these moccasins heralded a winter birth. Se also says that children did not wear clan emblems until they were 12 years old. written in by P. R. Linn, Collections Mngr. 25 July 1984, approved by W. Sturtevant, curator, N. Am. Indian Ethnology."Ruth Demmert and Florence Sheakley, elders and beaders, and Virginia Oliver made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This pair of baby moccasins has size 14-16 beads in the design, and is lined with velveteen around the ankles. The bottom of the moccasins are clean, so they were probably only worn when going out or for decoration. Chinese shoes also often have pointed toes, so the change from rounded-toe to pointed-toe moccasins may have been due to contact with Chinese workers in Wrangell.