hide, unsmoked Native-tanned; glazed cotton or linen, pink; moosehair; beads, white; silk ribbon, blue faded to grey; worsted woolen fabric with metallic thread on the warp, brown (CW). The Pitt Rivers Museum Object Catalogue describes the vamp and cuff as made of stiff corded silk.

These moccasins have a T-heel seam and a pucker toe construction which is fully covered by the vamp. The foot is slightly turned up and sewn to a wide vamp. Both are lined with glazed cotton and decorated with moosehair embroidery, and beadwork around the vamp. Both the vamp and cuff are edged with silk ribbon.

The floral designs are naturalistic in style. Strawberries and white strawberry flowers are embroidered on the vamp, with curlicue motif around the strawberries. The strawberries are made with the berry stitch (also known as French knot). The floral designs on the cuff, in pale gray and pink, also use the berry stitch.

The strawberry motif had meaning in the Huron-Wendat and Iroquoian tradition-- growing on the edge of the wood and field the strawberry occupied a liminal position and represented the point between the here and the hereafter. The path walked by the dead on their way to the next world was said to be lined with strawberries. Strawberries were also connected to the concept of renewal and strawberry juice had medicinal power and was used in ceremonies (AD).

The moosehair embroidery is very skillfully done. The naturalism of the design is obtained through skillful blending of colors. The ends of the moosehairs are pushed into perforations in the ground material, rather than couching.

Estimated to be from the mid 19th century. The Pitt Rivers Museum object catalogue gives a date of ca 1860, based on analogy with dated birch bark boxes similarly decorated.

Donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1942.

This record was created as part of a Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum and British Museum, December 8-22 2007, funded by a grant from the International Opportunities fund of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

researchers present: Heidi Bohaker (HB), Al Corbiere (AC), Stacey Loyer (SL), Janis Monture (JM), Laura Peers (LP), Ruth Phillips (RP), Anne De Stecher (AS), Cory Willmott (CW).