Well I have been on a roll with my new sewing projects and I've had a few orders too! Cool. . . The measuring is going pretty well; pricing them out is another thing. UGG (no pun intened)! Heehee.
A bit of history. . .
I started last year with several blogs inspired by some barefoot runners, some training I was doing in the backwoods, and some extended long runs I took on the Pueblo trails wearing my own handmade designs.
This particular video above shows some of the step-by step process of making what I call "the Taos Pueblo Moccasin" ™. Its design is familiar to the southern plains tribes: Cheyenne, Kiowa, Ute, etc. . .
Since the people of the Pueblos traveled far and traded with each other, we borrowed techniques and styles, however, I say that loosely knowing that there really isn't a type of "Taos moccasin" that we wear socially and ceremonially, except for this particular one style of Moccs.
The picture below shows the "Kaibabs" - the moccasins worn by many of the people of the Pueblos from down South. This design of moccasins, although very unique to the Southwest, was not a particular foot apparel worn by the Taos people.
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| Southern Pueblo typical style |
We, as Pueblo people, have an amazing and rich culture like I have said before and I feel we are lucky to have watched and learned from our elders how to create and share simple knowledge and love through design.
"No Minnetonka UGG spoken here..." (Grandpa accent)
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| This is what America calls Moccasins |
Love,
Mirabal
4 comments:
My daughter loves Moccasins but she doesn't know the real thing from the fake. I think it's time she does!
My feet are a no Minnetonka zone too. I learned something about making moccasins from Chief Leon in my Tuscarora Nation of NC tribe. He knows how to make them of all kinds of tribe styles. He starts them with the person standing right there to shape it right to their foot how it should be. He puts 3 or 4 layers of leather for the soles in them so they last.
I am right with you on wearing moccasins in styles that look good to go anywhere in, and I have been wondering how to make some so I can wear our natural footwear of healthy materials more. They are so expensive and wear out fast, so I save the good ones for soft ground and don't wear them as much as I would like. Running shoes with the big soles are made out of harmony with the natural dynamics of your step, so they make you put your heel down first, when naturally we run on the balls of our feet. Shoe design causes stress on our bodies and damage, and the materials and mode of manufacturing and supplying them causes slavery, global warming, and unintelligent management of resources.
I am right with you on clothing ourselves without participating in the system that tortures and kills animals for human over-consumption. We need to learn like the elders to be self-sufficient and carry these skills on and be creative. I feel so good with myself and others each mile I walk in those moccasins, I guess you can say!
Chief Leon is one of those elders who knows it seems, every kind of craft, and is a treasure, I don't know what culture anyone will be able to carry on when he is gone. I learn from him as much as I can when I am there. I fell in love with the long, long, long pine needles on the North Carolina trees, and said, I must make things with them. What did the ancestors do? And he said, baskets, of course. So he taught me how to make them. I gather them and give them to others. My friend Anita makes intricate small ones much better than me since I inspired her. My goal is to learn more and pass on more this way. I LOVE how my spirit feels in the cycle of gathering these things from Mother Earth, thanking them, seeing what they become, and putting them into the world, as each thing has meaning and carries its story to he next person, I feel the pine needles have a spirit and know me once I have become their friend by giving them life as a basket, too. I wish we could all feel this and live it instead of buying, buying, not learning, learning.
And then there's my Mom, who taught me how to create anything beautiful out of everything. She sees something not for what it is before you, but what it can be formed into and used for. She taught me to take weeds and spray paint them into beautiful centerpieces, find where the clay was wherever we libed, dig it up, store it, turn it into pottery, turn about anything into paper, make kilns, plant, took me to the coasts of Washington and gather driftwood to paint on. My Mom always looked a piece and said,"Doesn't this look like...." My Dad taught me how to work on the land, and all these things bond us to each other and everything we touch and learn to understand as another living entity. When I read the thoughts here, it reminds me of how my spirit, body, and soul's journey was also formed by these people and elements, and I am so glad my being fills up with it all when I return to it, so big my spirit can't contain it in this little body. Thanks for sharing your thoughts that compel me to sit down here and remember all this and who I am.
Well, Robert, your blog and FB page are both such wonderful places to visit that they distract me this way, in a good way. I have to tear myself away and accomplish something.
YEAH i feel sometimes we just follow the treadmill as it takes us where it takes us, business,food, finances whatever... seems were just too tired to defend ourselves from the B.S.
best defense i found, "remember your elders in your doubt..."
blessings..Mirabal
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