This article was written and posted by Phyllis Doyle Burns, BellaOnline’s former Native American Editor. Phyllis is the editor of the Folklore/Mythology site. Please visit her site for interesting, informative articles, and her forum for more in-depth discussion.
Native American moccasins are not only comfortable for walking around in, but are the most beautiful footwear to be found anywhere when beaded in the traditional Native American fashion.
The word moccasin derives from the Algonquian language and is a Powhatan word, makasin and is from the Proto-Algonquian word, maxkeseni, meaning shoe. The moccasin protected the foot while at the same time allowing the wearer to feel the ground.
Native Americans made their footwear from deer, moose, elk, or buffalo hide. For a center-seam moccasin, the sole and sides are made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp (panel) to sew into the top at the front of the ankle; then the back is stitched down for the heel. The sole is soft and flexible, so as not to restrict the foot from movement, and the upper part is often beaded or embroidered in beautiful patterns. After European contact, hunters, traders and settlers often adapted the style for themselves to wear when they found out how easy they were to make and how comfortable they were.
Moccasins of each tribe were designed for their specific environment. The soft and cuddly center-seam moccasins were worn by Eastern tribes. These were soft soled moccasins that the eastern tribes wore while walking through leaf covered forests. The Plains peoples, however, wore hard sole moccasins to protect their feet from sharp rocks, dry prairie grasses and cacti. A thicker, more durable piece of leather, like rawhide, was used for the hard-soled moccasins.
Moccasins today are still worn by many people. They have never gone out of fashion and retain the same styles as the ones made by Native American tribes centuries ago. They are an important part of the regalia made for powwows, with the beading design and colors matching the rest of the clothing. As with all Native American beading, the designs done on the moccasins are unique to specific tribes and to the individual beader.
In the old days, the deer had to be hunted, the hide carefully cut off and treated until smooth and soft then the moccasin was made with primitive tools and sewn together with sinew (animal tendons), which also had to be treated before use. Today, one can buy deer hide or buckskin, already soft and tanned and ready to use to make their own moccasins. This makes the job an easy task. The pattern to be used for correct sizing is one's own foot. In the following rough diagram, one can see how easy it would be to make their own pair of moccasins. This is for a center-seam moccasin:
Instructions: Choose a piece of hide the size needed to extend about an inch or two beyond the foot at the toes and heel and wide enough to cover the top of the foot. Trim the hide as shown in the diagram. Sew the sides together with a whip stitch, (keeping the knots on the outside of the moccasin for comfort) in front for the center seam. Turn up the extended sides and sew the center heel seam down to about half an inch from the bottom of the heel. Push up this opening at the heel so you will have a little reinforced flap there. Secure the top of this flat by sewing or gluing straight across. The extended sides then become the flap, folded down around the ankle. The moccasins are now ready to wear. Now, if one is really ambitious, the moccasins can be beaded on the top and sides. The toe section of the center seam can be puckered like a rabbit nose.
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