A World Made by Women
White Mountain Apache moccasins, 1919. Arizona. Deer hide, cow hide, sinew. 9/4086. There are several sets of pinholes on this pair of child’s moccasins, indicating that a sick child wore them during a curing ceremony. The pinholes were made when attaching ritual materials, such as feathers and turquoise, to the moccasins.
cal of Western Apache moccasins, they have rawhide soles (although unusually thin) and deerskin uppers that are stained with yellow ochre and beaded in familiar Western Apache motifs. Nonetheless, these moccasins are an anomaly, or seemingly so. They were fashioned after a Victorian-
C
styled shoe that first became popular for chil- dren shortly after 1900. “Mary Janes,” as they came to be known, were based on the shoe worn by the character, Mary Jane, in the Bust- er Brown comic strip. Mary Jane shoes had thin, flat soles, round toes and a strap across the top of the foot that was secured shut with a buckle or mother-of-pearl button – as do the Western Apache moccasins.
28 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2015
onsider from our collection this pair of finely made West- ern Apache child’s moccasins (opposite) dating to the early decades of the 1900s. As is typi-
Pondering these carefully crafted moccasin
Mary Janes, one cannot help but think about the poignant 1887 before and after photo- graphs of 11 Chiricahua Apache adolescents at Carlisle Indian School. When the photographs were made, the families of the adolescents had just been designated as prisoners-of-war of the United States government, removed from Arizona under armed guard, divided into two groups and imprisoned in Florida at either Fort Pickens or Fort Marion. The adolescents were taken from their mothers and fathers without their parents’ consent. Their parents had no say in the matter because every aspect of their lives was controlled by the U.S. Army. In one of the 1887 Carlisle Indian School photographs, the young people are wearing clothing Apaches typically wore for everyday in the late 1880s. In the other photograph, they are wearing brand new Carlisle Indian School uniforms. They have been symboli-
cally stripped of their Apache identities and cultural moorings. Another photograph comes to mind when thinking about the Western Apache moccasin Mary Janes. It is a 1919 picture of a White Mountain Apache mother holding her son on her lap. The boy, not much older than a tod- dler, is staring out at the photographer. The youngster looks inquisitive and smart, but he is not old enough to know why his mother put around his neck the necklace he is wearing. Seated safely in his mother’s lap, he cannot know how concerned she is for his health and, in fact, for his life. The little boy is wearing a medicine necklace that is meant to protect him from disease. During the 1910s and 1920s, several devastating infectious diseases such as trachoma, tuberculosis and influenza ravaged the Western Apache reservations in Arizona. They took the lives of many Apaches, includ- ing entire families. When this photograph was taken, the worldwide influenza epidemic, one of the deadliest viruses in history, had struck those reservations. The same year, the man who photographed
the little boy wearing the medicine necklace, also collected a pair of unadorned White Mountain Apache child’s moccasins(above). They have several sets of pinholes all over them. The sets of pinholes were made when small feathers and bits of turquoise were se- cured to the moccasins during a curing cer- emony. In other words, these moccasins were worn by a seriously ill child, quite possibly one stricken with influenza. With their evidence of having been worn in a curing ceremony, these unadorned moccasins and the exquisitely crafted Apache moccasin Mary Janes appear to exist in stark contrast to one another. Somehow, they appear to evoke totally differ- ent worlds. But do they really? The Apache moccasin Mary Janes were undoubtedly made for a special occasion,
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