Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Artist Statement
Footwear is a part of the human experience. Shoes, and moccasins more specifically, at their fundamental level, are about the relationships that form between humans and the ground that they walk on. They are representative of how humans move and interact with and within the world, and thus, moccasins’ study is critical to moving us towards an understanding of our relationships with each other and the world around us. Currently, there is more Plains Indian footwear in museum collections across the world than any other Plains Indian artifact. Yet, despite their overwhelming commonness in museum collections, as well as the significant cultural importance of footwear in general, no systematic, museum-based, object-centered anthropological investigation of Plains Indian moccasins has ever been conducted.
Past studies of Native American moccasins have focused almost exclusively on the distribution of styles and designs across the United States, and have limited objects to being simply markers of traditions, rather than considering that careful examinations of their materials could empower the artifacts to speak for themselves. None of these previous studies have considered economic or environmental influences as possible contributing factors to moccasin production, nor do many of them address wider analytical concepts, such as ideology or trader-Indian relations. In effect, moccasins have been fitted into pre-existing theories, but have never been mobilized through research to tell their own stories and therefore, to be catalysts for much-needed new theoretical frameworks that could give insight into how Plains Indians valued and understood these objects. My research aims to rectify this silence surrounding Northern Plains moccasins in the anthropological literature by utilizing the museum collections of six institutions to investigate how Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) moccasins’ biographies have been shaped by the interactions of people, places, materials, and environments.
Because Indigenous concerns are inherently of anthropological concern, this dissertation relies on theoretical discourses that emphasize Indigenous understandings of the world. Through ethnographic interviews with contemporary Niitsitapi artists, businesspeople, and knowledge-holders, this work provides an opportunity for anthropology to incorporate Niitsitapi expertise and traditional knowledge into its understandings of material culture, and may provide an avenue for forming cross-cultural, interdisciplinary partnerships that can contribute to understandings of the roles moccasins played – and continue to play – in everyday Niitsitpai life. I use the object biography and the chaînes opératoires(or “operational sequences”) approaches, which are anthropological methods that both emphasize ‘helping objects to speak’ by following their biographies, a theory that has yet to be applied to Plains Indian material culture. These frames will highlight Blackfoot constructs of value by helping the researcher to hear the stories that moccasins have to tell. These methods will be supplemented by interrogating other lines of evidence, such as archival materials (e.g. photos, trade records and inventories) and museum collections records.
In asking and investigating these questions, my research will inform discussions of Plains Indian material culture and economic change on the North American Plains, as well as contribute new theoretical insights to the field of anthropology and beyond.
Mentor Name
Kelly Dixon
Exploring Biographies of Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) Moccasins
UC 332
Footwear is a part of the human experience. Shoes, and moccasins more specifically, at their fundamental level, are about the relationships that form between humans and the ground that they walk on. They are representative of how humans move and interact with and within the world, and thus, moccasins’ study is critical to moving us towards an understanding of our relationships with each other and the world around us. Currently, there is more Plains Indian footwear in museum collections across the world than any other Plains Indian artifact. Yet, despite their overwhelming commonness in museum collections, as well as the significant cultural importance of footwear in general, no systematic, museum-based, object-centered anthropological investigation of Plains Indian moccasins has ever been conducted.
Past studies of Native American moccasins have focused almost exclusively on the distribution of styles and designs across the United States, and have limited objects to being simply markers of traditions, rather than considering that careful examinations of their materials could empower the artifacts to speak for themselves. None of these previous studies have considered economic or environmental influences as possible contributing factors to moccasin production, nor do many of them address wider analytical concepts, such as ideology or trader-Indian relations. In effect, moccasins have been fitted into pre-existing theories, but have never been mobilized through research to tell their own stories and therefore, to be catalysts for much-needed new theoretical frameworks that could give insight into how Plains Indians valued and understood these objects. My research aims to rectify this silence surrounding Northern Plains moccasins in the anthropological literature by utilizing the museum collections of six institutions to investigate how Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) moccasins’ biographies have been shaped by the interactions of people, places, materials, and environments.
Because Indigenous concerns are inherently of anthropological concern, this dissertation relies on theoretical discourses that emphasize Indigenous understandings of the world. Through ethnographic interviews with contemporary Niitsitapi artists, businesspeople, and knowledge-holders, this work provides an opportunity for anthropology to incorporate Niitsitapi expertise and traditional knowledge into its understandings of material culture, and may provide an avenue for forming cross-cultural, interdisciplinary partnerships that can contribute to understandings of the roles moccasins played – and continue to play – in everyday Niitsitpai life. I use the object biography and the chaînes opératoires(or “operational sequences”) approaches, which are anthropological methods that both emphasize ‘helping objects to speak’ by following their biographies, a theory that has yet to be applied to Plains Indian material culture. These frames will highlight Blackfoot constructs of value by helping the researcher to hear the stories that moccasins have to tell. These methods will be supplemented by interrogating other lines of evidence, such as archival materials (e.g. photos, trade records and inventories) and museum collections records.
In asking and investigating these questions, my research will inform discussions of Plains Indian material culture and economic change on the North American Plains, as well as contribute new theoretical insights to the field of anthropology and beyond.