Man's Boots
date: label: Accession Date
content: 30 Apr 1892
label: Collection Date
content: 1883
name: label: Collector
content: John Murdoch
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=250 , retrieved 11-25-2021; see web page for additional information: Boots, Inupiaq. These are men's caribou skin dress boots for winter ceremonies and dancing. A man would tuck the undecorated tops inside his short dance pants. The upper parts are made with alternating vertical strips of white caribou belly and brown caribou leg skin. Geometric bands around the top include reindeer fur, caribou fur, and red yarn. The ruffs are wolverine and the straps are sealskin. The soles are made of bearded seal hide, heavily scraped to make it soft and light in color. Insulating layers worn inside boots included grass socks, caribou skin socks, sealskin slippers, grass footpads and stuffing, or shavings of whale baleen. Traditional winter boots are made of caribou skin and reach to the mid-calf or knees. Layers of material are added inside for warmth and comfort, which in the past included grass footpads or whalebone shavings (Barrow area only), caribou skin or grass socks, sealskin slippers, and/or caribou skin stockings. Formerly, women also wore caribou-skin pantaloons with built-in shoes. Boot soles-usually made of bearded seal skin-can be tanned using two different processes. When only the hair is scraped off, the sole is dark-colored and waterproof. If the outer layer of skin (epidermis) is removed as well, as on this pair, the result is a white to yellowish-brown skin that is preferred for dress boots and dry snow conditions. Women often decorate winter boots, particularly "fancy" boots for special occasions. Sometimes, as on the boots shown here, strips of brown caribou leg skin and white belly skin are sewn together to make contrasting stripes.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 8 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Point Barrow, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inupiaq
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 025645
label: USNM Number
content: E153892-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Boot
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 61 cm