Pucker Toe Moccasins

Season 5 • Episode 12

Chickasaw Culture Keepers

Pucker toe moccasins are the traditional style of footwear for Chickasaws and in the past would have been made from deer, bear or elk skin, with sinew thread. Today, the shoes are made using artificial sinew and artisans use a metal needle instead of bone. Ashley Wallace, a pucker toe moccasin artisan, explains and demonstrates how to make the footwear.

The process begins with a simple tracing that is then used to create a unique pattern to fit the wearer's foot. Using a variety of tools, materials and sewing techniques, the artisan stitches and pulls the leather to create the signature pucker toe style. After the moccasins are completed, some wearers can choose to either adorn their footwear or keep the pair undecorated. Before European contact, Chickasaws would have used shells for decoration but after trade routes were established, they began using glass beads, which are still used today.

Moccasins have been worn by Chickasaws for generations and carrying on the tradition is important to both Ashley and the Nation as a whole. Ashley was able to teach her own daughter how to create the traditional footwear, leaving Ashley feeling "proud ... that she could either show her brother, or show her friends ... and then she'd be able to carry it on to, one day, her kids."

EPISODES

3m 30s

Pucker Toe Moccasins

EPISODES

Pottery

Stickball Sticks

Beading

Regalia

Metalsmithing

Shell Carving

Weaving

Horticulture

Baskets

Traditional Foods

Quilting

Flutes

Beaded Collars

Drum Making

Storytelling

Bow Making

Brent Greenwood Art

Beaded Jewelry

Flint Knapping

Stomp Dancing

Beadwork

Turkey Calls

Traditional Stories: How Day and Night Were Divided

Woodturning

Bead Artisan

Textile Art

Quilt Making

Jewelry

The Legacy of Bow Making

Bead Artistry

Painting

Woven Mats

Metalworking

Photography

Pashofa

Deer Toe Shakers

Stickball Sticks

Shell Carving

Medicine Bags

Natural Dyes

Twinning

Bladesmithing

Fish Nets

Porcupine Quillwork

Pottery Burnishing

Shell Carving

Duck Decoys

Traditional Arrows

Fine Gourd Art

Traditional Flutes

Turtle Pottery

Turtle Shell Shakers

Pucker Toe Moccasins

Chunkey

Tattoos and War Paint

Leggings and Breechcloths