SANDAL PRINT IMAGES AS SIGNS OF PERSONAL INDENTITY:

 

Patterned sandal print, Harper's Ferry Road, Station 17, Dinosaur National Monument, Grand County, Utah.  Photograph Peter Faris, June 1989.

Numerous sandals were among the many objects Ancestral Puebloans deposited in Tularosa Cave (shown here) in present-day New Mexico. Photograph Stephen E. Nash

These well-preserved ancient sandals came from Tularosa Cave. For an idea of their size, the center one is about 24 centimeters long. ID No. A93643, The Field Museum.

I have written previously that in a society where items were individually handmade, the variations in personal items such as shields, headdresses, jewelry, etc., made those items identifiable with certain individuals, and that a representation of that in rock art might be considered a form of portraiture. In this column I will expand that idea to patterned, woven sandals. On 19 August 2017 I posted a column titled “Images of Footwear in Rock Art – Anasazi Sandals”, in which I discussed proposals that sandal prints in rock art might represent travel, or may have served a ceremonial purpose. In this column I will look at the idea that a representation of a patterned sandal print could have served to identify a particular individual, and that a representation of that print could be considered a form of portraiture.

Alex Patterson, Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado, 1992, p. 173.

Woven patterned sandals are unique to individual creators and/or users, and their contemporaries would recognize the pattern in footprints left on the ground. A representation of that patterned footprint pecked or painted onto a rock surface would also be recognizable to others in that group, and would thus serve as an identifier for a specific individual.

Glowacki, Twined yucca fiber sandal, Glowacki, 2015, Figure 10, p. 141.

Donna Glowacki observed in 2015 that "Changes in sandal technology and the iconography depicted on murals and in rock art imply widespread reorganization in Western Mesa Verde influenced in part by changing relationships with and perceptions of Chaco and Aztec that altered local interactions and practices. For example, twined sandals, made of finely woven yucca with raised geometric designs on the tread or designs that were painted or dyed after production were used until the early 1200s, subsequently being replaced by plaited sandals." (Glowacki 2015:140)

These are assumed to have been used as ceremonial dance footwear, given the amount of work, and the specialized knowledge, required to produce them "the intricacies of the unique geometric designs on the tread, and the impracticality of wearing finely twined sandals for daily use." (Glowacki 2015:140) If they were used as ceremonial wear by a certain individual, then a painted or pecked representation of that pattern could be intended as a reference to the ceremony, as well as that individual.

Bellorado, Sandals and Sandal Symbolism in Greater Bears Ears and Beyond, 2018, p. 40. 

Benjamin Bellorado began to study twined sandals in 2016, focusing on weaving technique and designs. By 2018 he had “analyzed almost 150 sandals from sites in Chaco Canyon, the Aztec Community (a late Chaco colony), Mesa Verde National Park, Canyon del Muerto, and the Bears Ears area.” (Bellorado 2018:39) He found that patterns and techniques varied with location and that they could be traced to certain sites.“Although no two pairs are exactly alike, my preliminary analyses show patterns in wh ere people were wearing certain kinds of twined sandals – in other words, sandals that were made the same ways and with the same tread designs were often recovered from the same sites. Moreover, in Chaco Canyon and in the Bears Ears area, these sandals were recovered near sites or rooms that had depictions of similar sandals with geometric tread patterns in building murals and rock art.” (Bellorado 2018:39-40)

Bellorado, Sandals and Sandal Symbolism in Greater Bears Ears and Beyond, 2018, p. 41. 

Stephen Nash also recognized this. In 2018 he wrote “Ancient shoes not only protected the feet, they also sometimes acted as signaling devices. And given the level of investment in their manufacture, sandals and moccasins also may have served as style markers and status symbols, just as much footwear does today. How else do we explain today’s market for US$350 sneakers and US$1,000 pumps? Surely not improved performance or function. Stylistic differences may have useful functional corollaries, however. Have you ever gone hiking and seen the footprint of a hiker who came before you? In all likelihood, you noticed a boot print that may be unique to a manufacturer – but not to the wearer. In ancient times, you may have been able to use a footprint to identify the specific wearer. One of the many surprising things about ancient sandals is that they often had unique designs on their soles. They served as identification cards!” (Nash 2018:4)

So, now we have a number of possible meanings for pictograph or petroglyph panels that illustrate patterned sandal prints. They could, of course, still represent travel, or have ceremonial implications, and they would also convey identity of a specific individual. This can be expanded to suppose that they may represent that specific individual’s travel, or that specific individual’s ceremonial participation, as well as just identifying the specific individual, but, I believe, that the identification of a specific individual is a major purpose, whether or not there are sub-implications in such portrayals. So, again I argue, that a patterned sandal print would be the equivalent of a portrait, or a signature - it prompted one’s contemporaries to think of that one, specific individual. Perhaps an ancient “Killroy was here.”

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this subject you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bellorado, Benjamin A., 2018, Sandals and Sandal Symbolism in Greater Bears Ears and Beyond, Archaeology Southwest Magazine, Fall 2017 and Winter 2018 issue, 39-41.

Faris, Peter, 2017, Images of Footwear in Rock Art – Anasazi Sandals, 19 August 2017, www.rockartblog.blogspot.com

Glowacki, Donna M.,2015 Living and Leaving, A Social History of Regional Depopulation in Thirteenth-Century Mesa Verde, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Nash, Stephen E., 2018, Why Are Some Caves Full of Shoes?, 1 August 2018, https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/ancient-shoes/, accessed 12 January 2021.

POLYDACTYLY REVISITED - PART 2:

I now pick up my examination of polydactyly in rock art in Chaco Canyon. Chaco canyon is a center or cluster site for six-toed footprints, leading some researchers to speculate that if the Chaco Canyon elites had polydactyly it would come to be seen as special and something to be reproduced.

6-toed footprint trackway, behind Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, San Juan county, New Mexico, Photograph Peter Faris, August 2004.

6-toed footprint in mud plaster and plaster cast of same. Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Crown et al., Footnotes, 2016, p. 434, Fig. 5.

A number of examples portraying foot polydactyly are located in Chaco Canyon, NM. Behind Pueblo Bonito the remains of a small room built against the cliff shows a series of six-toed tracks pecked into the back wall cliff face. In Pueblo Bonito itself three buried individuals were recovered displaying polydactyly of a foot (Crown et al. 2016:431) and foot impressions in the mud wall plaster show at least one six-toed impression (Crown 2016: 432). “Careful morphological examination of reassociated foot bones, as well as of individual elements from Pueblo Bonito, has identified three separate cases of polydactyly, two of which were not previously recognized. Thus, instead of the single previously reported case of polydactyly, it appears that the trait occurred with some frequency within this population.” (Crown et al. 2016:429) These figures were apparently also interred with grave goods and/or in locations that suggested they were elite members of the community, reinforcing Wormington’s suggestion that Native Americans considered the physical differences as a mark of being somehow special.

Jog-toed sandal prints, Glenn Canyon, below Smith's Fork, San Juan County, Utah. Online photograph, Public Domain.

Jog-toed sandal prints, Oljeto Wash. Utah. Photograph Chuck LaRue. 

Since more examples of polydactyly are found that involve the foot than he hand it may have been natural for attention to have been paid to sandals that indicate that they were woven to accommodate the extra toe on the foot. These are referred to as jog-toe sandals. “Recently Crown et al. (p.445) assert that the jog-toed sandal itself evolved as an accommodation to polydactyly in the form of six toes, a trait characteristic of an early elite burial, although no sandal was found in association. The burial in question (Burial 13 in Room 33 in Pueblo Bonito) was recently radio-carbon dated between A.D. 690-887, with a median date of A.D. 741 (p.19623), dates that precede in time the iconography under discussion. Nevertheless, a synthesis of foot imagery at Chaco emphasizes the symbolic role of the foot in Ancestral Pueblo ideology during these years, accounting for its presence in the rock art.” (Schaafsma 2016: 17)

Twined jog-toed sandals, Pueblo Bonito, room 24, Schaafsma, 2016, fig. 34.

It certainly seems reasonable to make these inferences, because not only were portrayals of six-toed footprints produced, but portrayals of the jog-toed sandals to accommodate the sixth toe became common as well.

“The symbolic importance of the sandal as a graphic image is also underscored by its replication in other media found within archaeological contexts that indicate it had a ceremonial role. Thus, its representations in rock art can be viewed as part of the symbolic and ritual repertoire or ‘vocabulary’ that prevailed among the Plateau Pueblo peoples throughout the San Juan and neighboring regions during Pueblo II - III times.” (Schaafsma 2016: 17)

There are also instances that record polydactylism that are not necessarily rock art, not painted or engraved on rock. Special sandals called jog-toed sandals are thought to represent sandals made to accommodate a sixth toe. These are occasionally found illustrated in rock art, but they also are known through discoveries of actual examples of the sandals.

This has been seen as a Pueblo-wide phenomenon. “For example, many twined sandals from the Pueblo II and III periods have what appears to be a stylized sixth toe on the outside of the foot. Sandal-makers might have added these toe-jogs to commemorate real or fictive associations with important leaders at Chaco Canyon, at least of few of whom actually had a sixth toe. Because of that feature, and because these sandals required such intense effort to make, their wearers might have been high-ranking individuals who associated themselves with religious and political movements in the larger Chaco world.” (Bellorado 2018:40)

Sandal stones, larger than life-size, Long House, Mesa Verde, Colorado. Figure 3, p. 2, Schaafsma, 2016.

Knobby Knee Stockade, Site 5MT2525, US Bureau of Reclamation Hovenweep Laterals, photograph from Scott Schumaker.

And not only images and sandals have been recovered. Sandal effigy tablets in both wood and stone have been found, both jog-toed and non jog-toed. “Commonly larger than live-sized, finely worked, ground stone or wooden sandal effigy tablets in plain or jog-toed shape are characteristic. Although the ‘sandal stones’ were once erroneously tagged as utilitarian ‘sandal lasts’, this idea has been not only questioned, but vigorously challenged and dismissed. Further, their associations with caches of ritual paraphernalia or kivas are documented from Mesa Verde, Chaco, and Aztec sites. Wooden forms often bore painted decoration comparable to those seen on sandals in rock art. From Aztec two painted wooden sandal forms (at least one of which is jog-toed and with rounded heel) are painted on both sides with geometric designs. Their archaeological contexts in ritual caches and the investment in time represented in their manufacture are testimony to their iconic status and symbolic significance that can be extended to the graphic examples, and their use as altar furnishings is likely.” (Schaasma 2016)

Miniature jog-toed stone sandal effigy, Little Colorado River drainage. (1963 photograph by Myrtle Perce Vivian; courtesy of R. Gwinn Vivian). P. 15, fig. 17, Schaafsma, 2016.

Aside from their suggested use for “ritual” purposes, the only real suggestion of a possible significance for the jog-toed images and artifacts are as references to the presumed hereditary polydactylism of persons at Chaco Canyon who seem to have been important people in the community. This is suggested as a “me too” second-hand sort of significance by association. I honestly do not know if this is a real answer to the question of the significance of polydactyly in rock art, but it seems to be the best answer we have currently, and it will have to stand until a better answer comes along.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bellorado, Benjamin A., 2018 Sandals and Sandal Symbolism in Greater Bears Ears and Beyond, Archaeology Southwest Magazine 32 (1), Tucson, AZ, 39-41.

Crown, Patricia L., Kerriann M. Hedman, and Hannah V. Mattson, 2016 Foot Notes: The Social Implications of Polydactyly and Foot-Related Images at Chaco Canyon, American Antiquity 81, 426-48

Hirthler, Maureen A., and Richard L. Hutchison, 2012 Polydactyly in the Southwest: Art or Anatomy - a Photo Essay, October 16, Hand (Journal), NY.

Shaafsma, Polly, 2016 Sandals as Icons: Representations in Ancestral Pueblo Rock Art and Effigies in Stone and Wood, 7 October 2016, published in Arts, 5, 7, academic editor Robert Bednarik.

IMAGES OF FOOTWEAR IN ROCK ART - ANASAZI SANDALS:

Shod footprint, Three Rivers, Otero

County, NM. Photo Jack and Esther

Faris, November 1988.

Closeup of shod footprint, Three Rivers,

Otero  County, NM. Photo Jack and
Esther Faris, November 1988.

As mentioned last week, a subject of interest in rock art is the portrayal of footwear. What do these images mean, what is their implication, what do they represent? Among the Ancestral Puebloan peoples, and most other people of the southwest, the common footwear was the sandal. For the sake of this discussion I will assume that any image of the outline of a human foot that does not display toes represents shod foot, showing a piece of footwear, sandal or moccasin.

Plaited sandal, Kayenta Anasazi,

Arizona, 900-1300 AD, yucca

leaves and cordage. Natural

History Museum of Utah.

Sandals were woven out of plant fibers or bark (often juniper), but perhaps the most common sandal was hand woven of yucca leaves (although especially fine examples might be twined out of cotton fibers). More than one technique was used in their production. The simplest ones were plaited with a warp in one direction, crossed by a weft in the other direction in an over-under alternating pattern. More complicated, and finer, results were obtained by twining, and the finest examples were often decorated by using different colors of dyed material, or by painting them subsequent to their weaving.

Twined yucca fiber sandal,

Glowacki, Fig. 10, p. 141.

Glowacki observed in 2015 that "Changes in sandal technology and the iconography depicted on murals and in rock art imply widespread reorganization in Western Mesa Verde influenced in part by changing relationships with an perceptions of Chaco and Aztec that altered local interactions and practices. For example, twined sandals, made of finely woven yucca with raised geometric designs on the tread or designs that were painted or dyed after production were used until the early 1200s, subsequently being replaced by plaited sandals." (Glowacki 2015:140)

Alex Patterson, 1992, A Field

Guide To Rock Art Symbols, p. 173.

These are assumed to have been used as ceremonial dance footwear, given the amount of work, and the specialized knowledge, required to produce them. "the intricacies of the unique geometric designs on the tread, and the impracticality of wearing finely twined sandals for daily use." (Glowacki 2015:140)

Footprint petroglyph, Spruce Tree

House, Mesa Verde, CO., Photo

Peter Faris, July 2002.

"The high frequency of sandal imagery in Western Mesa Verde and the depictions of sandals on rock art panels near habitations and on the inside and outside walls of rooms and kivas suggest that twined sandals had a different role in Western Mesa Verde culture than in other parts of the region." (Glowacki 2015:140-42)

Alex Patterson, 1992, A Field

Guide To Rock Art Symbols,

p. 173.

"Twined yucca sandals fell into disuse across the northern Southwest coincident with both the decline of Chaco and the extreme drought conditions of the mid-1100s." (Glowacki 2015:142)

Franktown Cave sandal, Franktown,

Colorado. 3345 - 3033 B.C. 

https://collectioncare.auraria.edu

The ubiquity and time-depth of the plaited yucca sandal is easily illustrated by the Franktown Cave sandal, recovered from a dry cave near Franktown, Colorado, and dated from between 3345 and 3033 B.C.(www.collectioncare.auraria.edu)  Indeed, anywhere and anytime that people had access to yucca they seem to have produced sandals for footwear.

Would an image of a sandal or moccasin serve as a symbol of travel, or does Glowacki have it correct that it is a symbol of ceremonial significance? In this latter case a depiction of a sandal print, especially a geometrically decorated sandal print, might represent a ceremonial dance. Or does it represent something else entirely? What do you think?

NOTE: Some of the images in this posting were obtained through an internet search for "Public Domain." If I have used any images that were not intended to be public domain please inform me and I will be happy to give full credit.

REFERENCES:

Glowacki, Donna M.,

2015 Living and Leaving, A Social History of Regional Depopulation in Thirteenth-Century Mesa Verde, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

https://collectioncare.auraria.edu/content/yucca-woven-sandal-franktown-cave

Patterson, Alex

1992 A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols, Johnson Books, Boulder, CO.