This is the story of two almost identical pairs of woven shoes.  The first pair  was purchased on Ebay in December of 2012.  The owner of Prioritybargains told me that they were found in a flea market in Northwest Oklahoma.  He said that there were no marks on the shoes and so he assumed they may have been produced locally, perhaps by a Native American weaver.  I decided to add them to the Americas category of the Straw Sandals Project Collection as Am3 and when they were described for the Straw Sandals Catalog, they were assigned the tag NAm9.  The important fact to keep in mind is that the provenance of these shoes is unknown.  Then in May of 2013, the second pair was purchased from Etsy store Terrossi  located in the United Kingdom.  The seller told me that these shoes were hand made in Bulgaria (Eastern Europe) at a Fairtrade cooperative.  They were entered into the Collection as Bu1 and they were assigned a tag of EEu3 by the software used in the Straw Sandals Catalog.

How were these shoes described in the Catalog and how did the relationship programs handle them?  The shoes are shown in the image below:

If the same construction methods were used and the same or very similar natural fibers were used to make them, we would expect that they would be treated much the same in the Catalog.  There are two major parts to the process.  The first part is the description of the shoes, done by humans, and the second part is the construction of phylogenetic trees and cluster diagrams, done by computer software.  Decisions are made in the first part that are likely to have subjective components.  My colleague Helen and I sit together and discuss each shoe as we respond to the descriptors on the Catalog Entry page.  We come to agreement on each response.   Our responses are entered into the Catalog’s electronic database and the description in the form of a string of numbers is generated.  These number strings can be processed by the phylogenetic relationship software.  This probably has never been done before for woven footwear.  In past history, a sandal description has been a paragraph or two of text.  For Nam9 (collection item Am3) the description is shown here, each number in the string corresponding to a specific response to each of 38 descriptors:

4111111-91465-91111222233-965-911113233-931.  Here is pair #2, EEu3 (Bu1):

4111111-91165-91111222233-965-911113233-932

(Note that the first descriptor on the Catalog Entry page is not scored so the descriptor string above includes descriptors 2-39)

There are only two descriptors that were scored differently, #11 and #39:

#11.  Decoration

#39.  Overall Sole Shape

For item 11, decoration, we scored the Am3 pair as “Pattern created by main construction technique”, and we scored the Bu1 pair as “None”.  For item 39, overall sole shape, we scored the Am3 pair as “Symmetrical”, and we scored the Bu1 pair as “Asymmetrical”. The decorative difference across the toe box is clear but the sole shape is a more subjective call since wearing the shoes and/or packing them can alter their shapes.   Also the Am3 pair is larger and perhaps more deformable.  However, on second look, we would not change our responses.

What can we conclude about the origin of the pair purchased in NW Oklahoma?  It is certain that these shoes were made by a weaver using the same construction methods as the Bulgarian shoes, and more than that, the same or very similar natural fiber materials were used.  These included three different materials or at least different parts of the same or very similar plant for the warp, weft and selvage.  Microscopic examination of cross sections of the natural fibers could identify the plants used and  we could then determine where these plants live.  Currently we are relying on visual inspection. Thus, it is likely that both pairs of shoes were made in the same geographic region or by weavers originally from the same region.  Based on the information at hand,  it seems most likely to me that both pairs, Bu1 and Am3, were made in or near Bulgaria. I have given Am3 a second tag, Bu2, in the Collection.

We will probably never know how the Am3 shoes ended up in a flea market in NW Oklahoma.  I favor the idea that they were made in Eastern Europe and sent by a relative or friend to someone living in Oklahoma or picked up by a tourist  or military person in Bulgaria and brought home.  Perhaps they were purchased in a store in yet another country. There are other possibilities of course, such as shoes in the style of Am3 being made by Native American weavers in Oklahoma, one of whom may have found his or her way to Eastern Europe with the weaving style eventually reaching a fair trade cooperative in Bulgaria where Bu1 was made.   Perhaps the relationship software will help us decide the most likely  geographic origin and direction of migration!

I will answer the question “How do a couple of differences in how the descriptors are scored affect sandal relationships?” in a future news post.