When I started collecting straw sandals, it did not dawn on me that I would become involved in Chinese shoes for bound feet. After all, straw sandals were the shoes of the farmers, peasants and a few monks living alone in the mountains.  Shoes for bound feet were for the elite families who could afford to bind their daughters’ feet, i.e. the wealthy folks along with courtesans and concubines, or so I thought.  Then I found a pair of straw shoes on-line that were very clearly shaped like shoes for bound feet.  These shoes were probably not from poor farm families or rural peasants.  Several different types of materials were used, which would have been costly, and these shoes exhibited multiple layers of high quality weaving.  I set them aside because I simply did not understand where they fit into the footwear from China.  I did start reading about foot binding in Chinese culture and history.  It was after reading several books by Dorothy Ko, a history professor at Columbia University, that I began to understand more about these shoes, C16 in the collection, shown below.  Professor Ko has specialized in the history of women in Chinese culture and foot binding in particular.  The key lesson provided me by Dr. Ko is that during the roughly 1,000 years of foot binding in China, it changed over time in terms of who practiced it, how and where it was done, and the reasons why.  By the 19^th century people in rural areas including farm families were binding their daughters’ feet.  My seller estimated that the C16 shoes were made between 1850-1899.  Let me share with you a couple of additional insights from colleagues who have visited the collection.  My friend and fellow curator Ruixing Lu, about whom I have written on several occasions, told me that these shoes indeed belonged to a woman from a well-to-do family.  The quality of the weaving and materials used were not in reach of poor rural women.  He suggested that perhaps they had once belonged to the wife of a wealthy landowner.  Then recently, my colleague Ping Zhang visited, saw these shoes, and exclaimed “These are like my grandmother wore”.   He told me that she had lived in the south of China and that her family owned a number of fish ponds that made them wealthy.  And yes, she had bound feet, also confirming Ruixing’s conclusions.

As I mentioned in an earlier news post, I searched for woven sandals  and shoes from the Ladakh Region of Northern India for about five years without luck.  Then a chance conversation with my colleague Pierre Goloubinoff resulted in the first pair contributed to the SSP collection (Item I-4).  Wait until I tell you this next story involving Pierre.  The story begins on Sunday, July 28, 2013, when I received an email message from another friend, colleague and fellow world traveler, Phil Hooper.  His longtime friend Cynthia Hunt, founder of The Help Fund and HEALTH Inc, had sent him some pictures from Ladakh and Phil had forwarded them to me.  Phil recalled my interest in shoes from that region and Cynthia had lived and worked there for thirty years.  Among the images were hand crafted shoes made from straw and woven yak wool locally dyed.  Here are a few of the images (click on images to enlarge):

I immediately wrote back to Phil to say that I would love to have a pair of these shoes for the collection.  Yes, he would ask Cynthia about this possibility.  Here is where Pierre enters the story.  I knew that Pierre and his daughter were in Ladakh again that summer in and around the city of Leh, and he was keeping a watchful eye for woven shoes and sandals.  On Wednesday, July 31, Pierre sent me a brief message:  “Dear Larry,  I just found an hour ago in the market of Leh a couple of hand made straw shoes (bottom made of straw and the rest of yak wool) from a village in the Nubra valley, which is on the southernmost branch of the Silk Road….”   Could it possibly be?  I immediately sent Pierre the shoe image from Cynthia that Phil had sent me.  I noted in the message that “It seems to be a magical time for me linking to this part of the world!”  On Thursday morning, I opened my email page and there was Pierre’s reply:  “This is it exactly! I will bring them to Sheffield.  Hold your breath!”  Here are images of the shoes that Pierre found for me in one of the most remote regions of our planet:

To give you an idea of the size of the shoes, here are some dimensions:  For the sole, width across the heel is 7.3 cm, widest part, at the part where sole starts to turn up is 9.0 cm and the length is 37 cm.  The inside width at the heel is 6.0 cm and the useable length inside the shoe is 20 cm.

Here is a little information about the Nubra Valley, where these shoes were made.  Nubra is a  high altitude desert, essentially Tibetan Plateau, with an average altitude of 10,000 ft (about 3,000 meters).  Its capital of Diskit is about 150 km north of Leh, the capital of the Ladakh District, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Most inhabitants of the valley speak the Nubra dialect or Nubra Skat and they are mostly Buddhists.  The land along the river beds is fertile and irrigated, producing a variety of grains, fruits and nuts.  Other parts of the valley present a forbidding landscape.  Interestingly, nomads and camaliers wore shoes turned up at the toes to ease walking in sand.  Perhaps this functionality is a source for the design of these remarkable shoes.

Another coincidence emerged as I prepared this news post, again involving Pierre.  During his visit along with his two daughters to Leh during the summer of 2013, he happened to walk into a Nepali cafe in the city, only to find a colleague from the cell stress and chaperones research field.  It was Wilbert Boelens from the Netherlands.  Wilbert visited the Nubra Valley during his touring in the Ladakh region and he took some remarkable photos.  I am very happy to present some of these images below with Wilbert’s permission:

Sand dunes on the floor of the Nubra Valley

Bactrian camels resting

Diskit Monastery

Statue of a giant Buddha on the valley floor

Several visitors have asked me about videos demonstrating weaving methods for straw sandals.  I have collected a number of them on YouTube over the past few years.  I thought it would be helpful to create a menu item called YouTube for visitors to link to my playlist Shoe/Sandal Making.  The link is active and ready for you to use.  There are additional video located under the menu item About – Resources – Videos.

I began searching for woven shoes like these in 2007 after reading Jutta Jain-Neubauer’s beautiful and informative book titled Feet & Footwear in Indian Culture.  The first breakthrough came from my colleague Pierre Goloubinoff who delivered to me a pair of woven shoes from the Leh District of northern India in November of 2012 (see earlier News item). The woven slippers shown below will become item# Np-1 in the collection.  I purchased them on Ebay from the store gaguska4. Through email discussion with Zoja, the seller, I learned that these slippers were discovered at a street fair in Manhattan, NYC.  The merchant appeared to be for the Himalayan region, perhaps Nepal, Tibet or India, according to Zoja.  Peirre had seen shoes like these in a shop in Leh that sold goods from Nepal.  This description fits well with information in the Jain-Neubauer book.  They are woven by local peoples, the Newars or Newa People (on page 165 of the Jain-Neubzuer book) living in valleys in the foothills of the Himalayas extending from Nepal to northern Pakistan.  Newar and Nepal are different linguistic forms of the same root word for the ancient inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley. Local straw and grasses are used including a long grass named lambchua.  This grass is processed to create a soft, pliable fiber.  Two-ply S-twisted cords are used for the sole warps and the soft fibrous chords are used for the wefts of the sole.  The main material used for the vamps is a grass named charas.  Long, soft fibers are produced from the inner bark or bast.  The natural color is beige but some of these fibers are dyed, usually orange, pink, green, red and blue, to provide decorative elements for the vamp.

Newar marriage celebration, Nepal, Photo by Krish Dulal

Occasionally I search Ebay and Etsy for straw shoes and sandals.  Recently I found a store named AztecArt on Etsy that offered a pair of straw sandals that looked very interesting.  The overall design was unlike any I had seen from Japan and yet the soles were very similar to sandals from Japan in The Collection.  The shop owner and artistic creator is Ixtlixochitl White Hawk.  I learned from Ixtli’s profile that she was born in Mexico City into a family that traces their ancestry to the ancient Aztecs.  Ixtli made these sandals while living in Misawa-shi, Aomori Prefecture, Japan.  She values cultural traditions and crafts and is a member of the Tloke Nahuake Traditional Aztec Dancers:

On her profile page she wrote “My work centers in my Aztec roots, creating pieces in traditional and contemporary styles. All pieces are hand crafted with care and quality materials using semi-precious stones, feathers, leather and other natural elements. My pieces are unique,…”  Indeed the sandals that I obtained from Ixtli’s store reflect her creative philosophy and provide an excellent example of how different traditions can combine to allow the evolution of sandal design.  I believe that these sandals show both Japanese and Amerindian cultural influences.  Therefore, I entered them into the Japan Gallery as J12a,b and started a new gallery, Americas, with their entry Am1a,b.  The sandals from AztecArt are shown below (upper image) along with an image of J10 (lower image), sandals from the Japan Gallery:

Note the similarities in the design and construction of the soles.  The vamp of the AztecArt sandal has been woven with a basket weave pattern and bright colored straw strands were added, which is rarely seen in Japanese sandals.  If color is used, it is added by cloth strips woven into the sandals or used as thongs.  I have seen antique sandals made by the Anasazi Indians of the southwestern United States that employed this weave.  For example, I took the photograph below of a sandal dated to 4000 B.C.E. at the University of Utah Museum of Natural History:

The AztecArt sandals were created for use as wall art or home décor.  Ixtli suggested hanging them in the home “for good luck and safe travels”.  Here is another example of  a possible Japanese influence.  Kokeshi are Japanese dolls handmade from wood in a characteristic shape.  A pair of Kokeshi placed on tiny Waraji sandals represents the spirit of travel with a friend or partner to enhance the pleasure of the experience.  The image below is from the Collection (Mis2, 3, 4):

The AztecArt woven sandals shown as home decor below:

It is always fun to welcome a shoe from a different country to the Collection.  I found these in the Etsy on-line store Hillbillyfilly.  They were described as “Vintage 40s WWII exotic carved wooden platform dragon peep toe ankle strap high heel shoes.”  All true!  To expand a bit on this description, shoes like these were favorites among servicemen stationed in the Philippines during the Second World War who bought them as souvenirs for the gals back home.  A sailor stationed there brought this pair home, and I did notice that they were shipped to me from San Diego, a U.S. Navy town then and now.  Typically the wooden sole was carved, usually with a scene from a rural village and painted in bright colors.  This pair has a finely carved and varnished dragon on each side of the shoe, holding up the heel.  The vamp is made of two layers of woven material.  The outer layer is an open weave of raffia fibers.  These cover a tightly woven layer of raffia fabric, dyed a burnt orange color.  The ankle ties are constructed the same way.  The vamp is attached to the wooden sole with metal tacks.  The bottom of the sole is stamped with the maker, Tesoro’s of Manila (established in 1945).  The style is a peep toe wedge, very popular in the 1940’s in the U.S. and England.  It was likely made primarily for export.

Shoes and sandals constructed at least in part with raffia fibers are a growing part of the Collection.  The image below shows dried raffia fibers that were grown in Madagascar and packaged in Ohio.  I bought it from an Ebay store (Kurlykatescorner).

Photo above by maryan54, Webshots, bundles of raffia fibers being unloaded, Unisan, Quezin, Philippines.  In the Philippines the palm is called the Buri Plant (Raphia farinifera) and is the source of two fibers, raffia and buntal.

These fibers are obtained from Raffia palms with most species native to tropical Africa, particularly Madagascar.  One species occurs in Central and South America as well.  The leaves of one species grow to 25 meters long and 3 meters wide.  The fibers are made from the membrane on the obverse side of the leaf (photo below by Andrew Massyn, Wikimedia Commons, Raphia australis, Cape Town, S.A.)

Raffia fibers are remarkably versatile.  They can be dyed and woven into textiles that resemble cotton cloth.  These fibers have been used to make shoes and sandals since ancient times such as the Moroccan shoes (collection item Mor1) below, the colorful style of which goes back over 1000 years.

Contemporary designers of both high end and inexpensive shoes and sandals continue to value the flexibility of materials made of raffia and continue to use them along with leather, cloth, wood and man-made materials.  The Rocket Dog platform sandals shown below, purchased from the Ebay shop Jazcifaldi, were made in China. They provide a nice example of the use of raffia fibers in an inexpensive contemporary shoe.