Buckskin Moccasins, Beaded

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=272 , retrieved 8-12-2011, and also Dr. Aron Crowell, 3-19-2010: Moccasins Athabascan-style moccasins with Interior Tlingit or Tahltan beaded designs. Moccasins had originally been attributed as possibly Athabascan, but Athabascan advisers for the Arctic Studies Center exhibit "Sharing Knowledge: Alaska Native Peoples and the Smithsonian Collections" at the Anchorage Museum, did not recognize the beading style, and art historian Kate Duncan identified them as Interior Tlingit or Tahltan, based on their style of beading and shape - including high wool cloth cuffs and squared-off toes. Collector Herbert G. Ogden of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey purchased them at the coastal Tlingit village of Klukwan before 1895, a reminder of the extensive Tlingit trade with interior peoples that took place through Klukwan and the Chilkat River valley. Tlingit leaders dressed in Athabascan caribou-skin clothing and moccasins, and coastal clans adopted songs and dances from their interior trading partners. The letter of transfer in the accession file for the collection, dated August 1, 1895, states that items were "collected among the Alaskan Indians on Chilkat river".