Sandals of the Basketmaker and Pueblo Peoples: Fabric Structure and Color Symmetry

Sandals of the Basketmaker and Pueblo Peoples

SANDALS of the

BASKETMAKER

and PUEBLO PEOPLES

FABRIC STRUCTURE AND COLOR SYMMETRY

Lynn Shuler Teague and

Dorothy K. Washburn

© 2013 by the University of New Mexico Press

All rights reserved. Published 2013

Printed in the United States of America

18  17  16  15  14  13     1  2  3  4  5  6

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Teague, Lynn S.

Sandals of the Basketmaker and Pueblo peoples : fabric structure and color symmetry / Lynn Shuler Teague, Dorothy K. Washburn.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8263-5330-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8263-5331-3 (electronic) 1. Basket-Maker Indians—Clothing. 2. Pueblo Indians—Clothing. 3. Basket-Maker Indians—Antiquities. 4. Pueblo Indians—Antiquities. 5. Sandals, Prehistoric—Southwest, New. 6. Southwest, New—Antiquities. I. Washburn, Dorothy Koster. II. Title.

E99.B37T43 2013

978.9004’974—dc23

2012044737

Many years ago, Earl Morris eloquently expressed the challenge that led us to begin this work.

Why the Anasazi should have chosen the making of footgear that would be worn out in little more time than it took to produce it, as the avenue in which to express their utmost in inventive skill and artistic genius, we shall never know.

—Morris, Anasazi Sandals, 1944: 240

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

FABRIC STRUCTURES OF ARCHAIC, BASKETMAKER, AND PUEBLO SANDALS

CHAPTER TWO

THE COLOR GEOMETRY OF BASKETMAKER AND PUEBLO SANDAL DESIGN

CHAPTER THREE

COLOR METAPHORS IN BASKETMAKER SANDAL DESIGN

CHAPTER FOUR

SANDALS AND THE PEOPLE WHO WORE THEM

APPENDIX ONE

Morris Classification of Basketmaker Decorated Sandals

APPENDIX TWO

Sandals in this Study

APPENDIX THREE

Pattern Symmetry in Basketmaker Decorated Sandals

REFERENCES

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

1. The Southwest and adjacent regions

2. The Basketmaker region

3. Basic fabric structures used in Basketmaker and Pueblo sandals

4. Direction of slant in twining

5. Wrapped full-turn twining

6. Plain interlaced and twined slit tapestry

7. Colorado Plateau sites with Archaic sandals

8. Basketmaker II and III sites with sandals

9. Type Ia four-warp sandal, cave, southeast Utah, S544

10. Four-warp weft-faced sandal, Grand Gulch, S272

11. Two-warp sandal with U warp, Kanab, S270

12. Four-warp cordage sandal or sandal pad, White Dog Cave, S300

13. Oblique interlaced sandal, Mesa Verde National Park, S239

14. Undecorated multiwarp interlaced sandal with twined toe, Grand Gulch, S230

15. Square toe/square heel sandal with wrapped sole, Grand Gulch, S233

16. Bolster toe multiwarp sandal, Grand Gulch, S199

17. Yucca fringe toe multiwarp sandal, Grand Gulch, S162

18. Square toe/square heel sandal structure, Canyon del Muerto

19. Sandal with supplementary weft patterning, Grand Gulch, S168

20. Checkerboard self-pattern in simple twining

21. Sandal with self-pattern in red and black, Grand Gulch, S153

22. Wrapped twining structure variants

23. Striped sandal, Obelisk Cave, S293

24. Sandal with bird motif, Obelisk Cave, S292

25. Raised pattern on sole of sandal, Tseahatso, S39

26. Structural zones and color bands in scalloped toe/puckered heel sandals

27. Kidder’s A and B weave wrapped twining

28. Sandal using Kidder’s A and B weave, Mummy Cave, S45

29. Foot attachment in Basketmaker III sandal, Mummy Cave, S83

30. Round toe Basketmaker III sandal, Prayer Rock Valley, S107

31. Pueblo shaped sandal, Aztec National Monument, S172

32. Sites in our assessment of Pueblo-era sandals

33. Comparative sites outside the Colorado Plateau

34. Huichol sandal of ancient design

35. Basketmaker Z-slant twined bag with self-pattern, Utah, NMNH A326343

36. Schematic of C2, D1, and D2 finite designs

37. Schematic of one-dimensional p112 design

38. Schematic of two-dimensional p2 pattern

39. One-color design, pmm2, S349

40. Colored design, pm11, S367

41. The most common two-color design symmetries, Broken Flute Cave: C2′ on S368, zone 1; D2′ on S350, zone 2; p112′ on S403, zone 2; and 2 on S424, zone 2

42a. Four-color symmetry, Broken Flute Cave, S361, zone 2

42b. Four-color symmetry, Broken Flute Cave, S411, zone 2

43. S353, asymmetric, round toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

44. S352, C2′, round toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

45. S363, p1m′1, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

46. S423, p111, colored, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

47. S367, pm11, colored, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Prayer Rock

48. S355, 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

49. S377, p2, colored, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

50. S381, 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

51. S374, p1m′1, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

52. S362, p112′, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

53. S396, D2′, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Broken Flute Cave

54. S404, C2′, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Morris Cave 10

55. Huipil of Lady Chak Kimi depicted on Lintel 13, Yaxchilán, p2′

56. Schematic drawing of Aztec and Grand Gulch sandal patterns

57. Twined flexible bag, White Dog Cave

58. Schematic drawings of color bands in zones 1 and 2 on Basketmaker III sandals

59a. Olin symbols

59b. Ursa Major pivoting around the polar star and olin with comparable four parts

60. Calendar, Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

61. Sun’s path as perceived by Aztitlán traditionalists

62. Blue-green cloud stone of the southwest cardinal direction, Flute Society altar, Hopi

63. Diagonal position of the red/yellow and black/white colors on the four cloud stones on the Flute Society altar, Hopi

64. Whizzer (bull-roarer) for the northwest direction, Flute Society, Hopi

65. Sunrise and sunset positions at the four cardinal directions

66. The distribution of early maize and four-warp sandals

67. Distribution of close Z-slant twining

COLOR PLATES FOLLOWING PAGE

1. Sandals (tump bands?), Cueva San Pablo, Durango, Mexico

2. S161, lines of red color, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

3. S156, self-pattern, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

4. S155, bands of red color, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

5. S204, self-pattern, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

6. S202, D′2, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

7. S163, pma′2′, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

8. S159, p1a′1, square toe/square heel, Grand Gulch

9. S456, C2, colored, Bernheimer Alcove

10. S455, p1m1, colored, Kanab Canyon

11. S26, lines of colored wefts, scalloped toe/square heel, Tseahatso

12. S130, checkerboard 4mm, scalloped toe/square heel, Mummy Cave

13. S23, D′1, scalloped toe/square heel, Tseahatso

14. S36, D′1 in zone 1 and C2′ in zone 2, scalloped toe/square heel, Tseahatso

15. S39, p112′, scalloped toe/square heel, Tseahatso

16. S48, D′1, scalloped toe/square heel, Mummy Cave

17. S51, C2′, scalloped toe/square heel, Mummy Cave

18. S125, D2, round toe/puckered heel, Canyon del Muerto

19. S301, p112, one-color, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Marsh Pass

20. S309, D2′, zone 1, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Canyon del Muerto

21. S86, D2′ in zone 1 and p112′ in zone 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Mummy Cave

22. S101, D2′ in zone 1 and p112′ in zone 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Mummy Cave

23. S131, p′mm2, zone 1, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Mummy Cave

24. S294, 2 in zone 1 and p112′ in zone 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Carriso Lukachukai District

25. S84, D2′, zone 2 color bands, Mummy Cave

26. S29, 2, scalloped toe/puckered heel, Tseahatso

27. Painted wooden altar (?) object, Aztec National Monument

28. S174, bands of color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Aztec

29. S477, weft lines of color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Aztec

30. S228, bands of color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Pueblo Bonito

31. S180, bands of color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Aztec

32. S175, C2, one-color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Aztec

33. S229, C2, one-color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Grand Gulch

34. S190, p112, one-color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Pueblo Bonito

35. S232, p1a1, one-color, shaped toe/cupped heel, Cave 9, Grand Gulch

36. S42, 4mm, shaped toe/cupped heel, Antelope House, Canyon de Chelly

37. S172, 2, shaped toe/cupped heel, Aztec

38. S171, p2′, shaped toe/cupped heel, Grand Gulch

39. Apron, Obelisk Cave

40. Apron, Obelisk Cave

41. Woven reed mat, Grand Gulch

TABLE

1. Common Symmetries by Zone on Scalloped Toe/Puckered Heel and Scalloped Toe/Square Heel Sandals

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Analysis of the sandals in this study was made possible by the generous assistance of many individuals and museums. We personally analyzed and photographed all the sandals at the museums where they are currently curated. Photographs of objects from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Harvard University) and from the Western Archeological and Conservation Center (National Park Service) are by Dorothy Washburn. Photographs of objects from the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of the American Indian are by Lynn Teague. Figures are by Lynn Teague unless otherwise noted.

Access to the collections at the American Museum of Natural History was facilitated by Anibal Rodriguez and access to the archives by Kristen Mable; collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University by Susan Haskell; the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology by Lucy Fowler-Williams and Bill Wierzbowski; the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, Tucson, by Bill Commins, Keith Lyons, and Kim Beckwith; the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, by David Rosenthal; and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Smithsonian Institution, by Toby Raphael. In addition, we included sandals from the collections of the Arizona State Museum (ASM) that had previously been reported by Hays-Gilpin and others (1998).

We especially thank Toby Raphael at NMAI for preparing an ultraviolet light box so that we could further examine sandal patterns, and Kelley Hays-Gilpin for sharing the drawings from her 1998 volume since many of the patterns are no longer visible on the sandals. We also are indebted to Don Crowe, Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, for consultation on the color and symmetry classification of the color-banded designs as seen on the ASM drawings. We appreciate the assistance of Leticia González Arratia, Museo Regional de La Laguna, Coahuila, México, who generously photographed the Cueva San Pablo objects for us and consulted with us on connections between Coahuila and more northern traditions. We thank Amy J. Gilreath of the Far Western Anthropological Research Group for providing access to her report on basketry from Gypsum Cave and also her publication Improving the Prehistoric Chronology for Southern Nevada (2012). Finally, we thank Vincent Stanzione for allowing us to reproduce map 7 from his book Rituals of Sacrifice (2003) and his enthusiasm for our interpretation of the metaphorical role of sandals in the preservation and visualization of ideas about living the corn lifeway.

During the course of our analysis, we consulted with many individuals on aspects of the fabric structure, provenience, and place in Southwestern prehistory of sandals: Carol Hendrickson, Marlboro College; R. G. Matson, University of British Columbia; Jose Luis Punzo Diaz, Centro Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Durango; Rachel Freer, Kress Fellow (2008), Arizona State Museum; Michael Jacobs, Arizona State Museum; Maxine McBrinn, PaleoCultural Research Group; Tom Connolly and Pamela Endzweig, Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon; Dale Croes, South Puget Sound Community College; and Catherine S. Fowler, University of Nevada. We greatly appreciate their interest and expertise. We would like to thank David Shaul for generously allowing us to read and cite his manuscript of A Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan (forthcoming). We appreciate Edgar Huber’s permission to adapt his map (2005) of early maize from the Fence Lake Project report and especially his providing an updated version for our reference.

We are grateful for the constructive and helpful comments of our two anonymous reviewers. Their thoughtful and detailed reviews made very real contributions to this study.

We greatly appreciate the enthusiasm of the University of New Mexico Press for our research and their prompt and careful preparation of our manuscript for publication. We especially thank Elizabeth Albright and John Byram for their generous help in guiding our manuscript through the review and production process.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, we want to thank the late Cynthia Irwin-Williams, our mentor, who was always well ahead of the pack in her understanding of Southwestern prehistory.

INTRODUCTION

The sandals worn by Basketmaker and Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest have been studied, dissected, described, and interpreted for almost a century. Nevertheless, much about them remains unresolved. In their most elaborate form during the late Basketmaker period, they displayed the most complex fiber structures and designs ever made by the people of the Colorado Plateau. In this book we show how the fabric structure and design on these sandals can be revealing of the history of the people who came together and are known as the Basketmakers and later the Ancestral Pueblo people of the American Southwest. Specifically, this study addresses the origins and functions of Basketmaker II and III sandals within the immediate context of the history of sandal making and wearing and the larger context of population movements that contributed to the establishment of the corn lifeway on the Colorado Plateau.

We premise our study on three working ideas: (1) that fabric structure reflects learned traditions of fabrication technologies, (2) that decorative design reflects cultural principles in both pattern making and meaning, and (3) that consistent use of certain technologies and designs references cultural interaction pathways as well as fundamental religious beliefs and ritual practices. Our discoveries about the fabric technologies and design systems on these sandals have enabled us to propose a new reconstruction of the paths of Uto-Aztecan migrations as well as to define the role that decorated sandals played in expressing the cosmological ideas that accompanied the coming of the corn lifeway to the Colorado Plateau.

We designed this study to resolve our observation that the extraordinary two-color color-banded designs on Basketmaker III scalloped toe/puckered heel sandals seem to have no direct antecedents in the local assemblages of the northern Southwest. Indeed, the appearance of this elaborate footwear coincides with a period of profound changes that include the shift from pit houses to masonry pueblos and the full transition to sedentary maize agriculture as marked by the introduction of artifact forms and cosmological ideas that were fundamental to the maize-based lifeway of peoples in the Mesoamerican heartland where maize agriculture originated.

In order to assess this apparent disconnect, we approached the problem by exploring two features of the sandals that closely reflect traditions that might be expected to have a continuous history as they are practiced and passed along within communities: their fabric structure and their design. However, not only did we find discontinuities and the appearance of new fabric structures and designs, but we also located their probable antecedents in different areas surrounding the Pueblo Southwest. In order to account for these findings, we explored whether these changes represented intrusions of peoples bringing new ideas and practices into the area, the movement of ideas without actual population movements, or the constant process of adaptation by local peoples.

We began our investigations in the Archaic, asking which kinds of ideas, features, and practices relating to fabric technology were extant in the area and which were brought into the area. We asked how were these features maintained or changed to suit their use in the daily and ritual lives of people. Specifically, we sought the origin of the fabric structures that were combined by the late Basketmakers to produce the remarkable Basketmaker III sandals. Likewise, we attempted to determine the significance of the design components that were selected, retained, and elaborated. We asked what was the meaning of the complex patterns on the late Basketmaker sandals, and how did these patterns relate to the developing corn lifeway.

In our investigation of these issues we have thrown our net very wide, considering woven assemblages from sites throughout those parts of the western United States and northern Mexico where plant fiber sandals were made, including large parts of the Great Basin, California, the southwestern United States, and northern Mexico (fig. 1). Unfortunately, since sandals are a perishable artifact class, even in a dry environment, we have significant geographic and temporal gaps in our database throughout the large region we have considered. Sample sizes are sometimes small, and direct dating is far less common than we would wish. All of these problems are discussed more specifically and in greater depth in the chapters that follow. However, we believe that the cumulative evidence that we have assembled from our combined study of fabric structure and design based on Teague’s expertise on fabric structure and Washburn’s expertise on pattern color and symmetrical structure adequately supports our reconstruction of the development of early farming groups on the Colorado Plateau.

Figure 1. The Southwest and adjacent regions. Map © Lynn S. Teague.

SANDAL SAMPLE ANALYZED

In this study we analyzed material largely collected at the turn of the century from the Four Corners area by amateurs such as Richard Wetherill and the Hyde brothers, as well as by archaeologists such as Earl Morris, A. V. Kidder, Samuel Guernsey, and Byron Cummings. Several caveats constrain the use researchers may make of these collections. First, the sample is limited to sandals preserved in and recovered from dry caves. However, caves represent only one of the many places frequented by these early farmers. Surely many more sandals were left in open sites, and these were lost long ago to the elements. Second, these collections were made well before sophisticated excavation and recording techniques were in common use, which means that the stratigraphic associations are often uncertain, and thus the possibilities for reliable indirect dating are limited. Few sandals have been directly dated; most have been placed within periods by the assemblages they are associated with. Conservatively, we have limited our temporal assignments to major divisions of the Basketmaker tradition—early (White Dog Cave phase) and late (Grand Gulch phase) within the broad stages of Basketmaker II and Basketmaker III as defined at the Pecos Conference of 1927. Our sample of decorated sandals from the Pueblo period is far smaller and is associated with the sites of the Chaco Phenomenon. We have lumped them together within the Pueblo tradition. Nevertheless, despite the limitations of provenience and dating, these early collections of sandals remain important potential sources of information about past population relationships and movements. They remain as some of the largest extant collections of footwear from the Basketmaker and Pueblo traditions available for study. Other collections house examples of relevant sandals, but we believe the collections that we have examined represent an adequate sample of those that have been recovered for the purposes of our study.

Our analysis includes sandals curated in the following museums: The American Museum of Natural History houses the bulk of the material collected by Earl Morris during the Bernheimer Expedition to the caves in Canyon de Chelly, especially Mummy Cave. This museum also houses the material collected by numerous private expeditions financed by Charles McLoyd and C. C. Graham and conducted by Richard Wetherill as well as those financed by the Hyde brothers in Grand Gulch, the Marsh Pass area, and along the drainages of the San Juan River. The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, houses collections made in the Marsh Pass/Tsegi area as well as the material from White Dog Cave, Floating House (Waterfall) Ruin, and other localities in northern Arizona and southern Utah. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology houses the first McLoyd and Graham collection from Grand Gulch and other areas in southeastern Utah. The National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, houses later collections made by McLoyd and Graham in the Grand Gulch area, collections made by Charles Lang in the Chinle Canyon area, and those made by George Pepper in Canyon de Chelly. The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, houses collections made in southern Utah and northern Arizona. The Arizona State Museum houses the material from Earl Morris’s excavations in the Prayer Rock area, especially the large collection of sandals from Broken Flute Cave. The Western Archeological and Conservation Center of the National Park Service curates small collections from Canyon de Chelly, Aztec Ruins, and other parks. The Natural History Museum of Utah houses material collected by Byron Cummings in southern Utah and northern Arizona as well as the extensive collections of material recovered by archaeologists of the Museum of Northern Arizona and the University of Utah during their surveys and excavations in Glen Canyon prior to the filling of Lake Powell.

Two of these collections have been recently described. Kankainen (1995) prepared an illustrated catalog of the sandals from the Glen Canyon area housed in the Natural History Museum of Utah. Elizabeth Morris (1980) described the material her father, Earl Morris, excavated from the Prayer Rock area caves, and subsequently she, Hays-Gilpin, and Deegan (Hays-Gilpin et al. 1998) produced an extensive descriptive study of the technology and designs on those sandals.

ANALYTICAL PROCEDURE

Our analysis consisted of recording fabric structure visible without dissection of the specimens. During our inspection of the sandals, we often detected colors and designs, but fading and degradation of the dyes have, over time, rendered many of the designs indecipherable. We attempted to check many of the faint designs on sandals using a black light with both short and long wavelength ultraviolet (UV) light, although with one exception (NMAI 167619) this technique did not greatly improve the visibility of the designs.

With the exception of the sandals from the Arizona State Museum that were collected by Morris and previously published by Hays-Gilpin and others (1998), all the sandals were studied and photographed at each of the curating museums during 2007–2008 by the authors. Because the patterns on the Prayer Rock sandals collected by Morris at ASM were largely undistinguishable when Washburn inspected them in 2007, we have relied on the designs as redrawn by Ronald Redsteer, an artist at Northern Arizona University who rendered the illustrations for the Hays-Gilpin (1998) publication from pencil drawings of the designs originally made by Morris’s students. For clarity we use these illustrations to discuss the color banding on the Basketmaker III scalloped toe/puckered heel sandal designs.

While these collection and preservation issues prevent us from claiming that we have studied a representative sample from all the periods and places analyzed, we believe that this integrated analysis of fabric structure and design on a robust sample of 487 sandals contributes new insights to the ongoing study of the development of the corn lifeway in the prehistoric Southwest. The full data set is listed in appendix 2 by our assigned sandal identification number as well as by museum catalog number. References in the text to S1–S573 refer to this database.

Our technical analysis is divided into two main sections. We first provide an overview of sandal fabric structure. By fabric structure we mean the systematic way in which the elements of a fabric relate to one another. In order to place the use of twining and the various manipulations to this structure in historical and technological context, we begin with the kinds of structures used to produce fabrics in the Archaic. For all time periods, we review both undecorated and decorated fabric structures because both existed contemporaneously, and it is important to study the structures that were decorated as well as those that were not. We compare the sandal structures and designs to those that appear on other kinds of woven materials that are contemporaneous and coterminous with the sandals analyzed.

We then explain how design is added to the various fabric structures. We focus on the symmetrical arrangements and coloring of the motifs used in each period by the Basketmaker and Pueblo peoples. We describe how these features are manipulated in the different kinds of fabric structures, detail the different types of color treatments, and review the different symmetries that structure the designs.

We follow these chapters with our analysis of the antecedents of these fabric structure traditions and our interpretation of the highly complex design system on the Basketmaker III sandals. We suggest that the color pairs and two-part