TAHLEQUAH – He calls himself an ‘aboriginal revivalist’ – a term he came up with because, as he says, he’s aboriginal and he revitalizes things.
“It just makes me sound cool,” Noel Grayson says and chuckles.
Grayson is a Cherokee National Treasure in bow making and flint knapping. If you Google him, a number of YouTube videos will pop up and you may watch him demonstrate his craft – making Cherokee bows and flint knapping arrows in the traditional way.
However, this night he is making traditional Southeastern style pucker-toe moccasins, but you won’t find a video of that – yet.
“Knowing how to make these moccasins is really simple if you know the technique,” he said. “See this basketball court? This is the pattern that we’re going be using.”
Grayson gestures toward the back of room and the women seated in front of him realize they are sitting at one end of a gym. Indeed, at the opposite end of the room is a basketball goal and the free throw line is clearly marked. They are inside the Wellness Center of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians attending a class offered by the tribe’s John Hair Museum and Cultural Center in Tahlequah.
He asks for a volunteer so he can demonstrate how to measure the foot and draw the pattern. He has her stand on a piece of cardboard. Then using a piece of twine, he measures all the way around the widest part of the woman’s foot and marks the width by knotting the twine.
“Most Native Americans have a foot that is as long as it is around,” he said.
He stretches the length of twine out. His volunteer has a slightly longer foot, but many in the room find their foot is indeed as long as it is big around.
Grayson marks the length of her foot on the cardboard then marks where the widest part of her foot falls. He uses the knotted twine to measure how wide to make the pattern at that point. It looks like he’s marking the points of a cross [†].
He then uses the twine like a compass to draw a semi-circle from the center of the cross over toe of the foot, joining the left and right arms of the cross.
“Remember, I told you we’d be using the court right here as a pattern,” he said, then proceeded to draw a line straight down either side of the cross to line up at the bottom where he has marked his volunteer’s heel. He draws a final line across the bottom, from left to right, completing the pattern.
Indeed, the drawing on the cardboard mirrors the lines on the basketball court. The next step is cut the pattern out of the cardboard and use it as a template for cutting the leather or buckskin chosen for the moccasins.
“What about the side flaps?”
“We’re not going to be making them tonight,” Grayson said. There isn’t enough time in the workshop for flaps and they can be added later.
“A lot of times they were doing beading on these moccasins. They’d have nice beadwork along those side flaps so when that pair of moccasins wore a hole in them, they’d tear those beaded flaps off and sew them onto a new pair,” he said.
Grayson holds up a piece of golden hide and snaps it out, tugging and pulling to stretch the leather.
“Pull on it, put some stretch in it so when you start wearing your shoe, it doesn’t stretch out and get misshapen,” he said.
Then he lays the hide out on the floor.
“You want your moccasins to fit the same. Leather is actually thicker in some places and thinner in others… the neck, the nape area is going to be the thickest,” he said. “You don’t want a moccasin made from a piece of hide here and the other from this piece over here. You want them made from the same section of hide.”
Once the leather is cut, Grayson demonstrates how to start sewing the moccasin together. He folds the shape in half longwise, inside out, and pinches together the tip which will be the toe of the moccasin.
Traditionally, stitching would be done with sinew through holes punched with a bone awl. Grayson warns against trying to make the sewing go easier by using a modern hole punch.
“When you use a hole-punch, it takes a bite out, it makes a hole in your leather. When you use an awl, an awl goes in there, opens that hole up and you have to be fast because once you take that awl out, the hole will close, and that is what you want. You want that hole to close up,” he said.
The first stitch will go in the toe.
Using a thin, knotted strip of hide, Grayson closes the toe of the moccasin with a single stitch then turns the leather back to right side out. It’s time to use the awl and stitch up the center of the moccasin.
“Roughly about an eighth of an inch, right at the top, poke a hole in it and use your fingers to push that leather thread through it,” he said.
Continue, using a whip stitch, from side to side, using the awl to poke holes about a “thumb width” apart lengthwise and 1/8” deep. Pushing the thread through with your fingers as you go.
“Measure from one side of your thumbnail to the other. That’s the width you want,” Grayson said. “Remember it always goes from inside out. Always remember, inside out.”
The heel starts the same way, with the center of the underside pinched together and joined with a stitch.
Noel Grayson demonstrates where the thickest part of a hide lies.