Contriving footwear Part 1

When thinking about what things will be in short supply in a post-TEOTWAWKI world, many people forget about footwear. However, like it or not, shoes, boots, sneakers and sandals all come to their inevitable end. Of course, most people have never actually worn a shoe long enough to wear a hole in the bottom or to have the sole separate from the upper portion of the shoe. They simply have no idea just how fragile is that bit of gear that we put on every day that protects our tender feet.

So what will you do when the time comes that your shoes wear out or even worse your kids outgrow their shoes? You’ll get by. You’ll get inventive and devise ways to protect your feet. In fact, some of those ways may seem a bit outlandish in America, but in some parts of the world today people are using things like 2-liter soda bottles, tires and cardboard as shoes.

Now, before there was ever a cobbler to hang out his “open for business” sign, people were pretty clever about contriving footwear. In our own country, the Native Americans developed some very effective footwear with modifications to increase their effectiveness in all kinds of weather and use.

While the styles of Native American footwear varied somewhat from tribe to tribe, they were basically the same: made out of leather tanned from animal hides and cut to fit the individual. These were usually called “moccasins”. Some moccasins were only ankle high, while others were much higher; up to the calf and even the knee.