Yeah, going out in the rain is definitely not the ticket. My question is how did they do it day after day in mocs when everything on the forest floor is wet all day long this time of year, day after day...even on the bright sunshine days.

I usually wear at least one pair of wool socks with my mocs, sometimes two. When setting out for a cross county trek this time of year when everything is wet, it takes about a half hour before I start to feel the moisture creeping into my mocs...then into my wool socks. A couple hours later my entire mocs and socks are wet through and through. On a 40 degree sun shining day I might be able to go a couple hours like that. Assuming they were twice as tough as I am, then that means they were just going twice as far before calling it quits.

The fact that the body still has to maintain a 98.6 degree temp. still applies now as it did then. I have a hard time believing they were running around bare foot in this stuff ALL the time, and any mocs they had would have given them about two or three hours until they were completely soaked. I highly doubt they carried around 6 sets of mocs each to get them through just ONE day of traveling in cold damp fall weather.

Thanks again for the input!

The mystery continues...

Remember though that they usually had horses so the amount of walking might not have been as much as you think.

I'm really thinking more along the lines of the natives in the eastern woodlands...not just the white men adopting their style of dress. They still would have had to have done something...even prior to the Spanish bringing horses to North America in the 16th Century.

Ya,I think we're missing something.....In Japan,they have pattens to augment footware....