Dream catchers are one of the most fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dream catcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through. The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught up in the web, and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them.
The dream catcher has been a part of Native American culture for generations. One element of Native American dream catcher relates to the tradition of the hoop. Some Native Americans of North America held the hoop in the highest esteem, because it symbolized strength and unity. Many symbols started around the hoop, and one of these symbols is the dream catcher.
Dream Catcher Wow
The Dreamcatcher An ancient Chippewa tradition, the dream net (or dreamcatcher) has been made for many generations. Where spirit dreams have played, hung above the cradle board or in the lodge up high. The dream net catches bad dreams, while good dreams slip on. Nov 18, 2020 Making a dreamcatcher is a fun project you can do by yourself or with friends. You will need a hoop, suede lace, string, and decorative materials to create a basic dreamcatcher. Start the dreamcatcher by wrapping the hoop with suede lace. Then create the web by weaving the string along the frame of the hoop.
Dream Catcher Lore:
The Cree people use 15 poles to make the structure of the tipi. For every pole in that tipi, there is a teaching. So there are 15 teachings that hold up the tipi. Other Nations use 16 poles, and maybe more, I don’t know. All I know is what I know I was taught and that is the teachings for 15 poles. There are two legends concerning its inception; one comes from the Ojibwe people, where the dream catcher first originated among the Native Americans, and the second from the Lakota, who learned about it through trade and intermarriage with the Ojibwe people.
Native Americans believe that the night air is filled with dreams both good and bad. The dream catcher when hung over or near your bed swinging freely in the air, catches the dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to pass through the dream catcher, slipping through the outer holes and slide down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he/she is dreaming. The bad dreams not knowing the way get tangled in the dream catcher and perish with the first light of the new day.
Dream Catcher Meaning
How the Dream Catcher is made:
Free Dream Catcher Coloring Pages To Print
Using a hoop of willow, and decorating it with findings, bits and pieces of everyday life, (feathers, arrow heads, beads, etc) the dream catcher is believed to have the power to catch all of a person’s dreams, trapping the bad ones, and letting only the good dreams pass through the dream catcher.
Cree Dream Catcher Meaning
If dreamcatchers protect children from nightmares, Carol Edwards is ensuring that all the kids in Tuolumne County have sweet dreams. Edwards, 52, of Sonora, is hoping her dreamcatcher — 28.3 feet in circumference and 9 feet in diameter — will make the pages of the “Guinness Book of World Records.” If you are interested you can write the article author at rhowes@uniondemcrat.com
ANDRÉ'S NOTEI am an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe. We do not make dreamcatchers. This woman is guilty of cultural appropriation.
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Free Dream Catcher Quilt Pattern
Cree Dream Catcher Legend
Though some tribal members say they see no problem with the practice, others regard the marketing of dream catchers as another example of their culture being picked apart. When Millie Benjamin was growing up, she spent her nights sleeping under a dream catcher, a traditional Indian object believed to ward off nightmares. Benjamin drew comfort from her dream catcher. These days, though, she shakes her head to see them worn as earrings, hanging from car windshields and even sold as key chains in convenience stores. 'It has gotten out of hand. It's disrespectful for our people. It means something to us, it's a tradition,' said Benjamin, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Benjamin isn't the only American Indian dismayed by the marketing of dream catchers. Though some tribal members say they see no problem with the practice, others regard the marketing of dream catchers as another example of their culture being picked apart. 'In order to be a good, traditional person, you have to live that life. There's things you have a right to wear and things you do not,' Benjamin said. According to Indian tradition, dream catchers should resemble a spider web and are to be placed above a baby's cradle. The web filters out nightmares, allowing only good dreams to pass through to the sleeping child below. A dream catcher is supposed to be made in intricate, ceremonial steps that include giving thanks for the spirit of the wood used in it. Those steps fall by the wayside when a person buys a make-it-yourself kit from a discount store, says Gerald White, a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. 'The dream catcher, to us, is a sacred item,' White said. 'It's lost a lot of meaning, even in our own tribe. It's like losing our language, our culture -- another symptom of a larger thing.' White acknowledges that dream catchers are an important source of money for some Indians. Indeed, since the terror attacks of September 11, business has picked up, says Colleen Heminger-Cordell. Heminger-Cordell, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, has been making dream catchers since she took one apart and learned to put it together again 15 years ago. Her work, starting at $14.95 for a 3-inch dream catcher, is sold everywhere from a Paris boutique to a Sioux City, Iowa, strip mall. Most orders are from non-Indians who want more than 100 at a time, she said. 'I just never thought there would be that big of a market,' Heminger-Cordell said of the post-Sept. 11 demand. 'Companies are buying them wholesale.' Heminger-Cordell says she's never known anyone to be upset by her dream catchers, even though she sometimes embellishes them beyond the traditionally simple twine-and-wood design to satisfy personal requests, like a pink or blue catcher to give as a baby gift. At Lake Mille Lacs, the shiny string in Ruth Garbow's dream catchers reflects sparkles of light throughout the gift shop at the tribe's museum. Garbow, an Ojibwe, had a dream catcher over her bed as a child, as did her son. Now, Garbow makes the catchers and says it's important that customers understand their meaning. She sees the dream catchers as a chance for her to display her talents. 'If people like and enjoy having Indian crafts. I feel great,' Garbow said. But Garbow puts limits on the selling of Indian culture, including jewelry that uses the four colors of the medicine wheel -- which are supposed to be restricted to certain rites -- and some ceremonial dresses. 'People tend to adopt things they like from other cultures, of course, but they may just put it on because of what it looks like without thinking where it comes from and what it's for. You don't really care for that culture then,' White said.Dark Feather Red Eagle, a storyteller and elder of the Pine Ridge Lakota Sioux, learned how to make dream catchers from a Cree woman three decades ago. He has sold more than 1,000 dream catchers in six years, ranging in color from aqua to peach. Selling at $3 to $35 apiece, the dream catchers are made by his family at their Crowley, Texas, home. Red Eagle, 79, said no one has objected to his work. He would never sell sacred objects like medicine pouches and ceremonial pipes, he said. 'A dream catcher is supposed to serve a purpose as far as dreams are concerned, as far as children are concerned, and that's not something that's meant to be sacred,' Red Eagle said. Shortly after she was born on the Coutchiching reservation in Canada, Martha Jourdain had a dream catcher placed over her cradle. When she was expecting children of her own, Jourdain made dream catchers using ceremonial rites taught by her ancestors. Now, she's taught her own children the tradition. Jourdain, who is a cultural assistant with the Fond du Lac tribe in northern Minnesota, thinks dream catchers should be given away, not sold. 'It's kind of like they're making a mockery of it because it's a sacred item and sold in convenience stores all over,' Jourdain said. Recently, Jourdain has been teaching her children how to make traditional dance outfits, another item that has been showing up in shops around the country. 'There's nothing I can do about it,' Jourdain said. 'It's happening everywhere.' Benjamin finds comfort in knowing the truth behind the dream catcher. 'As long as I know what it really means, I'm happy, and that's what I teach my children,' she said. 'We know what it is and what it does.'