Indian Dream Catchers

	Today, dream catchers are generally thought of as a Native American craft, and indeed many are, but they also have a rich spiritual history. They originated in the Ojibwa (Chippewa) tribe of North America. In the Ojibwa language, the word for dream catcher is asabikeshinh, which means ‘spider.’ It is said that long ago, a great Lakota spiritual leader stood on a mountaintop and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the trickster god and teacher of wisdom, came to the shaman in the form of a spider. Iktomi took the spiritual guide’s willow hoop, which was decorated with sacred feathers and beads, and began to spin a web starting at the edges of the circle and working in. As Iktomi spun, he told the Lakota about the cycle of life. He explained that we start off as helpless infants and are taken care of by others. We grow into children, then adults, and finally we reach old age, where we are once again taken care of by others, like infants. This completes the cycle of life. Iktomi continued, speaking of good and bad forces in the world. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you along the right paths in life. The bad forces, he warned, will lead you down the wrong trails. There are many paths in life, many choices that will build or destroy the harmony of nature and the Great Spirit. As Iktomi finished weaving his web, he left a hole in the center. He gave the Lakota shaman his woven hoop and explained that the web was a perfect circle. If the Lakota and his tribe believed in the Great Spirit, the web would catch their good ideas and dreams and help them to reach their goals. The hole in the center would allow the bad ones to pass through without disturbing their peace. The Lakota elder passed his vision on to his people and many others, who have passed its wisdom on through the generations.

Native American Dream Catcher

Feathers and Leather
34 Inches Long

12 Inches Tall Each

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Dream Catchers

The nighttime is full of the supernatural, filled with spirits and forces and dreams. Like the forces that Iktomi told of, good and bad dreams drift through the dark and into people as they sleep. Dream catchers are like filters that trap and destroy nightmares and allow the good dreams to pass. The dream catcher snags good dreams in its web. The dreams then drip down through the feathers and into the sleeping person. Bad dreams, on the other hand, get tangled and stuck in the web, and when the first rays of sunlight shine onto the trapped nightmares, they dissipate like vampires.

Traditionally, dream catchers were an authentic Ojibwa tradition and were made by twisting and tying sinew around a circular or tear-shaped piece of willow to create a web. Sometimes the willow frames were wrapped in leather. Sacred objects like feathers or beads would be strung and hung from the hoops. The dream catchers were usually given to children as protective charms. The use of dream catchers spread to other tribes, and in recent times, their popularity has increased. As they became acculturated, the materials used to build them became studier and more durable. But the impermanence of dream catchers was originally intentional. Since dream catchers were charms to protect children, they dried out and collapsed as the child grew up and became an adult.

The dream catcher is an important symbol. In many native cultures the hoop represents unity, infinity, and strength. The circle itself can be traced back hundreds of years in almost every major religion and on all populated continents, from Carl Jung and its representation of the human psyche to Plato and the ouroboros (the snake swallowing its own tail). The dream catcher represents unity through the passing of knowledge and wisdom. It represents strength in choosing the good paths in life and avoiding the bad. The dream catcher also embodies the cycle of life, not only in its use of the circle, but in its disintegration, it’s return to nature as the child it protects reaches adulthood.