http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/03/15/dreamcatchersindex_1.jpg

One of the most fascinating of all Native American Traditions is the dream catcher. It is widely believed the legend of the dream catcher came from the Sioux with their tales of spiders, webs and bad dreams. But deeper research into the storytelling and oral histories passed down from parent to child gives a clearer picture of how the dream catcher came into use.

Long ago when the world was young with old traditions, all the Clans of the Ojibwe were located in an area known as Turtle Island. This is where the ancient stories of the dream catcher originated.

Asibikaasi (Spider Women) carefully and lovingly watched over her children, the Ojibwe Clans. Every dawn her task was to capture giizis (the sun) and bring its light back to her people. The miracle of her work could be seen in the sparkles of the sun off the dew dampened earth.

One of the Seven Prophecies of the Ojibwe was the scattering of the clan to the four corners of North American. In time this prophecy became a truth. With her children so dispersed Asibikaasi found it hard to bless them with the brilliance of the sun.

She tasked the mothers, sisters and grandmothers of the tribe to weave magical webs for their children and themselves. These webs were to be made in the shape of the sun to represent how giizis traveled across the sky to them. The number of points in the web should number seven or eight, for the Seven Prophecies or the eight legs of the Spider Women. Asibikaasi promised to only allow good dreams or thoughts into the lodge, while catching all the bad ones in her web and perishing them in the pure dawn of giizis.

Dream catchers for infants and children were made of willow and sinew, and not meant for permanence. The willow eventually dried out and the tension of the sinew collapses. This represents the temporary state of youth. Adult dream catchers were made of woven fibers to last many years and reflect the strength of their dreams.

It was traditional to weave a feather in the center of a child’s dream catcher; it means breath or air which is essential for life. It was thought a baby watching the air playing with the feather would be entertained and learn the importance of good air. The feathers were gender specific, an owl feather for females (for wisdom) and an eagle feather for males (for courage). Gems woven into the fibers represented the four directions of the wind.

If you believe as the Ojibwe did, that the night is filled with good and bad dreams, then place a dream catcher over your bed. Allow it to swing freely in the air with the feathers floating down, to guide good dreams into your sleepy mind. Then sleep well knowing your nightmares will perish with the dawn.

Dream Catchers over my bed. One for me and one for my husband. Photo owned by PR Mace

Dream Catcher in my guest bedroom. Photo owned by PR Mace

At the dawn of the 19th Century, the Native Americans had what is today the U.S.A. to themselves.  They were the only people who lived there.  The Plains Indians were a nomadic race, following the buffalo, their life resource, wherever they went.  They believed in the Great Spirit, and performed various rituals to worship him (such as the Sun Dance, which lasted 8 days) so that they could go to the Happy Hunting Ground when they died.  The buffalo were so vital to the Plains Indians’ way of life that even their homes, tipis, could be taken down and go with them when they moved to follow the herds of buffalo.  A single buffalo could provide almost everything for one of the family-like tribes, including enough food to last for a month.

Many, many months of buffalo meat later, around the 1830s, when white men had established themselves on the East coast of America, the first Europeans began to move through the Plains.  Mountain Men, for instance, were expert hunters and trackers who caught animals for European companies on the East coast of America.  Some of them married Indian women.  Sometimes they worked and traded with the Indians, other times they fought against them.

The Mountain Men and Pioneers did not bother the Indians much, and had no effect on the way they lived.  They did, however, tell stories to the other white men about the fertile and empty lands West of the Plains

Between 1839 and the end of the 1850s, thousands of ordinary men, women and children, encouraged by the stories told by the Mountain Men and Pioneers, moved west across the Plains.  Often, the Plains Indians acted as guides and sheltered people in their tipi villages.  After all, these people were not settling on the Plains; just moving across them.

So, in the space of forty years, as white men began to move across the Plains, the lives of the Plains Indians were almost completely unaffected.  All they did was act as guides for some of the travellers.  The travellers did not take any of the Plains Indians’ things, or kill any buffalo.  The relationship between the Plains Indians and the white men was good, and the lives of the Plains Indians had not changed.

However, in addition to the white men moving west, there were also cowboys who drove cattle North through the Plains.  The relationship between the Plains Indians and the Cowboys was mutual.  The cowboys disturbed everyone when they drove their cattle through the Plains, and the Native Americans sometimes stampeded the cowboys’ cattle.  The Plains Indians would, however, act as guides for the cowboys if they became lost.  All in all, the Native Americans got on reasonably well with the white men.

In the late 1860s, though, that all changed.  The white men built railroads across the Plains.  The Indians sometimes faced them with hostility, as they were worried that their hunting grounds might be taken away from them.  The trains also frightened them.

To be close to the railroads for trade, the Cattlemen and Cowboys began to set up ranches on the Plains.  Ordinary people also moved on to the Plains, taking advantage of the railroad to find a new start in life.  By the end of the 19th Century thousands of families had settled on the Plains and were growing crops successfully.

The white men were settling and growing crops on the Plains Indians’ hunting grounds, whilst needlessly slaughtering the buffalo, and also beginning to move the Indians off of the Plains and onto reservations in the West.  Unsurprisingly, the relationship between the Native Americans and the white men quickly deteriorated.  The Native Americans still lived in tipis in their family-like tribes, but there were no buffalo on the reservations and the food given to them by the government was poor.  For example, in the early 1870s, there was trouble with the Sioux in their Dakota reservation in the Black Hills.  They complained that the food was bad and that they had too few blankets.  They were worried because trains on the Northern Pacific Railroad brought hordes of hunters who killed buffalo for their skins to sell in the East.  Chief Santana of the Kiowa said: ‘Has the white man become a child in that he should recklessly kill and not eat?  When the red man slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve.’  As well as slaughtering buffalo, the white men also, after having forced the Indians off of the Plains, forced them out of the Reservations:

In 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills.  Prospectors were sent in in the winter of 1875, and the land (reservation) that had been promised to the Sioux by the U.S. Government was taken away.

The Plains Indians, in around seventy years, had gone from being completely free, and untroubled by anyone, following the buffalo herds in their family-like tribes and tipi villages, to being forced off their land, attacked by white men, and cut off from their old life resource, which was being killed by the white men.  The things that had not change so far were that the Indians lived in tipis, and in tribes that were as close as families.  The Indians were angry with the white men, and disliked the reservations.  They were furious that the buffalo were being slaughtered and were furious that they had been forced off of their land.

So, in 1876, under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, tens of thousands of Native Americans slipped away from their reservations.  To force them back, a large part of the U.S. Army fought them at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  The Native Americans defeated the soldiers and cavalrymen (archaeologists who have recently dug in the site have proved that the Indians were armed with the latest repeating rifles.  The U.S. soldiers used only single-shot Springfield rifles and Colt revolvers).  The news of the defeat stunned and horrified the white men.  The rest of the U.S. Army chased the Plains Indians fiercely and forced them back into their reservations. 

The buffalo were now all but extinct.  The Plains Indians, unable to get new skins for their tipis, lived in government housing.  They had to eat the food supplied to them by the government to survive, and were not allowed to speak their own language or practise their culture (they were severely punished if found to be doing so).  The children were sent to boarding school in an attempt to convert them to Christianity, and so that they would not learn any more of the Native American way of life, and would forget what they already knew.  They were not allowed to speak their own language, and were painfully punished dif they did. 

It took a long time and a lot of pain and punishment for the Indians, but the U.S. Government finally realised that the Native Americans were there to stay.  In 1924 the government decided to allow the Indians – the first Americans – to become citizens of the United States of America.  In 1935, the Government said that the Indians could govern themselves in their reservations.  The Plains Indians were gradually having their freedom restored, and their relations with white men began to improve.  Their lives had changed a lot.  They lived in houses on the reservations and no longer relied on the buffalo, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that the Plains Indians began to bring back their old customs and learn to be proud of their past.  They made their own school curriculum to incorporate their culture, and today the Plains Indians are again doing the Sun Dance.  Government doctors are working with Navaho Medicine Men to cure their people when they are ill, and Indians are running successful businesses, even being elected to serve in the Senate.

In conclusion, I would say that between 1800 and the present day, the lives of the Plains Indians have changed a lot.  They started off as the only people on the Plains; nomadic, living in tipis and with nature in their family-like tribes, and following the buffalo herds.  The buffalo, their life resource, was abundant.  They used it for nearly everything and no part of it was wasted; clothes, food, the covers for their tipis, knives, and even hairbrushes!  In the 1860s, the buffalo were wastefully slaughtered by the white men settling on the Plains.  Soon, the buffalo were almost extinct and the Indians on their reservations could no longer get food or covers for their tipis.  They were given food by the government and put into housing.  Still, in the housing, the Plains Indians managed to stay in their tribes.  The family-like bonds within and often between tribes were a key factor in the Native Americans’ lives; probably the only part that hasn’t changed at some point in the last two centuries.  They now go to school, have jobs, and buy their food and anything else they need from shops.  Even the population of the Native Americans has changed dramatically; in 1800, there were over a million Indians in North America.  By 1900, when the Indians were being oppressed by the government in the reservations, there were only about 300,000.  Today, numbers have risen again to almost a million, now that the Native Americans govern themselves.

‘The red man was the true American.  They have almost gone, but will never be forgotten.  The History of how they fought for their country is written in blood, a stain that time cannot grind out.  Their God was the sun, their church all out of doors.  Their only book was nature and they knew all the pages.’ -Charles Russell, 1937.

Too much has happened; too many towns and roads have been built for the Indians to ever again roam the Plains on horseback, following the buffalo and living with nature.  The proof that the lives of the Plains Indians have changed a lot lies in the fact that their old way of life is irretrievable.

Dreamcatchers were originally made by the Native Americans. Although there are many versions produced by companies, the best way to get an original and authentic one is to buy from a Native American themselves, perhaps at a pow wow ceremony.

The legend behind the dreamcatcher is that they are believed to catch and preserve dreams. Native Americans of the Great Plains believed that the air is filled with good and bad dreams. The dreamcatchers are given to people who are cherished so that good dreams will follow them all their lives. It is believed that the woven web will catch your dreams in the night. The bad spirit dreams become tangled in the web and  disappear in the morning sun.  However, the good spirit dreams will sift through the center hole of the web
and float down the sacred feathers to bless the sleeping one with trouble free dreams.

Traditionally, the dreamcatchers were hung in the tipi or lodge and on a baby’s cradle board. But more modernly, they are hung in the doorway of the bedrooms.

The legend varies slightly from tribe to tribe, but all focus around this main point. Some believe that the dreamcatcher only works if made from supplies harvested from the earth, and not man-made items such as plastic. This is why it is probably better to get yours from places such as a pow wow or reservation rather than a mass-marketing store. But whether you want it to work and free you of your bad dreams or just want one for decoration is up to you!