Native American Dream Catcher
The legend of the Native American dream catcher varies somewhat
from tribe to tribe, but the basic theme was to allow positive dreams
to slip through the web and into the sleeper during the night while
the negative dreams were caught in the web and would die at morning
light. The Lakota Legend has the opposing belief that the web will
catch your positive ideas and the negative ones will go through
the hole.
The earliest dream catchers, also called "sacred hoops,"
were crafted by parents to protect their children from nightmares.
Newborn babies were given charms that were woven in the form of
webs to protect their dreams so their innocence would not be harmed
by the troublemakers of the night. The dream catcher charm would
be hung from the hoop on the cradle.
Dream catcher hoops were originally made out of red willow and
covered with sage, the webbing was made from deer sinew. Modern
dream catchers are made with wood or metal wrapped in leather strips,
artificial sinew replace the now forbidden use of deer sinew. The
decoration of the web along with the shape, size and colors used
is left to the artisan's imagination. Feathers attached to the dream
catcher are meant to assist the flight of positive dreams.
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