Legend has it that many years ago, grandmother found a spider in her home. It was building a web above her bed, and she spent many days watching it work. She marveled at its beauty and at the care the sprider took to make the web strong. One day, as the web was nearing completion, her grandson came to visit. He saw the spider and immediately went to kill it. Grandmother stopped him, and said that the spider had been there for several days, working on the web. It had not bothered her, and she had enjoyed watching it. After the boy left, the spider thanked Grandmother for saving its life. It told her that in return for her kindness, it would give her a gift. The spider's web above her bed would make sure she only had good dreams - the bad dreams would get caught in the web, and would burn up when the sun rose. The good dreams would go right through the web to the sleeper.
Native peoples believed that dreams came from the sky. Dream catchers were often hung on children's cradle boards to protect the children from bad dreams. Today, many powwow dancers carry them into the dance arena to keep negative feelings away while they dance.
It is said that the night air is filled with both good dreams and bad dreams. The dream catcher, when hung, moves freely in the air and catches the dreams as they float by. The loop, its center woven in a web-like pattern, allows the good dreams to pass through the web into the sleeper but makes the bad dreams become entangled in the web, where they perish at the first light of dawn. Small dream catchers were hung on cradle boards so infants would have good dreams. Other sizes were hung in lodges for all to have good dreams.
Other legends say the opposite..that the bad dreams pass through the web and vanish, and the good dreams are kept to drift down the feathers to the dreamer. Either way, Hang them in your lodge or home and HAPPY DREAMS!
We hope you like this dream catcher as much as we do. Click on the cenre stone to have it emote words of Native Wisdom, or simply hang it where the dreams drift by.
It is 8 prim.
Kittycat Ninetails
JohnQ Ballyhoo
Vasa Vella
- scripted to emote
