Dreamcatcher Ink

Found this awesome dreamcatcher on Flickr and just had to share. In fact, I've found so many dreamcatchers I'm considering making a whole series of posts of them!

Much of American Indian lore is lost due to Europeans doing their best to wipe it out. So, the ancient roots of the dreamcatcher are unknown but many believe it to have originated in the Ojibwa tribe. The first official observation of a dreamcatcher dates to 1929 but it didn't become popular until the pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 70s when it became something of a symbol for Indian solidarity. 

We all know that dreamcatchers are designed to catch the bad dreams and allow the good to pass through. The sun would burn away the caught dreams and the good dreams would drift down to the child via the feathers. But not everyone knows that they were traditionally made by a grandparent of a newborn child to protect them from the bad dreams that roam the night. 

According to the New World Encyclopedia: "The circle of the hoops represented the sun. The web's connection with the hoops in eight places represented the eight legs of Spider Woman. When the web only connects in seven places, this represents the Seven Prophecies (a prophecy marking the seven epochs of Turtle Island—or North America). Feathers in the center of the dreamcatcher represented spirit (breath) and life."