What does a dreamcatcher do?

Accounts differ within Ojibwe tradition. The commonest version has the web catching bad dreams, which perish at dawn, while good dreams pass through the centre and down the feather. Another version reverses it, with good dreams held in the web. Both are told by Ojibwe people; the constant is that it protects a sleeping infant.

Where does the dreamcatcher come from?

The Ojibwe of the Great Lakes region. The Ojibwe name asabikeshiinh means little spider, and the charm is associated with Asibikaashi, Spider Woman, who protected the nation's children. It spread to other Native nations through the Pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 70s.

Is it appropriation to own a dreamcatcher?

Opinions differ, but the near-unanimous objection is to non-Native mass production rather than to ownership. Buying one made by a Native artist resolves most of the concern, supports the living craft and gets you a better object.

Should a dreamcatcher hang over a bed?

Traditionally it hung over a cradleboard, over an infant, and it was only a few inches across. Hanging one over an adult's bed is a modern adaptation. There is no rule against it, but it is not what the object was made for.

Why were traditional dreamcatchers made to decay?

Because they were made from green willow and natural fibre, and in at least one account deliberately: the charm was meant to last only as long as the child needed it. The permanent, synthetic wall-hanging version is entirely modern.

Who first recorded the dreamcatcher?

The ethnographer Frances Densmore recorded the practice among the Ojibwe in 1929, including the account of Asibikaashi, Spider Woman, who protected the nation's children, and of mothers and grandmothers weaving the webs themselves once the people had dispersed too widely for her to reach every cradle.

Talismans · Luck and welcome

The dreamcatcher

Also called: Asabikeshiinh, spider web charm, bawaajige nagwaagan

A cradle charm from one nation, now made by everybody except, mostly, that nation.

At a glance

Origin: Ojibwe, Great Lakes
Ojibwe name: Asabikeshiinh, the spider-web charm
Original form: Small willow hoop, nettle-fibre or sinew web
Hung over: A cradleboard, not a bed
Spread: Pan-Indian from the 1960s and 70s
Status: Living tradition with real objections to outside sale

What it originally was

Small. That is the first surprise for anyone who knows the modern version. A traditional Ojibwe asabikeshiinh is a teardrop or circular hoop of bent willow a few inches across, webbed with nettle-stalk cord or sinew in a pattern deliberately modelled on a spider's web, sometimes with a bead in the web and a feather below.

It was hung on or above a cradleboard, over an infant. It was not a wall hanging, it was not for adults, and it was not two feet across. The web was often made to decay: natural fibre on a willow hoop is a temporary object, and in one account the charm was meant to last only as long as the child needed it.

The Ojibwe word means spider, and the charm is recorded as the spider-web charm. The associated figure is Asibikaashi, Spider Woman, who cared for the children of the nation. The ethnographer Frances Densmore recorded the practice among the Ojibwe in 1929: as the people dispersed across a wider territory and Asibikaashi could no longer reach every cradle, mothers and grandmothers wove the webs themselves, to catch whatever harm might be in the air.

What it does

Accounts differ, including within Ojibwe communities, and the difference is worth reporting rather than smoothing over. In the most widely repeated version, the web catches bad dreams, which are destroyed at first light, and good dreams pass through the central hole and down the feather to the sleeping child. In another version it is the reverse: the good dreams are caught and held in the web to stay with the child, and the bad ones pass through and away.

Both are told by Ojibwe people. Neither is the wrong one. What is consistent is the object's purpose: it is a protective charm for an infant, made by a relative, from materials gathered nearby.

How it spread

Through the Pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when intertribal political organising and powwow culture circulated cultural forms between nations that had not previously shared them. The dreamcatcher travelled fast because it is beautiful, portable and easy to make, and by the 1980s it was widely adopted across Native North America as a unifying emblem of inter-tribal solidarity.

Then it left. Through the 1990s it became a New Age and then a mass-market commercial object, made in factories from plastic and synthetic cord, sold in petrol stations, hung from a hundred million rear-view mirrors and printed on bedding. Very little of that money reaches Ojibwe or any other Native makers, and very little of that product resembles a traditional one.

Opinion within Native communities is genuinely divided. Some regard the spread within Native America as a positive act of solidarity, and some regard even that as dilution. What is close to unanimous is objection to non-Native mass production, which severs a highly specific technology of infant protection from the spiritual context that gave it meaning.

If you want one

Buy it from a Native maker. This is the single most useful sentence in this entry, and it resolves nearly all of the difficulty. Ojibwe and other Native artists sell dreamcatchers directly and at art markets, the objects are better made than the imported ones, and the money goes where it should.

What is worth avoiding: mass-produced imports, oversized decorative versions marketed as bohemian décor, and the tattoo and fashion use of the design by people with no connection to it, which is what most Native critics are actually objecting to.

This is not a prohibition. It is a request from a living community about an object that is still theirs, and it is a low-cost one to honour.

How a dreamcatcher is made and hung

The traditional Ojibwe form, which differs considerably from the commercial one.

Bend a length of green willow into a small hoop, a few inches across, and bind the ends.
Web it with nettle-stalk cord or sinew, working around the hoop and looping into the previous round, so a spiral web forms.
Leave a hole at the centre. Both versions of the story depend on something passing through it.
Add a bead in the web and a feather hanging below, if the maker's family does so; neither is universal.
Hang it over an infant's cradleboard, not over an adult's bed.
Let it decay. Natural fibre on a willow hoop is not meant to be permanent.

The oversized, synthetic, multi-hoop versions sold as home décor are a commercial form with no traditional basis. That does not make them offensive on their own; selling them as authentic Native craft is what draws the objection.

What the dreamcatcher belongs with

The purposes it serves and the questions it raises.

Questions for reflection

The original was made to fall apart. What would change if your charms had a lifespan?
Two opposite explanations are both told by the people whose charm it is. Can a tradition hold both?
The easiest way to respect a living tradition is usually to buy from it. Why is that so often the last option offered?

Frequently asked questions

: Accounts differ within Ojibwe tradition. The commonest version has the web catching bad dreams, which perish at dawn, while good dreams pass through the centre and down the feather. Another version reverses it, with good dreams held in the web. Both are told by Ojibwe people; the constant is that it protects a sleeping infant.
: The Ojibwe of the Great Lakes region. The Ojibwe name asabikeshiinh means little spider, and the charm is associated with Asibikaashi, Spider Woman, who protected the nation's children. It spread to other Native nations through the Pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 70s.
: Opinions differ, but the near-unanimous objection is to non-Native mass production rather than to ownership. Buying one made by a Native artist resolves most of the concern, supports the living craft and gets you a better object.
: Traditionally it hung over a cradleboard, over an infant, and it was only a few inches across. Hanging one over an adult's bed is a modern adaptation. There is no rule against it, but it is not what the object was made for.
: Because they were made from green willow and natural fibre, and in at least one account deliberately: the charm was meant to last only as long as the child needed it. The permanent, synthetic wall-hanging version is entirely modern.
: The ethnographer Frances Densmore recorded the practice among the Ojibwe in 1929, including the account of Asibikaashi, Spider Woman, who protected the nation's children, and of mothers and grandmothers weaving the webs themselves once the people had dispersed too widely for her to reach every cradle.

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