I started making dream catchers when i was in cub scouts of America as a child. our scout leader showed us the basics and gave us the tools and let us go at it to see who could make the best looking one and who ever won got a merit badge. in prison people love native Americans and our culture as a bygone age. meeting us is like looking back in time to the frontier age to them even though we modern day natives grew up up in this modern age the ignorance of common Americans who never met a native ask us if we still live in teepees. i usually go along with this and then segue into selling them a home made dream catcher. i learned how to make them out of the raw materials that are all around me in the prison environment. tear up a clean white shirt and wrap it around the ring from the top of a soda can and them weave the web out of string made from the elastic band of a pair of boxers. i can even make faux feathers out of the string. then if i feel like it i paint the whole thing using colored pencils from commissary or out of the art dept.. of recreation. i usually sell each one for about 5 dollars. I’ve made a killing through out my whole bid making and selling them except in the south where people are a little leery of voodoo and witch craft. i have to explain to them that it doesn’t actually catch dreams but is more of an art form. if that fails and the conversation goes the other way i get really into it and have come up with my own legend explaining the dream catcher concept based off the original story. I’ll share it now.
STORY OF THE DREAM CATCHER
by Aaron Wewa.
once long ago in the land of the first people there was a witch named Basket Woman who walked at night catching all the bad children who didn’t listen to their parents and stayed out after the sun went down. she would call to them until they wandered off getting lost in the wilderness where she would catch them unawares and throw them into the magic basket she carried on her back. once thrown into this basket you could never get out unless she wanted you to and she wore this basket at all time which how she got the name Basket Woman. she would carry the children she caught to her cave deep in the mountains and throw them into a giant pot of boiling water and cook them alive. this is the only thing she could eat that kept her magic alive.
eventually she ate all the bad children across the land and started to get hungry. so she cast a spell that came alive when good children went to sleep to give them nightmares. this would cause them to wake up and get restless eventually leaving the lodge when their parents were asleep to walk about in the wilderness where Basket Woman would catch them and throw them in her basket taking them to her cave to eat.
soon the first people noticed that children good or bad were disappearing and called for warrior to save them. a youngster called Brave Boy stepped forward to seek a way to stop the evil spell. he travelled all across the land of the first people out that every one was affected by the spell. all the children were being eaten by basket woman and no one knew what to do. then he found an old medicine man who told him what the cause was that he learned in a vision. he told him the only way to find answer was to ask the spider goddess who lived on the moon. to reach the moon he would have to climb the tallest mountain and face many monsters defeating them one by one until he reached the top. and so Brave Boy began his journey looking for the tallest mountain.
he travelled the prairie he came to the edge of a great forest and saw off in the distance the highest peak of the tallest mountain way in the distance in the middle of the forest. so he entered the forest and battled many creature that no longer exist in this modern world. eventually the forest protector called Sasquatch took notice of Brave Boy defeating many of his own enemies in the forest. he approached him and asked him in sign language what he was doing fighting all the monsters of the forest. Brave Boy told of the journey he was taking and his mission to reach the tallest mountain to reach the moon. Sasquatch nodded his head and signaled for him to follow.
he led him to cave which was full of many twisting passages. he told him to always follow the passage that led up and that there were many more monsters that he would have to defeat as he traveled through the cave system. he gave him three feathers for good luck and with this he entered the cave.
Brave Boy traveled for many long hours fighting and defeating many more monsters that lived in the mountain always traveling up and up until finally he saw light coming from the end of one of the passages. when he came to the end of the cave he looked down and saw off on the horizon a blue and green ball where the moon should have been. the whole of the land was covered in white sand and sitting on a rock was a beautiful woman with eight arms weaving a web on a hoop. she looked up and spoke to him. She said she was the spider goddess the mother of all creatures and that he had reached the moon which he was standing on right now. she lifted up the hoop and showed him the first dream catcher. she said to hang it above the beds of good children and it would catch the nightmares sent by Basket Woman burning into nothing when the sun arose in the morning.
Brave Boy took the first dream catcher and brought it back the to the first people giving them the protection against the spell of Basket Woman. this is the story of how and why the dream catcher came into existence.
pretty good huh? well i tell this to people who are apprehensive about it being black magic and works of the devil. its actually for a good purpose and many other tribes have stories similiar to this one. the story can be longer and usually a version is told around camp fires to young children who still believe in magic and stuff. i kind of like it and it gets longer and more detailed every time i tell it or re-write it. when im hungry or need some cash its always a good fall back hustle to make them and sell them especially when i tell the story along with it. i guess in a way i have become a good sales man out of need.
