page_title: Dreamcatcher
section_title: Ojibwe origin
hierarchical_section_title: Dreamcatcher / Ojibwe origin
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Bulletin Identifier: bulletin861929smit (find matches) Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Subjects: Ethnology Publisher: Washington&#160;: G. P. O. Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 85 PLATE 24 Text Appearing After Image: a, "Spider web" charm, hung on infant's cradle; 6, Mask used in game; c, "Ghost leg, to frighten children Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: In some Native American and First Nations cultures, a dreamcatcher or dream catcher is a handmade willow hoop, on which is woven a net or web. The dreamcatcher may also include sacred items such as certain feathers or beads. Traditionally they are often hung over a cradle as protection. It originates in Ojibwe culture as the "spider web charm", a hoop with woven string or sinew meant to replicate a spider's web, used as a protective charm for infants.
  Dreamcatchers were adopted in the Pan-Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and gained popularity as a widely marketed "Native crafts items" in the 1980s. This mass marketing has resulted in widespread cultural appropriation of dreamcatchers.
context_section_description: Ethnographer Frances Densmore in 1929 recorded an  Ojibwe legend according to which the "spiderwebs" protective charms originate with Spider Woman, known as Asibikaashi; who takes care of the children and the people on the land. As the Ojibwe Nation spread to the corners of North America it became difficult for Asibikaashi to reach all the children. So the mothers and grandmothers weave webs for the children, using willow hoops and sinew, or cordage made from plants. The purpose of these charms is apotropaic and not explicitly connected with dreams:
  Even infants were provided with protective charms. Examples of these are the "spiderwebs" hung on the hoop of a cradle board. In old times this netting was made of nettle fiber. Two spider webs were usually hung on the hoop, and it was said that they "caught any harm that might be in the air as a spider's web catches and holds whatever comes in contact with it."
  Basil Johnston, an elder from Neyaashiinigmiing, in his Ojibway Heritage (1976) gives the story of Spider (Ojibwe: asabikeshiinh, "little net maker") as a trickster figure catching Snake in his web.
caption: "Spider web" charm, hung on infant's cradle (shown alongside a "Mask used in game" and "Ghost leg, to frighten children", Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin (1929).
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