Dreamcatcher Transcendence

An eight and a half inch hoop, twenty four inches from the top of the hoop to the tip of the longest strand, so about fifteen inches of feather and cord hanging below it. Handmade in Bali. This is the restrained one in the case, natural tones instead of a spectrum, and it is the one to pick if the dreamcatcher is going somewhere you want it to disappear into the room rather than announce itself.

The form is Ojibwe. The word behind it, asabikeshiinh, just means spider. Frances Densmore wrote the charms down in 1929 and her description is smaller and stranger than the thing we sell: wooden hoops about three and a half inches across, netted with nettle-stalk twine dyed red with bloodroot and wild plum bark, hung over a cradleboard. What she recorded about the purpose is that they caught and held everything harmful the way a spider web catches and holds whatever touches it. Not dreams specifically. Everything. The Spider Woman story usually told alongside them, Asibikaashi looking after the children of a nation that had spread too far for one woman to reach, is a later retelling, and it gets credited to Densmore in a lot of places where she did not write it. The good dreams and bad dreams version arrived later still, and it circulates in two directions: some say the good ones slip through the center, some say they catch in the web and slide down the feathers. Go with whichever you were told. Nobody is checking.

Worth saying plainly: this is a contemporary decorative dreamcatcher, made for the gift trade. It is not a Native-made piece and we do not sell it as one. The form spread beyond Ojibwe country during the pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 70s and has been made commercially ever since, which is how it ended up on our wall and probably on yours. If what you want is an authentic one, buy it directly from a Native artist. If what you want is a beautiful object that means something to you over your bed, this is that.

Good to Know

Hoop 8.5 inches across, 24 inches from the top of the hoop to the end of the longest strand. Handmade in Bali, so the weave and the feather placement vary and yours will not be identical to the photograph.

Try It With

Mugwort under the pillow is the traditional pairing for anyone who wants to remember what the night gave them, and the Midnight Oracle tea is the drinkable version of the same idea. Dream Witchery if you want to actually work the dreams rather than just filter them. The louder siblings are the 7 Chakras and the Boho Pagan Protection.