This episode was recorded during the 2022 Nottoway Pow Wow.
I’m Shanna Aguirre and I’m a citizen of the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia.
Dreamcatchers, I think that there are several Tribes that claim the origin of the craft and Nottoway is not one of them, to my knowledge. It has become a kind of universal symbol of Native American crafting and art. And this circle, so the circle of life is that things are born and things die and this is how the world works. This is how life works. And so that’s what this circle represents. And the sun and the moon.
The important part is to have the beads, at least one bead inside, because that is a recognition of a creator, the creator of the web. In a kind of macro sense, the creator of the circle of life, which the dreamcatcher represents. A lot of the dreamcatchers do leave that part out but I think that’s a pretty special element. To acknowledge there is a Creator, however you interpret it.
I’m Talara. I heard that dreamcatchers get... that all the bad dreams go away by the sun.
Well, I think there are a lot of ways that dreamcatchers have meaning for people and I think that’s an excellent one. Some people say that dreamcatchers catch bad dreams. But dreamcatchers can actually catch bad ideas and catch them and get rid of them. Or they can catch really good ideas and hold on to them. So, you can make your dreamcatcher work the way that you need it to work.
So, there are a lot of dreamcatcher legends and origin stories. I think the principle of it is kind of universal, right. Which is that we want to have a way of feeling like we are in synch or understand things that are kind of difficult to explain or to understand. And so dreamcatchers give us a way of creatively expressing the complications of dreams and ideas, nightmares and even bad thoughts. And it gives us a way, of kind of, I don’t want to say recycling them, but like of putting them away. I think there’s a, I don’t want to say spiritual, it’s spiritual with a small “s,” in that you can look at them and say, “For all of the negative thoughts I have, I’m going to allow them to go through and be filtered by this very positive piece of artistic expression.” And for the good thoughts, you want to say, “I want to keep all these positive thoughts. Like all the positive thoughts I have today, you know, being out here with so many people who have such good energy and good intentions. And really are celebrating our common humanity and the heritage of Native Americans and respecting the traditions of our people. Those are great thoughts that I do hope get caught in her dream catcher.
This episode was made possible by a grant from Virginia Humanities.