DreamCatcher

Dream Catcher/Teardrop

Grape Vine Willow Branch

A Traditionalist Spiritual (Teacher)

cannot receive awards

for carrying out

Creators (Kiehtan), Wishes.

“This story was told to me as a small child, first by my Grandfather and then again later by my father.” Long ago, when the Mohegan (Moiingans) people all lived in the same village, the men spent most of their time away, either hunting or at war with the Tribes of the North.

The women ran the village. They tended their gardens and cared for all of the Tribes clothing.

This would often leave the Elders and the very young, whom they cared for, alone in the village for long periods of time.

The Trickster or evil one, knowing this, would come into the village at night and frighten the children, so that they couldn’t sleep.

The Mohiingans people knew that neither the Elders nor the children, could do anything about the Trickster on their own, so they contacted the Little People on their behalf.

(The Mohiingans people believed that the Little People were their protectors who lived in a sub-world between the spirit world and the (Mohiingans) world.

The Mohiingans People would go to them with their prayer requests and the Little People would then take these requests to Kiehtan.)

The men of the village made offerings or gifts for the Little People of strong tobacco skin pouches, while the women made food baskets.

The children made their own special gifts. On a chosen night, the (Moiingans) would take their gifts to the edge of the forest. Just before sunset, the (Mohiingans) offer prayers and songs to Kiehtan Creator, who would send the Little People to them.

They would then leave their gifts for Little People and go back to their village.

Every night for a week, the Moiingans would return to the edge of the forest to see if the Little People had taken their gifts.

One night, one of the Little People was waiting for them and all of the gifts were gone.

After the prayers and songs were finished, everyone sat down to discuss why the gifts had been left. Learning what the Trickster had been doing, the Little Person said that she would go back to her people and return later with their answer.

A few days later, the Little People asked for a meeting with the Mohiingans Tribal Elders.

The Little People told the Tribal elders that they would need help from the Spider Woman.

So, they talked to the Spider Woman and she agreed to meet with the elders.

After the Tribal Elders explained what the Trickster was doing to them and the young, the Spider Woman took some grapevine some willow branches and spun them into a teardrop shaped web.

The teardrops represented the children’s tears.

She gave one teardrop to the head of each family and told them to put the teardrop over the child’s bed, as close to an opening as possible.

As the child dreamed, the Trickster tried to send forth bad dreams.

Now, the bad dreams would get stuck on the spider web,

and the good dreams would pass on through and down to the child.

In the morning when the sun would come up, the heat from the sun would erase all of the bad dreams, making the teardrop clean again until the next night.

From that day on, the Mohiingan children dreamed good dreams and the village was again at peace.

The Moiingans Dream Catcher.

By now everyone knows a story about the Native American Dream catchers?

So let’s get into how to make one?

As with everything else we talk about on this blogger this is only how they were made by my ancestors and why we make them a little different then the pretty store-bought ones of today!

No one nowadays makes a Traditional Eastern Woodland New England dream catcher for sale, why? Because they are not the pretty ones that come from outside this country and sold as native!

A traditional dream catcher (Tear Drop) was not made from medal and/or plastic, we use a branch of a Willow tree or grape-vine and sometimes both, tied together with Sinew.

However, if you did not read the story here goes again.

The Story of the Teardrop

http://www.sachem-uncas.com/teardrop.html

Moiingans people.

It has come to our attention that people wish to profit from our writings?

Donna,( tahtonka.com) trained 8 years in college about indigenous people and has been working closely with our attorneys making sure that the rights to write and any/all would be income gets to our indigenous people.

One is always allowed to enjoy the writings, re-blog with credit, writing to profit is a direct insult to our ancestors.