The Dream Catcher

Dream catchers are absolutely fascinating and beautiful. They are a Native American tradition and have been around for many generations.

Traditional dream catchers are intended to protect people who are sleeping from bad dreams, while still letting the positive, good dreams come through. The good dreams go through the center of the dream catcher and then glide down the beads or feathers to the person sleeping below.

Our story begins with an aboriginal family living in Algonquin, up in northern Ontario. This family was Ojibwe and had many tribal traditions that were past down from one generation to the next. 

This Ojibwe family lived in a little hut that they built, and lived off the land. Growing fruits and vegetables and hunting for meat, (Like deer and rabbit and fish). 

In this family was a young boy of 8 years old. His name was Tywhanda, which means twinkling star in Ojibwe. Tywhanda lived with his Mom, Dad, little brother and his grandfather. Grandfather was very old and very wise. His grandfather would tell him and his little brother stories about his life. How he hunted big buffalo, fished the big fish and wrestled with a bear.

At night Tywhanda and his family would sit around the campfire singing Ojibwe folk songs and sipping berry juice. Tywhanda always wanted to stay by the camp fire, because he was afraid to go to sleep. This is because Tywhanda always had bad dreams that frightened him..

One-night grandfather awoke from sleeping to find Tywhanda still sitting near the campfire, crying. His grandfather asked him, what is the problem my young twinkling star? Oh Grandfather, Tywhanda said, I am afraid to go to sleep for fear of bad dreams that scare me.