The legend of the Dreamcatcher

"A spider was quietly spinning his web in his own space.  It was beside the sleeping space of Nokomis, the grandmother.  Each day, Nokomis watched the spider at work, quietly spinning away.  One day as she was watching him, her grandson came in.  "Nokomis-iya!"  he shouted, glancing at the spider.  He stomped over to the spider, picked up a shoe and went to hit it.

"No-keegwa," the old lady whispered, "don't hurt him."  "Nokomis, why do you protect the spider?" asked the little boy.  

The old lady smiled, but did not answer.  When the boy left, the spider went to the old woman and thanked her for saving his life.  He said to her, "For many days you have watched me spin and weave my web.  You have admired my work.  In return for saving my life, I will give you a gift."  He smiled his special spider smile and moved away, spinning as he went.  Soon the moon glistened on a magical silvery web moving gently in the window.  "See how I spin?" he said.  "See and learn, for each web will snare bad dreams.  Only good dreams will go through the small hole.  This is my gift to you.  Use it so that only good dreams will be remembered.  The bad dreams will become hopelessly entangled in the web.

The dreamcatcher is meant to bring a good nights sleep.  Tradition says that the air is filled with dreams both good and bad waiting to come into your dreams.  The dream catcher works to sort out these dreams.  While the good dreams find their way through the hole in the nets center, the bad dreams do not know the way and get hopelessly tangled in the webbing where they perish in the first light of dawn.