Cherokee Indians Research Paper

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Dream Catchers Dream Catchers were an extremely important symbol to Native Americans, such as the Meherrins. The Merherrins are a small group of Native Americans who originated in North Carolina. Due to the diminutive size of the Meherrin Indians, not much about the Meherrins and dream catchers are available, so the Indian tribe this paper is based around is the Cherokee Indians. You may find yourself asking, what is a dream catcher exactly? A dream catcher is a hoop with a web inside of it that is decorated with feathers and beads. The dream catchers were supposed to trap the bad dreams and spirits that roamed around at night. They provided a whole for good dreams to enter and drift into the minds of their keeper. Protecting their…show more content…
Long ago, there was an elderly spiritual leader from the Lakota tribe. He was resting on the top of a mountain when suddenly a vision came upon him. During his vision, Ikoti, the spirit of mischief and knowledge, came to him in the form of a spider. He began to talk to the spiritual leader in the Lakota native tongue. Using the native tongue, he told him about all the cycles of life and all the good and bad forces that are acting during these cycles. Ikoti explained how dreams and visions were key ways to connect with the good things in life, and how we need to honor dreams while still using them to our advantage. While he talked, he took the leaders hands, which were holding his willow hoop, a wooden hoop that had feathers decorating it, and began to spin a web in the hoop. When he finished spinning, he said “The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center. Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will filter your good ideas and the bad ones will be trapped and will not pass.” (The history of dream catchers) The elder awoke from his vision and went and shared it with the rest of his tribe. The news soon spread and to this day Native Americans hold the dream catchers sacred. One of the main reasons the dream catchers are believed to work, is the filtering system. The filtering system is the belief that the web is like a filter; it caught all the dark spirits that were trying to invade the owners mind. These spirits would be killed when it became day, because the sunlight would melt them away. In the middle of the web there was a whole which provided a passage way for the pleasant dreams and kind spirits to slip

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