12/3/12

The Story of the Teardrop


The Pequot/Mohegan 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

"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 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 Mohegan 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 Mohegan people believed that the Little People were their protectors who lived in a sub-world between the spirit world and the Mohegan world.
The Mohegan People would go to them with their prayer requests and the Little People would then take these requests to the Creator.)
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 Mohegan People would take their gifts to the edge of the forest.
Just before sunset, the Mohegan's would offer prayers and songs to the 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 Mohegan People 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 Mohegan Tribal council.
The Little People told the Tribal council that they would need help from the Spider Woman.
So, they talked to the Spider Woman and she agreed to meet with the council.
After the Tribal council explained what the Trickster was doing to the Elders and the young, the Spider Woman took some grapevine and spun it into a teardrop shaped web.
The teardrops represented the children's tears.
She gave one teardrop to the head of each Mohegan 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 Mohegan children dreamed good dreams and the Mohegan village was again at peace.

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