The history of dream catchers has nearly
been lost in the turmoil of cultural mixing and destruction that
followed on the heels of the European invasion. Dream catcher
history is known with some credibility due to the dedicated field work
of
Frances Densmore
at the beginning of the last century.
She traveled from her home in Red Wing, Minnesota to Detroit Lakes,
Minnesota just south of the White Earth Indian Reservation where she set
up a recording studio in the back of a music shop. For five years she
recorded the music of the Ojibwe for the Smithsonian Institute Bureau of
American Ethnology. Her careful and extensive study of many Native
American cultures including that of the Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa)
 living
in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario, Canada.
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In
Bulletin 86, plate 24 from the Smithsonian Institute Bureau of American
Ethology is a photograph of an early, authentic Ojibwe dream catcher and
on pages 51, 53, and 113 she described articles looking like spider webs
that were usually hung from the hoop of a child's cradle board.
She said that 'they catch and hold everything evil as a spider's web
catches and holds everything that comes into contact with it'. These
'dream catchers' were wooden hoops with a 3 1/2 in. diameter, woven with
a web made of nettle-stalk fiber