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Jacob giving a dreamcatcher to Bella.

"Catches bad dreams."
Jacob Black to Bella Swan[src]

A dreamcatcher is Jacob Black's 18th birthday present to Bella in the film adaptation of New Moon. She hangs it on the headboard of her bed and it is seen in several scenes in the movie. Charlie doesn't think that the dreamcatcher works as it doesn't keep away the nightmares Bella sees after Edward leaves her.

In the Eclipse film, Riley is seen examining it when he comes to Bella's house to steal objects with her scent on. After Edward realizes that Riley was in the house, he searches Bella's room and smells Riley's scent on it.

In the first part of the Breaking Dawn film, Bella is seen looking at the dreamcatcher and thinking about the missing Jacob, while packing her room.

Origin and legends[]

While dreamcatchers originated in the Ojibwa Nation, during the Pan-Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s they were adopted by Native Americans of a number of different Nations. Some consider it a symbol of unity among the various Indian Nations, and a general symbol of identification with Native American or First Nations cultures. However, other Native Americans have come to see dreamcatchers as "tacky" and over-commercialized, especially as most of them are being manufactured and sold by non-Natives.

Traditionally, the Ojibwa construct dreamcatchers by tying sinew strands in a web around a small round or tear-shaped frame of willow (in a way roughly similar to their method for making snowshoe webbing). The resulting "dream-catcher", hung above the bed, is used as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares. As they are made of willow and sinew, they are not meant to last forever but are intended to dry out and collapse as the child enters the age of adulthood.

The Ojibwa believe that a dreamcatcher changes a person's dreams. According to Terri J. Andrews, "Only good dreams would be allowed to filter through. Bad dreams would stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day. Good dreams would pass through and slide down the feathers to the sleeper.

Another version from the same article was, "Good dreams pass through the center hole to the sleeping person. The bad dreams are trapped in the web, where they perish in the light of dawn."

Popularization[]

In becoming popular outside of the Ojibwa Nation, and then outside of the pan-Indian communities, "dreamcatchers" are now made, exhibited, and sold by some New Age groups and individuals. According to Philip Jenkins, this is considered by most traditional Native peoples and their supporters to be an undesirable form of cultural appropriation.

The official portrait of Ralph Klein, former Premier of the Canadian province of Alberta and whose wife Colleen Klein is Métis, incorporates a dreamcatcher.

The idea of a dreamcatcher was used by Margaret Salinger, daughter of J.D. Salinger, in her book of memoirs about her father: Dream Catcher: A Memoir.

Note[]

  • The dreamcatcher is only an item in the movies. Jacob never gave her one in the books.
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