Title: Dreamcatcher

General Information about Item:

• Tools
• Langauge: Spanish
• Country of Origin: Peru
• Informant: KC
• Date Collected: October 22, 2021

Informant Data:

• KC was born into a family of Peruvian immigrants. She initially lived in New York City, but eventually relocated to Burlington, VT to attend college. She is a junior at Dartmouth College, studying philosophy.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: 

In some parts of Peru, dreamcatchers are set up on either the entrance door in order to prevent evil energy and entities from visiting them in their sleep. Peruvian households are typically modeled and laid out by the matriarch of the family. 

Social Context: 

Superstitions and knowledge of culture is passed down by the women in the generation. In other words from matriarch to matriarch. In these homes, it is a sign of disrespect to enter through the back door or any other door that does not have the dreamcatcher because you are bringing outside, unknown energy in.

Item:

Dreamcatchers are often allowed to be placed in certain areas of the house: at the foot of the bed, for example, a dreamcatcher is thought to catch all bad energy and deter evil spirits from entering your dream. The dreamcatcher has webs that work as a filter and provides only good energy to pour into your dreams. 

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file)

Transcript:

• “To this day, I place dreamcatchers on my door… it was something that was engrained with me as a kid. If I do not have a dreamcatcher on my door, I feel vunerable.”

Informant’s Comments:

• I am able to identify those within my culture by simply noticing things such as dreamcatchers hanging on their doors. Even having dream catchers, or symbols of it, show that there is some familiarity with the meaning.

Collector’s Comments:

• I think it is interesting to see the use of dream catchers and how their use and representation differ across cultures

Collector’s Name: George Priest

Tags/Keywords:

• Material Lore
• Peruvian
• Dreamcatcher