The Iroquois Dreams Festivals

By: Karina Malpica

Often, people that we consider "primitive" are more in contact with the internal symbols of their mythical imagination that us, those "civilized", always so concerned for our external and conscious matters. In different ancestral societies the individual's problems and those of the community were confronted in creative ways and therapys, avoiding repression, stess, anxiety and other emotions that generate adverse feelings and violence.

One of many primitive people's advantages was their rich mythology, able to contain, to structure and to express that interior unaccessible level of psychological meaning. Nevertheless, if we accept that primitive man had a better knowledge of their psyque though the myth than we do, are we equally prepared to recognize that they were more advanced from a psychological point of view?

Lets take as example the Iroquois people from North America, a town from the lakes and forests of that which at the moment constitutes the state of New York and the high lands of Pennsylvania. They worked actively with their dreams, which allowed them to maintain a mental hygiene and thus, a great inner peace. Those who have peace, extend it to their surroundings and that was done by the Iroquois, just as the first Europeans who arrived to their territories could testify. They saw that Iroquois lived in peace with their neighbors gathered in their Five Nations confederation.

One of the intriguing things that the French explorers and the Jesuit missionary observed at the beginning of the XVI century when they first got in touch with the Iroquois, was the presence of dancers' societies. They wore grotesque masks with gnarled faces and entangled hair. The most important of them was the so called "Society of the False Face”. It was a medicine society dedicated in an almost exclusive way to the cure of illnesses. The Iroquois distinguished three different kinds of illness: 1) those that were caused by natural events as accidents, like being wounded during a hunt, or performing their daly works; 2) those that were caused by means of curses; and 3) those that were properly psychic, result of the resentment of the interior personality whose basic necessities had not been satisfied. For the last two categories Iroquois people appealed especially to the Society of the False Face.

The third illness category is the one that specially interests to us the therapists. The best method to cure and to prevent the psychological illnesses, according to the Iroquois, consisted on the interpretation of the dreams that took place during the three annual big festivals conducted by the medicine societies. In spring, in autumn, and especially in the five days festival that took place in the winter solstice, known as the "Festival of Dreams". Evidently drems were the focus of attention, interpretation and representation during this days. Each person shared a dream that had special importance for him or her. The other members, as public, responded with their impressions or interpretations. When the dreamer or other people consider that somebody had interpreted the dream correctly, the dreamer should pay that person a "ticket" that consisted on a gift or a favor. It was expected that among these people some kind of friendship was born as a result of this psico-symbolic transaction.

If the dream expressed a "soul’s desire", the whole tribe helped the individual to make its desire come true. On the other hand, if the desire came excessively "from the personality", which means it was against the rights of another person or it was an aggressive or exaggerated desire, the drama was represented in some symbolic way, with the public playing different rols. These oniric dramas look a lot like what now appears as the vanguard of the current dream therapy: the psicodrama and the Gestalt therapy. The essential thing in these methods is that the dream is taken to the conscience and the dialogue or action that takes place during the dream becomes expresed in the phisical word and thus is pulled out of unconscious darkness, avoiding repression and negative feelings which maight cause future psicological trubbles or even mental disease.

In my Workshops on Sjamanism & Dreams we rescue this Iroquois tradition and we carry out our own "Festival of Dreams" following the general guidelines that the Iroquois inherited us. Also learning different techniques which provides effective tools to remember and to interpret the dreams that the student will have throughout all her or his life.

We invite you to that attend the next
Shamanism & Dreams Workshop
It will be amusing and therapeutic!
Please visit the agenda

 

Go to the previous text on dreams