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The Importance Of Dreams In James Welch's Fools Crow

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“A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you are fast asleep.” This nostalgic melody sung by Disney’s Cinderella expresses the importance and meanings that dreams can have. In Native American culture, dreams are used as tools to guide one through life. Many big decisions made by Native Americans are influenced by dreams. It is said that supernatural powers or omens from spirits or gods are to be received via dreams or visions. In receiving them, magical abilities, or the ability to look into the future can be bestowed onto one. In Fools Crow, James Welch, illustrates several characters having visions and dreams. Throughout the book the dreams are seen as visions of the future. Welch uses these messages to reflect upon Native American culture and to foreshadow motives or events that will affect the characters later in the book. Mik-api, the medicine man has a dream about a raven. Mik-api asked White Man’s Dog to prepare the sweatlodge, thus beginning White Man’s Dog’s apprenticeship to him. Mik-api begins telling him about a dream he had the previous night. “As I slept, the Raven came down to me from some high place…” (52) He explains how the Raven had stumbled upon a “four-legged creature” known has a wolverine. The wolverine had been trapped into one of the Napikwans traps, Raven jumped down to save it, but was unsuccessful. As Mik-api explains the dream to White Man’s Dog he tells him that he must find the wolverine and save it. In saving the animal, he would adopt the

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