Early Franciscan missionaries among the Caddo Hasinai of
East Texas reported that dreams were valued highly among this people, and that
it was common to recount a dream by turning it into a song. Stories sung or
spoken with poetic rhythm are more likely to be implanted in memory that ones
delivered in rambllng or halting prose.
A dream may be turned into song. It may also deliver a song.
In many other indigenous cultures, a new song is considered to be one of
the greatest gifts of dreaming. Power songs used for shamanic dreaming may come
in this way. A song with the power to heal may come from a spiritual ally - the
spirit of a plant or an animal, a river or a supernatural being - communicating
in dreams. Among the Temiar Senoi of the Malayan rainforest, a dream song is
called a norng, which literally means a "roadway". The dream song opens a path through the forest of life, and a path for souls on both sides of death to find their right place.
Source: On Franciscan reports of Caddo dreaming, see Carla Gerona, “Flying Like an Eagle: Franciscan and Caddo
Dreams and Visions” in Anne Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle (eds) Dreams, Dreamers and Visions: The Early
Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2013) 125.
Painting of Hasinai village from Texas Historical Commission website.
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