Games - Dreamspeakers

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The Dreamspeakers are a fictional group of shaman, witch doctors and medicine men. They are a Tradition of mages in Mage: the Ascension, a role-playing game created by the White Wolf game studios. They are masters of Spirit magic, such as summoning or binding spirits, necromancy, creating fetishes and travelling to the Umbra.

The Dreamspeakers were formed at the Grand Convocation. Naioba, an African dream-priestess, and Star-of-Eagles, a Powhatan medicine man, saw the Tradition as a brotherhood for shaman from all lands. To the European magi, the Dream-Speakers were a dumping ground for tribal magi who they didn't want to deal with. Native Americans from North and South America, tribes from Africa's endless savannahs and jungles, Australian Aborigines, and pale shaman from the far North were all lumped together in a single Tradition. This offended many non-western magi who weren't shaman, such as the Ngoma and other Crafts, who left the Convocation in disgust.

Star-of-Eagles and Naioba led the Tradition until Naioba's assassination. However, the Dreamspeakers quickly found themselves ravaged by the eras of Exploration, Colonialism and Imperialism. The Spanish conquest devastated the Aztecs and Inca Empire and spread small pox to the Mound Builders, while the Portuguese slave trade ravaged West Africa. Led by a delegation from the Iroquois Nation, many Dreamspeakers left the Council of Nine in protest.

By the 1800's, the Dreamspeakers found themselves fighting alongside the Lakota Sioux, Congolese, Afghan hill tribes, Haitian voodoo cults, Australian Aborigines, Rhodesians and other indigenous people. Many supported the Ghost Dance and Zulu warriors. Unfortunately, they saw their people's traditional cultures eroded away by Indian boarding schools and the Stolen Generation. European Dreamspeakers, a minority within the Tradition, found themselves bolstered by the interest in Romanticism and spiritism. Most were spiritualists who spoke to ghosts, faeries and elemental-spirits.

Today, the Dreamspeakers are a diverse and divided Tradition. They draw members from many indigenous peoples around the world, and are also very involved in environmentalism and ecology.

Cultures and Sects

Many Dreamspeakers are of Native American descent - Cherokee, Ojibwa, Inuit, Zuni, Shoshone, Paiute, Navajo, Cheyenne, Hopi, Lenape, Salish, Algonquin, Kwakiutl, Athapascans, Apache, Blackfoot, Seminole, Shuswap, St%27at%27imc, Wintu, Maidu, Yurok, Maricopa, Yuki and many others. They are the children of Coyote and Raven, who keep alive the traditions of the Sweat_lodge, Sun Dance and Vision Quest. They fought alongside Tecumseh, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. From the ruins of the Anasazi to reservations, they fight today to keep alive their beliefs. They have had success popularizing the Native American Church and pow-wows.

In Central and South America, Dreamspeakers saw the rise of the Olmec, Maya civilization, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tupinamba, La Venta, Chibcha, Toltec, Carib and other ancient civilizations. The Conquistadors and Simon Bolivar crushed their people, but from the feet of the Brazilian Christ to the Andes they keep the old Aztec, Mayan and Incan ways alive. In the Amazon Rainforest Dreamspeakers draw from the the Quechua, Aymara, Yaghan, Taíno, Tapirapé, Yanomami, Manasi and other surviving Indians. Other Dreamspeakers in Latin America draw from Hispanic Curanderos or Brazilian Santo Daime which combines Christianity, Spiritism and Yoruba belief with Indian shamanism and Ayahausca.

Other Dreamspeakers follow the traditions of Africa, such as the Fula people, Igbo people, Dogon people, Himba, Kirdi, Ashanti people, Maasai, San and !Kung bushmen, Tuareg, Dagara people, Malagasy people, Copts, Swazi and others. They come from the Côte d'Ivoire, the Horn of Africa, the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the veld of southern Africa, and they continue the rites of ancient Egypt, Ife, Great Zimbabwe, Carthage and Ethiopia. In the Americas, descendants of the African diaspora practice religions such as Voudon in Haiti and New Orleans, Santeria in Cuba, Obeah in Jamaica, Candomble in Brazil and Hoodoo in the southern US.

The Tradition also has a strong presence in the South Pacific. Dreamspeakers amongst the Australian Aborigines wander Uluru and the Australian Outback. They are said to be very wise in the secrets of the Dreamtime. Others served as Kahuna to the Hawai'ians, Marquesans and Maori of Polynesia, and preserving arts such as the tiki, Hula and ta moko. The jungles of the Pacific_Islands and Indonesia kept them isolated from the modern world. Even today, they contend with missionaries and tourists by turning to their traditional cultures or forming Cargo Cults.

In Europe and Asia, the Dreamspeakers once drew from ancient Norse, Germanic, Celtic, Pictish and Slavic shamanism. Today they have been pushed to the periphery by the Order of Hermes, Celestial Chorus and Akashic Brotherhood. Still, they can be found amongst certain tribal minorities such as the Sami people of Scandinavia, the Mongols, Koreans, Rrom Gypsies, native Siberians, Bedouin, the Tatars, the Ainu people of Japan, the Hmong and Mien hill tribes, followers of Wektu Telu in Indonesia, the Jakun and Sakai peoples of Malaya, Semang Negritos, tribal Filipinos and Tibetan Bonpo from the Himalayas. In China, the Dreamspeakers tend to be folk shaman from ethnic minorities like the Yi, Jingpo, Mosuo and Nakhi.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Dreamspeakers ]

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