Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and

Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book,

all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Traditions are more than just things we do because we've always done them.

For example, Native American traditions are rich with lessons on how to respect and

connect with the natural world. In doing so many Native people gain an understanding of

how their own lives intertwine with the world around them.

As an example, members of the Ojibwe tribe of North America passed down a legend related to one of the biggest parts of everyday life,

sleep. Most people don't think of sleep as something strongly connected to the natural world around us,

but this legend urges us to look at things differently, and it even gives rise to a mystical item that you might have in your home today. The legend goes something like this.

There once was a woman named Asi Bakashi who watched over every creature on earth

while they slept. She was known to protect infants and children especially, but she

wasn't protecting them from wild animals, ghosts, or even monsters. She was

protecting them from bad dreams. Native peoples believed that dreams were a force of energy that

surrounded a person while they slept. That energy then caused the person to see

visions in their unconscious state. And so Asi Begashi

wove delicate silken nets over children's cribs.

These nets trap negative energy

so that it couldn't give the children's scary visions.

She used her hands to make sure the nets were strong enough to catch bad energy, but also soft and soothing enough to sleep under.

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