The jingle dress is a dance style which came to the Ojibwe people along the Minnesota and northern Ontario waters through a series of visions and dreams. The dance stytle was given to the people from spirits in the spirit world. The jingle dress is used for cermonies for when a person is dying, or severely ill. As well as healing for a family when a loved one has passed away.
The regalia worn for this dance is the jingle dress, which includes ornamentation with multiple rows of metal cones which create a jingling sound as the dancer moves.
A story about how the Jingle Dress dance was made begins with Maggie White, a member of the Whitefish Bay First Nation located on the shores of Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario. There are various accounts of the story but all agree that the dress and the dance originated from a dream. As the story goes, a young girl was sick and gave no signs of recovering. Her distraught father, offered his tobacco and prayed for the Creator's assistance.Assistance came by way of a dream, in which the father was shown how to create this dress and instructed about a dance that would accompany the dress. Upon waking, he set about making the dress and put it on his daughter so that she would dance as he had been instructed to show her. In spite of her illness, she was somehow able to dance and as the dance progressed, she became stronger and was relieved of her illness. The young girl was Maggie White who went on to live a long and fulfilling life sharing the teachings associated with the Jingle dress. Thus the Jingle Dress dance is considered a healing dance. A sacred obligation is carried by women who wear this dress as Jingle dress dancers are often called upon to dance for a sick or injured community member or to help families who are grieving. The metal cones that adorn the dress were originally made from snuff tin lids and create a beautiful sound when the dancer is moving. The spiritual power of the dress is said to originate as an energy which emanates from the sound of the cones that sing out to the spirits as the dancer moves in time with the drum.