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Skinwalkers are known as animals that are possessed by people—or people that have the ability to morph between an animal and a person. Sometimes, the skinwalker falls somewhere in the middle, exhibiting both traits of a human and a beast. In Navajo tradition, skinwalkers are evil witches or yee naaldushi (“it goes on all fours” in Navajo) that take on the appearance of a wild creature. Sometimes, there is a motif involved, such as a coyote as a trickster or malicious one, or a crow as a bringer of misfortune. Generally, these beings are associated with bad omens, so they are best avoided. Such power isn’t acquired by chance. To become a skinwalker, a Navajo medicine man or woman needs to reach the highest level of the priesthood and perform some truly evil deed, such as killing a family member. Once they have attained the supernatural powers of changing into animals, they are free to inflict suffering however they wish—following people around, tapping on windows in the middle of the night, and making scary noises to pierce the silence.
The shapeshifting ability is also associated with a flight-or-fight response. There have been stories of native witches transforming into a cat when cornered by people more powerful than them. Other abilities include the power to transfer their consciousness to another living thing—such that they can control the actions of the host. Once in animal form, the witch is granted supernatural physical ability, such as being able to travel long distances without getting tired.
It Watches Me
I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood in southern Utah. Though I am of mixed descent, I have a grandma who is full-blood Navajo who lives a few hours’ drive away from us. Every once in a while, my dad drives me and my younger brother Joseph to her house to stay for a few days. The place is fairly remote—it’s just a piece of desert land with a double trailer stuck in the middle. She has a chain link fence that separates her plot from her neighbors, but the distance between the two homes is astounding. In a way, I envy that way of living. You never have to see your neighbors or worry about them spying on you. I get a little weirded out every time we go because my grandma is the type of person who believes they are cursed. When grandpa passed away—I was still too young to understand—but the one thing I remember is how my grandma openly talked about “the curse” and how it killed grandpa.
My dad says that grandma is going senile, so we need to check up on her frequently. If she talks about weird things, we have to go along with it. We had a visit recently, where we stayed for Labor Day weekend. I was pretty bummed out about it because some of my friends invited me to a concert, but my dad said that visiting her was more important. He feared that she was developing dementia and that it was getting worse. When we got there, the yard was very unkempt. Weeds were growing everywhere, and my grandma had spread what looked like a white powder all around her house. My dad brought his lawnmower to help clean, while I and Joseph were tasked with entertaining her.
She was making food that day and told us we could watch TV while she prepared dinner. Though it was still light out, the inside of her trailer was completely dark. We had to turn the lights on because she kept them off. All of her windows were draped in heavy curtains that let zero sunlight in. It wasn’t long before she started doing weird grandma things. She handed me a Coca-Cola bottle filled with a greenish liquid and said it was a protective ointment. It kind of smelled like flowers and rubbing alcohol. It didn’t sting, though. I rubbed some on my hands and neck and did the same for Joseph.
I noticed that grandma kept peeking out of the curtains with wild eyes. My dad noticed it too and finally asked her what she was doing. “Yenaldlooshi is watching me,” she said with a nonchalant tone. She could have been talking about the weather or today’s Powerball numbers. My dad gave me a look that told me we had to be patient with her. This continued for the rest of the stay there. She would periodically look outside or open the front door and sniff the air—but never staying outside for a prolonged period. I thought it was a little scary, but as my dad said, we had to be patient with her.
When it was time to go back home, my dad threw open the grill and had a small barbecue just for us. I and Joseph took it upon ourselves to prettify the yard, so we planted potted flowers my dad bought and placed stones in interesting patterns. I don’t know how this happened, but I lost track of my little brother Joseph. One second he was looking for stones right next to me, and the next second I hear grandma yelling at him from the porch. “Get away from that animal, Joseph! It isn’t safe!” I turn around to see grandma with a bowl of casserole in her hand, and then I see Joseph sitting behind the chain link fence poking his fingers through the gap at some large dog. I know it was big, as Joseph is already large for a 3rd grader and yet this dog towered over him. It took a while to recognize that this dog wasn’t at all normal-looking. The snout was longer than most breeds, the fur long and hairy like a wild animal. Then, I saw the sunlight reflect off its eyes—yellow as a traffic light.
But it wasn’t staring at me or Joseph. It was looking directly at grandma with such intensity! I’ve never seen a dog stand perfectly still and stare like that. Normally, they move around or sniff at something after getting bored of just sitting there, but not this dog—or thing. Grandma was about to get up to retrieve Joseph when the creature let out a chilling snarl and bound off. My dad asked her if she knew the owner of that dog, and her reply was that of frantic screams. “The Yenaldlooshi has found me! The Yenaldlooshi has found me!” She yelled and clutched her chest. It took us a little while to calm her down, but when she did, she went into the house and produced a bowl of white powder that she proceeded to dump along the fence where we found Joseph and the dog. I will never forget the horror-stricken look on my dad’s face when grandma started losing it. I will never forget the deep yellow eyes of the Yenaldlooshi or whatever it was.
My dad said it wasn’t safe to leave grandma alone, so she had to come with us and sleep on the couch. My dad kept rifles in his house, so I felt much safer in being home. Doubtless, so did grandma, as she didn’t once spread her white powder. She also brought along bottles of green liquid that she made us all splash on our backs each time we showered. My dad towed her trailer somewhere else after that and sold the land at a bargain price. Late at night, I could hear both of them at the dinner table discussing the curse and how a childhood rival was stalking her. It was difficult to follow because they talked in hushed tones, but I swear about hearing that a witch had cursed her—but what I wasn’t sure was if the creature with yellow eyes was a minion of some sort or the actual witch. You don’t ask such things around here.
A Friend of the Snow
It gets unbearably cold in the region of Northern Canada. It gets so bad in winter months that even cars won’t start. My family has lived there for a while now, and we have grown accustomed to many of the hazards of the land. If we run out of food, we can readily hunt for deer or elk—not to mention the abundance of wild berries and nuts.
As a consequence, I grew up side by side with hunters. I got my first rifle at 14 and was allowed to go on solo hunting trips when I became 15—not the usual coming-of-age story, I know. When I was 18, I went on such a hunting trip—just me, my gun, and my knife. I crept out of bed early to see if I could find any rabbits following the previous night’s thaw. It didn’t take too long to find fresh prints, which I was an expert at identifying by now—two hours or so into the woods, and I noticed something strange. The usual woodland sounds were missing; no birds chirping about or the rustling of leaves. It was as if the wind just disappeared and the animals too. Maybe it was too cold for animals to be out? That wouldn’t make sense, as the rabbit tracks were fresh.
The usual protocol for hunting rabbits involves following the tracks they leave as well as any droppings and waiting for them to appear. In that deafening silence, I couldn’t hear anything. I laid in the snow for another fifteen minutes or so before deciding that no rabbits would be coming this way. I slung my rifle over my shoulder and dusted the snow off my jeans. When I turned around, I saw a large black dog looking directly at me. I jumped back, not expecting to see a thing. Upon further expectation, I saw that it had a collar and figured it had wandered off. The closest houses were about an hour away, so it didn’t immediately click why this pup was all the way out here.
“Are you lost, buddy?” I said, hoping it was friendly—but the dog just stood there, staring at me. Something about its eyes made me uneasy. Something must be wrong with it because they had a milk film—maybe it was blind. Those eyes seemed to peer into my soul. I approached slowly, not wanting to startle it or come off as aggressive. I called out to it again, and it didn’t so much as flinch—no wagging of the tail or puckering of ears. I managed to take out some dried deer meat from my bag and offered it to the dog, which took it and gulped down. I guess it was starved because it hardly even chewed. It took out some more and patted its head after it finished eating—not as aggressive as other dogs I’ve encountered in the wilderness.
A loud, menacing bark nearby made both of us turn around. A pack of maybe 6 dogs stood there looking at us, each with the same white film on their eyes. I was about to slowly reach for my gun to scare them away because boy, did they look mean. But as I lifted my hand, the dog from before licked my hand as to say “thank you” and went to join the others. The lick was icy, and it sent shivers down my spine. One of the dogs was visibly larger than the rest, and for a moment, its eyes lingered on me even when the rest of the pack had started to walk away. That really freaked me out, but I was relieved to see it turn around at last. I felt a little proud of myself for not jumping the gun, as it were. What a strange breed. I’ve never encountered those eyes in canines before.
As the pack left, life started to return to the forest. I could hear animals again, strangely enough. I thought little of it at the time because I heard what sounded like the squeaks of rodents nearby that I had to investigate. I killed three rabbits before heading home. Call it hunter’s intuition, but there was something eerie about those dogs I saw. I only referred to them as dogs because wolves have lighter fur in this area. The occasional black wolf is rare, and even then, their eyes aren’t like the ones I saw.
I asked my dad if he knew of any local dogs that fit the general description of what I saw. His answer made me feel uneasy because there was no other explanation. He told me there weren’t many dogs around our area, and of the ones he knew didn’t match my description. Weird. Did I encounter some ragtag pack of strays who somehow managed to live in the wilderness? The big dog that gave me a hard stare down before leaving was easily wolf size. It must have been 100 pounds, at least—about the same weight as an adult male.
Though I went on many more hunting trips by myself, I never saw the black dog or its pack out in the woods. The winter soon passed, and things got much warmer. More animals were out, which is always good for hunting. I was half-expecting to run into the black dogs any day because of the abundance of food and the lower temperatures. One spring morning, I heard scratching at the door and went to go see what it was. I thought it was just the rain, but sure enough, there was the same dog from before with wet matted fur. It had the same unmistakable eyes. I gave it a few head pats and fetched some more dried deer jerky, which the dog gulped down just as it had in our previous encounter. How on earth did it find me? Even if it were to follow my scent, the Spring rains would have long washed away any traces of it. Now, it knew where I lived. Though of course, back then, I thought nothing of it. The dog ate a bit more and then left. But I swear, it gave me a little bow at the end there as if saying thank you.
I was awoken in the middle of the night as if waking from a nightmare. My hearing rate was way up, and I’m not entirely sure why. I think some instinctual animal spirit inside of me was telling me to wake up because the danger was nearby. Immediately, I knew why. Beyond my window, there was a figure—just standing there by the tree line. I reached for my rifle just in case and took a peek out the window for a better look. But whatever fear I had dissipated as I stared outside, looking head-on at what appeared to be a native woman. It was dark, but I could tell she was naked. She had long black hair twisted into two braids and pale skin that shone in the moonlight. Above all, she had the same white eyes of the dog that ate my jerky. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to do except for lowering my rifle. She noticed me and quietly started walking toward the window. She was actually coming towards me! I didn’t know whether to panic or call the police. The funny thing is that I wasn’t really scared, just shocked at the strangeness of it all.
She eventually got within a few feet of the window but didn’t stop her pace. She was a woman, alright, probably in her early 30s or late 20s—young, but not too young. I jumped when she tapped on the window for me to open it up. I tried talking to her in English, but she didn’t seem to understand. She only spoke some strange, ancient tongue that I didn’t recognize. For a moment, we just stared at each other, seeing as we couldn’t communicate with spoken word. Her eyes were magnificent but didn’t look sick. The more I stared, the more I felt like I was in a dream. I saw galaxies swirling round and round—I saw the past, and I saw the future. Heck, maybe it was all a dream. But then, she caught me by the hand with an icy cold touch. My body temperature must have fallen by a few degrees. She closed my hand and left a white feather. Then, she bowed and ran off into the moonlight. I know it wasn’t a dream, as the feather was still in my room the very next day. I have no explanation for what it was, but it was the most surreal thing I’ve experienced. I’ve never done drugs before, but that’s what I imagine they would feel like.
I never did see the dog or the woman again. I still keep the feather around as a memento of the strange encounter. After doing some research, I knew what I saw. It must have been a skinwalker. The woman was probably a witch or priestess that for whatever reason decided to make me a friend. Sometimes, I find presents around the house or on my hunting trips—dead birds nicely rolled-up in leaves, nuts, and berries. I’m not one to let such good things.
