Category : Blogs

Sub Category : Miscellaneous

   In Navajo culture, a skin-walker (yee naaldlooshii or he/she who walks on all fours) is a type of harmful witch who has the ability to turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal, usually for the purposes of harming people. Most skin-walker magic is done with the intent to commit murder, though some connect skin walkers with wendigos, an evil spirit born out of caniblism, going as far as saying they're one in the same. 
   I grew up hearing stories of yee naaldlooshii from my grandparents whenever I'd go to visit them, they lived on Navajo land, and enjoyed passing along the stories that had been passed down through generations. I was 16 going on 17 when I found out some stories aren't just myths. 
   My grandparents own a ranch, they mostly raise horses and cattle, and I helped them out as much as I could over the summers. Towards the end of my stay, one night, the dogs started going crazy, my grandpa and I rush outside with guns, assuming that it was a mountain lion or a coyote, both of which had been seen in the area. The cattle had already ran off, after checking around the house we rode out, looking for the cattle to make sure they were safe. We found them at the opposite side of the ranch, huddled together, frightened of something. After counting the up my grandpa pointed out that one was missing, we ultimately decided to ride back to the ranch and such for the missing cow in the morning, since things had claimed down a bit. On our was jack to the ranch, both our horses seemed on egde, about half way back I noticed something moving and pointed it out. My gramps took his rifle out and lead us closer, the missing cow was on the ground and a creature, it looked like a human, but was covered in fur with the same patterns a coyote would have, my grandpa told me to ride back to the ranch and call my cousins out here, I did what he said. After I go off the phone, my grandpa came back my grandma asked him what happened and all he said was yee naaldlooshii. 
   Ten minutes later my cousins showed up and we explained what happened to them. We all rode out to the spot where we saw it, but the only thing left was a few scraps of meat and a few bones that had been picked clean. We spent the next few hours cleansing the area. We never had any other incidents like that again, though that wasn't the last yee naaldlooshii related incident in that area, it was the only and last time anyone ever actually saw it up close enough to confirm that it was in fact a skin walker.