I want to know everything I can about skin-walkers. It frustrates me that those that remain to know stories concerning them, and fewer still those that know their rights and ceremonies, consider it taboo to speak of with outsiders.Clyde Kluckhohn's Navajo Witchcraft is the only encompassing book I know of on Navajo magick.I want more. It's ridiculous that I have to sift through parody and pop-culture fucking nonsense concerning them to even get little droplets of their authentic lore.If you have resources concerning them and their nature please drop it.Skinwalker thread ig.
I don't have resources, just things I've heard and read over the years. And yeah, the Navajo are really cagey on this topic. A guide I spoke to a year back said they'll talk about it during the winter, when this matriarchal spider witch is hibernating. I asked him if they got their powers through the Datura plant, and he wouldn't say. The story is thie first witch was the result of the war between the Navajo and the Ut. The Ut had been so vicious towards the Navajo that one accessed these powers to exact revenge. Supposedly the cost is murdering someone you love (I've heard that same is required to attain top level fame and success in Hollywood). This makes them an outcast amongst their people and cursed to live in solitude. There is a song they sing with the animal hide, of that animal whose abilities they want to take on and amplify, laid out before them and as they sing the hide moves up and envelops the practitioner.
>>43054309>matriarchal spider witchGonna need more information here lol..Also I do find it very convincing that Skinwalkers are real simply because of how seriously the native Americans take this concept, throughout all oral history, and even today. Doesn't seem like something you'd just make up for funnies
>>43054101I'm probably the only person on here who will tell you the truth about them.They aren't "forest demons". They are shamans. They're evil shamans. That's it. I've tried telling people before but they get so resistant because it ruins the larp I guess. But the reality of these groups is that they are evil shamans. Their whole shtick is they use the same powers as the medicine men, but to hurt people instead.
>>43055685They are using basically the same things as the normal Navajo, albeit with taboo breakage. Everything good in the Navajo and related cultures, is inverted for power reasons by the sk*nwalker. Navajo don't like talking about them, for a few reasons. One is colonial fears. Two is that they are considered so disgusting and morally reprehensible that just to speak about them brings bad luck, if not their very attention.
>>43054309>There is a song they sing with the animal hide, of that animal whose abilities they want to take on and amplify, laid out before them and as they sing the hide moves up and envelops the practitionerIf this is true...Then what >>43055685 this anon says might explain what they are and how they do what they do
>>43055661I know, right. That bit was mentioned as the guide was telling me they only talk about her during the winter.
>>43055748Yeah, it's a traveling. Uhh, neo shamans talk about it. But the concept is broadly similar in terms of activity. The shaman takes on certain practices such as singing, dancing, standing/sitting a certain way alongside potentially drumming, wearing animal skins, etc. Each culture with a medicine does it a little different. Some cultures take on the animal skin and then, when going into the "trance", they become the animal. They then either keep the character of the animal during the practice in ceremony, or they journey out of the body in spirit form to do activities such as soul retrieval. The evil shaman has basically the same core practices as the good ones, he just uses them for evil and inverts all the taboos for power. If the medicine man goes out to retrieve souls, the sk*nwalker goes out to take them. If the medicine man cures, the sk*nwalker curses and eats. If you know how to be a medicine man, you know how to be the opposite.
>>43054101
>>43054101The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained by Stanley Milford Jr. this is a memoir by a former Navajo Nation Ranger who investigated real-world reports of the supernatural, witchcraft, and skinwalkers or Yee naaldlooshii on the reservation.Skinwalkers: The Navajo Shape-Shifters and the Curse That Cannot Be Named by Cole Nightwood, a previous anon just shred it. It’s a well-researched exploration of the Navajo witchcraft traditions of both good and evil.
>>43054101It's literally just people who manipulate others or crush a persons psyche to such a level that they are now in control of the person. This process is systemized into magic and whatnot, basically it's possession. Creepy crawler people puppetteer others and there you go, skinwalker. the person you see is not who is in control
good thread
You need to talk to the Navajo, but they aren't going to start just telling you everything. It helps to have friends.
>>43059069Whole lot of words just to come to a conclusion we're dealing with demons.
>>43055685the skinless giants and they who walk with us are far worse. you can just leave booze with a bunch of antifreeze in it out for the skinwalker to drink and die from.
>>43054101skinwalkers are no longer discernible from real people. your entire identity could be at risk.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lr2K71gtZk4&ra=m
Like pretty much every bogeyman, its a way for the tribe to demonize loner males>There's the chief and his men who are related by blood or marriage who have to defend their women, from enemy hunting parties, wild animals, and loner males>Surviving alone is much more difficult, they no longer can afford to follow customs like not cannibalizing others>The only reason for them to be alone is that they were kicked from their tribe for butting heads with the chief>They wear animal pelts because they can't process it into clothing alone>In some cases they would successfully kidnap a woman and she would become his companion and start a family of his own
>>43054101Hmm maybe you could check out indonesian stories about black magic. According to their folklore someone can use black magic to curse and kill people, but by doing that they lose their own humanity and transform into some monster. In some of the stories the monster pretends to be human so shapeshifting seems to be one of their abilities
