submitted by /u/chameleon3174
[link] [comments]This is my first long post on reddit so sorry for any grammical errors and if it seems a bit rushed, i am working as I type this out, but I will recall as much as I can to post this. This will be a long one.To start this story, I was raised on the Navajo reservation with my grandparents In new mexico north west of Gallup, NM. I spent 8 years with my grandparents before I moved back to southern Arizona. This encounter happened in the autumn month of October, i was around 16 at the time. My grandfather and I would travel up to the mountains where we would spend most of the day collecting wood for the upcoming winter. As well as some hunting if we didn’t already have enough sheep and cattle for the winter. On this day, as we chopped at already felled trees from the week before, we came across a deer torn open with its head missing, no clean cut, just as if they were ripped from the rest of the deer with brute force. Grandfather told me that we would be returning home immediately and that he would be talking to his brother. Returning back to the cabin was a silent walk, except for the occasional swearing from my grandfather. After a couple of minutes, we reached the cabin. Grandpa told me to get into the truck, and that he had to lock the cabin. I sat in the truck and looking back as I was concerned with what we had just saw, he was locking the cabin, looking around, and then placing something above the door. He got into the truck and drove back home. During the drive, grandpa told me that he needed to speak to his brother, and that he wanted me to tell my cousin Kyle to bring the sheep back into the corral then meet him again at his brothers house. We lived in a community with our family on our land, Our land spanned across 500 acres, although we were always told as kids not to go past Great Grandparents abandoned house. When my grandfather and I returned back, he pulled in front of my grandpas brother’s house. For anonymity we will call him frank. Grandpa as I would call him and his brothers, was someone who would tell me the most about Navajo culture, creation, Tales of how my family came about the area and lineage that goes back to over 500 years tracing to Canada, he even taught me the language when I was growing up. Grandpa frank was a hunter and a master at skinning and tanning furs, On top of that, he was a medicine man as well. TLDR Frank knew his shit. I ran and told my cousin Kyle to bring the sheep back into the corrals, then ran back to Frank’s house. I walked inside of Franks house, seeing that my grandparents were talking in the living room, Frank exclaimed. ” Little man! ( my navajo name) how are you doing shíyázhí? ( term of endearment to someone elses son)” I responded well and told him about the deer we saw. His look faded from happiness to concern, he proceeded to take a seat into his recliner in his living room and told me to have a seat next to my grandfather. Clasping his hands together he looked at both my grandpa and I. “Little man, What you and grandpa saw today was evidence that the skin-walkers are back in the area” Being told about the existence of skin-walkers from elders was not surprising, I have been told my entire life of skin-walkers and dark forms of rituals being real. But what surprised me is that he said Skin-walkers, not singular. This scared me and I asked ” there’s more than one?” Frank nodded a hesitant yes as he looked to his right and prodded the fire in his cast iron stove. After a brief pause, he looked back up to the clock on the wall, it had almost been 1130 in the morning. Frank looked back at my grandfather and motioned towards the door where his coat was at. “we are going to the hill behind your great grandparents house, We need to create protection wards again.” Frank said. I was STUNNED, this entire time I’ve been here and heard, NO ONE has gone to the hill behind my great grandparents house except some students and archaeologists which I will get to later, we have always been told that its not safe up there, that there was broken pottery and remnants of a previous tribe in the area and picking up the pottery would make you sick, induce sleep paralysis like dreams and visions, Feeling dizzy and many other things that have been told to me after my aunt once took a piece of pottery from the land back to phoenix where she experienced these symptoms for 3 days before driving back 7 hours to return it. We left his house and got into Franks old 1960’s baby blue chevy pickup truck that had seen enough sun to fade to a sky blue. We headed down the only dirt road to my great grandparents house. The house was about a mile away from any of the houses I grew up in. As we approached the house I smelled death. A couple of days had passed I imagined for it to smell that pungent. About 20 seconds later, we reached the abandoned house, Where my great grandparents had raised 9 children in a 2 bedroom house, it was very small house, maybe 580-600 sqft total. The roof had somewhat caved in and the wood was sun bleached, weathered, and split from decades of being abandoned. In the front, stood a dead tree, and in front of it, a dead cow, torn open, head missing, ripped from the main carcass, Flies filled the area and made a low hum as they passed around us. My grandpa walked over to dead cow and looked at the hind leg. “not our brand, it must belong to the Yazzies, we must have a opening in our fence on that side.” Frank looked over the carcass and took out a pack of Marlboro reds, and proceeded to light a cigarettes, grandpa in turn did the same, speaking as he lit his cigar rete “lets head up the hill, and teach you something that grandma and your parents will never hear about” I laughed as I knew if my parents or grandma found out, I would never hear the end of it. Franked reached into the cab of his truck and pulled out a backpack, along with his hunting rifle and his sheath knife. After fastening the knife and slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he gave me the backpack to carry, it was heavy, and smelled strongly of sage, cedar wood and Juniper. We reached the top of the hill after about a minute, the hill was a lot taller than Imagined, At the top of the hill, it was somewhat flat, and large. Around the area there’s massive amounts of broken pottery and tools that any archeologists would drool over. I’ve heard from my great grandmother that once before that students from a university and some archeologists visited my great grandparents home and asked them for permission to dig in the area as they saw the remnants of the previous civilization on our land. My grandmother told them they can dig when she dies, she was 100 at the time, When she dies at the age of 106 the archeologists came back, and my grandpa told them no, that its not safe and better kept at the hands of the elders there. The archeologists more intrigued decided to dig behind our backs and the hill we were now standing on. Cops got called and they were escorted out by Navajo police. Some were caught having pottery on them before they left as well, all returned but still scary after hearing what my aunt went through. Looking over the ground and remembering all this being told to me. I saw it, The pottery, at first it looked like a couple pieces, then as we walked further, there, so much broken pottery, tools and rock outline/borders. Some pottery had been sitting there for so long that they cracked and laid broken apart in the exact same spot they were last left however long ago. Some pottery was white, red, grey, and black with white inlay. The pottery had texture to it and some with painted designs on them, faded but not by much. Frank called to me and I walked over to him, careful to not step on any pottery. He pointed at a piece of red pottery and said ” shíyázhí what do you see there?” I looked at the piece at first puzzled, it was a painting of what looked like a man on all fours but it couldn’t be a man, there was antlers on his head, and fur, then it clicked, The Navajo word for Skin walker is yee naaldlooshii But literal translation is “by means of it, it goes on all fours ” I felt fear hit me like a truck and I felt sick immediately, wanting to throw up, nauseous. “The ancient ones lived here, long ago, the Anasazi. Practicing dark rituals and turning themselves to what we see today.” Frank said. Grandpa frank then walked me to a stone outline with no pottery, the circle was about 5 feet in diameter and he kneeled down and told me as he was digging, There are protection wards your grandpa and I buried here, and our fathers before us taught us how to make these wards” “how long to they last?” I asked, “sometimes they last for decades, sometimes they last as little as 6 years as we’ve seen, this time, 16 years.” frank said as he dug in the center of the stone circle lifting out something that was wrapped in deer skin, there was dirt and dust shaking loose as he unwrapped it. “In these wards we put, sage, juniper, burned cedar, corn pollen and turquoise wrapped in deer skin and buried to keep The sickness and keep the ancient ones away.” I asked him “there was only one painted on the pottery, where are the other ones?” my grandpa chimed in after being quiet for most of the time ” Behind these hills and down father south as if you are heading towards tohatchi is called naaldlooshii pass, over the years people say that there 2 different ones down there. The Tohatchi Chapter house by the old trading post has meetings and a couple years ago there were medicine men attending, everyone knows why, but we can handle this ourselves since its on our land.” Frank showed me how to prepare the ward together, I wont post about specifics on how we made it as i still feel sworn to its secrecy and value to me. Afterwards we wrapped up the ward in a new deer skin as the old one was a bit tough and stiff. “Littleman, When you are older, you may have to do this on your own, your grandpa and I are getting older and we wont have the strength to come out here and do this later” The thought of losing them pained me, how much they had taught me and how much more I could learn, and how much I loved them. But they were right, inevitably we all face death. I learned everything I could from them in that moment about what do do and what not to do. It was a lot to take in, but before both of there deaths these past couple of years, I asked every possible scenario and keep all the knowledge in a safe place in that cabin in the woods. After all this was done, I moved to Arizona with my family, My dad got a new military contracting job and my mom could work remote, I begged, pleaded to stay on the reservation, to no avail. I lived in Arizona briefly until my family moved again, to the other side of the united states on the east coast. 2 Years ago, I received a call from my cousin, they were back, 7 years had passed, i felt uneasy, but know what i had to do, my cousin told me that he had lost 2 sheep overnight, and that my other cousins kept smelling death and rotting flesh with a strong scent of copper. My cousin kept them inside when the smell would come. I made a Trip to the reservation and told my parents I was going to visit the graves of my grandfathers as well as to help out my grandma, I wasn’t lying. Just bending the truth. When I landed in Albuquerque I was picked up by my cousin Kyle, whos name I will keep as he has recently passed away as of a year ago. we went to the traders markets in Gallup getting our supplies before we headed towards Tohatchi. Once we got back to Tohatchi, we decided to take the backroads to avoid being seen by family members, The only problem is that the backroads go right through yee naaldlooshii pass. There was still sunlight, not that it mattered, the ancient ones can be seen day or night, but at least i could see with daylight. after about 30 minutes we parked behind the hill. As we were about to get out the truck, we hard a woman screaming, long, agonizing, and not too far off in the distance, Kyle grabbed his hunting rifle from the truck as I grabbed the supplies we just picked up. We would need to make quick work of this, Kyle called his mom to tell everyone to stay inside and wait until we got home. Thankfully tohatchi was close enough and had cell service. We reached the top of the hill. I saw the stone outline I had once seen 7 years ago and got to work, digging and then preparing the ward. I kept asking Kyle if he had seen anything, Nothing, nothing at all. After the ward was finished i placed it carefully wrapped in fresh deer skin. and buried it, performing the ritual I was taught, as kyle watched over. With the ward safely placed and finished, we began to head out, Kyle pointed out that there were footprints on the hill. Him and I carefully walked around the pottery not to touch any of it, and he was right, but it looked like 2 sets of prints one was a woman’s shoe with a square heel, This raised immediate red flags as we were 6 miles away from anyone else and what would a woman be wearing heels out here for? a closer look revealed that at first the prints showed slow paces, shorter distances between each step, then the length of them starting getting longer until it looked like it was a full on sprint, but something was different, the squares of her sole looked like it was getting wider and taking shape to something else. we stopped and decided not to go any closer but instead drive the truck around the hill by the house in case a quick escape was needed. After 5 minutes of driving the truck around we found the prints again, I told Kyle to slow down and saw the prints were headed straight towards the water well we had for the cows about a mile away. The sun was still showing that we had about 30 minutes of daylight left if we were lucky, but the livestock was a lively hood and the main income for my family, not may jobs in tohatchi or neighboring towns that made money like livestock. Before Frank died, he owned a gas station but got really drunk and sold it. Alcoholism wasn’t a big surprise as many native Americans fell to its addiction and became dependent on it, I mean, that’s how Kyle died as well after his liver just gave out on him one day. after he came down with cancer, his life deteriorated quickly and so Livestock was not everything, losing one cow could lose 300-500 dollars, more than that would be devastating. We drove at around 15 mph to keep sight of the tracks, which was REALLY hard, eventually, we reached to where we could see the well in the distance about 500 feet away, the prints had now formed completely into a cougar or mountain lion paws. When we were about 200 feet away, the smell, Rotting death and heavy pungent odor, no mistakes about it, this was one we were hoping not to see. at 100 feet i could see a cow, on its side, with a big cat, it was a mountain lion with its face deep on the cows neck area, the cow was covered in blood on its side and Kyle and I knew it was too late. Kyles truck now fully stopped, he stepped out and grabbed his rifle which he hastily threw in the back of the truck when we drove the truck back around the hill. Door ajar, Kyle slings his rifle and shoulders it, with his hand on his door and rifle on top of his hand, He chambered one round and after about 4 seconds of silence, he fired. The mountain lion let go of the cow, looked straight at us, and ran off to the backroads we took, we followed it, losing sight of it. We found the tracks in less than a minute and followed them slowly and cautiously, the prints morphing yet again, from this animal, into longer wider tracks, 50 feet later, the tracks had fully morphed into moccasin footprints, i looked i Kyle and said ” I think we have seen enough for today.” he agreed, and we headed back to the cows watering hole, the cow now dead. we decided to attach some chains to the cows feet and slowly drag it away from the watering hole so that it wouldn’t contaminate the water. now dark, we headed back home and told everyone that coyotes had gotten a cow and that we moved it away from the watering hole. MY grandma asked about a faint scream she heard, i told her it was me letting out my emotions when i killed the coyote and saw that we lost a good valuable cow, she let out a small chuckle and all continued as if nothing wrong had gone on. It has been a year since I’ve been back home, and its been a year since we lost Kyle. during this time vie been planning on telling my other cousin who i trust will help me continue on what my grandfathers taught me in the case I am no longer present. For 2 years, no signs of the ancient one we saw that night has emerged, and all seems to be going well on the reservation besides Covid taking so many of my families loved ones on the reservation. I never told anyone about this and will probably not tell anyone about this besides here on reddit. I felt the need to post this more so to get it off my chest, sometimes i have vivid dreams of that night. Ive saged several peoples houses when they had, odd, activity in the homes. Ive had some dreams of being back at that cabin in the woods, and frank, and my grandpa as well as a medicine man that was in my family hundreds of years ago that ive described to frank before he died, and he identified that medicine man in the lineage he collected. I have many many more stories to tell about my grandpa, Frank, and Kyle. I have some pictured of the pottery if anyone would like to see, I have not gone back up to photograph the pottery with the skin-walker painting on it yet. Ill try to answer any questions promptly but I have a busy work schedule. submitted by /u/chameleon3174 [link] [comments]