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I have seen skinwalkers !!! I never believed in them until 2003 when I was driving a school van full of kids from a basketball in Cuba back to Farmington late one night and we were about 2 miles S. of Lybrook when the the coach told me to speed up. I ask him why and it probably was one of the scariest things I ever saw. There was this old man dressed in what looked like animal skins running beside the van at 60 mph. Needless to say I pushed it to 80 and the guy disappeared after about 2 miles. I do beliveenow in them now and I think they just like scaring the crap out of people. I also have never heard of a skinwalkers actually hurting someone.
WOW! This stuff is amazing. Anyone have any Apache stories? For those of you that have not followed any of my other posts, I live in TX but am moving to Ruidoso in a few months. Do any of you have any stories from that area? I think that there are alot of things out there that we could not even begin to imagine. I think that as a species of constant evolution of knowledge, we would be incredibly naive and ignorant to belive that there is nothing out there that is not yet discovered or "scientifically" explained. This being said, I have seen some things in NM that I, nor any of the other witness that I was with can expain. I work on a drilling rig and I usually like to work nights. It gets pretty dark in southern NM at night so I understand that your eyes can play tricks on you. Unlike most people, I am comfortable at night. I was raised in the country and was always up before the sun. I guess I really got my comfort at night when I was in the Army. We usually did most of our tactical movements at night so comfort in that environment is key. When I was on the rig in NM, I would see things in the sky that none of the other guys there could explain. I would talk to other roughnecks that have worked in the area and they said that they've seen things running or flying just above the desert floor. They would just be flying pretty fast just above the brush and would just disapear into thin air. I've seen lights moving across the desert and then disapear. We are at a minimum of 30' above the ground all the time so it gives us a pretty good vantage point. I don't really doubt the unexpained. It's the explained that I question.
WOW! This stuff is amazing. Anyone have any Apache stories? For those of you that have not followed any of my other posts, I live in TX but am moving to Ruidoso in a few months. Do any of you have any stories from that area? I think that there are alot of things out there that we could not even begin to imagine. I think that as a species of constant evolution of knowledge, we would be incredibly naive and ignorant to belive that there is nothing out there that is not yet discovered or "scientifically" explained. This being said, I have seen some things in NM that I, nor any of the other witness that I was with can expain. I work on a drilling rig and I usually like to work nights. It gets pretty dark in southern NM at night so I understand that your eyes can play tricks on you. Unlike most people, I am comfortable at night. I was raised in the country and was always up before the sun. I guess I really got my comfort at night when I was in the Army. We usually did most of our tactical movements at night so comfort in that environment is key. When I was on the rig in NM, I would see things in the sky that none of the other guys there could explain. I would talk to other roughnecks that have worked in the area and they said that they've seen things running or flying just above the desert floor. They would just be flying pretty fast just above the brush and would just disapear into thin air. I've seen lights moving across the desert and then disapear. We are at a minimum of 30' above the ground all the time so it gives us a pretty good vantage point. I don't really doubt the unexpained. It's the explained that I question.
Since you asked about Apaches, I have to tell you that my sister--a relative newcomer to New Mexico and a person who has never exhibited any of these tendencies before--had a very strange reaction as we drove through the Mescalero Apache reservation in the dark one night. I can't really explain what was going on with her, but she was very anxious and uneasy and kept muttering about "they aren't here, there's nobody here." Once we got through the mountains she was okay.
She tells me she had an experience of some sort near Fort Sumner while driving alone. Can't say, I wasn't there, but she felt it was somehow connected to the Apaches and that there was "a feeling of victory" in it. I checked and found that the nearby Bosque Redondo Monument (http://www.nmmonuments.org/inst.php?inst=8 - broken link) honors both the Mescalero Apache and the Navajo: "During this tragic period of U.S. history, the Navajo and Mescalero Apache Indians were starved into submission and then forced to march hundreds of miles to the Bosque Redondo Reservation. The Navajo call this journey the Long Walk. When they arrived, 9,000 Navajo and Mescalero Apache were spread as far as 20 miles along the banks of the Pecos River. Nearly one-third of the captives died during incarceration." (quote from the Bosque website).
The Navajos endured years of starvation there; the Mescaleros upped and left and went back to their own lands. My sister knew nothing about any of this--I am the researcher in the family. I had known about the Navajos being there, but not the Apaches.
The only other time she sensed anything was on the road to Tucumcari (sounds like an old Bing Crosby movie title). We stopped to look at the view, she burst into real sobs, and said she just sensed a lot of sadness there. Don't know what people used to live there.
Other than that, she's always just been my sister--more sensitive than I am in all respects,b ut not with the woo-woo stuff--until now and just occasionally and always relative to something she senses about native peoples in the past.
My wife seems to be extremely sesitive in spirituality as well. It really freaks her out but I don't really have the same feelings. I guess I have felt and seen things thoughout my past but nothing on the level that she seems to. I gave her alot of hell at fist but it seems to really bother her. We both felt overly comfortable on the rez and around natives. I'm not really sure why this is but who knows. The farm that I grew up on in TX has alot of native history. We have found hundreds of arrow heads and other tools used by them. I think it's kinda wierd that we are so drawn to the Ruidoso area. We were just talking about that the other day. It is where we were married and we couldn't figure out why we chose that place. Now, just a few years later, we are moving there because of the same feeling. We have the upmost respect for the natives and their culture. We both feel that they were done a grave injustice and that their history and culture is very important. We want to understand as much as we can.
Wow, great thread! I have a great respect for the unkown, I try to walk in peace with everyone and everything. I will be mindful on my trip, I don't plan on any night driving outside the city, but want to be aware of any sacred places to stay away from...out of respect.
I drive on 491 in the middle of the night usually once or twice a month, on my way up to Farmington. I leave Phoenix at about 9pm after I get off work, so I am on 491 at about 230-400am, and have never seen anything unusual.
My ex-wife who is a Nurse Practicioner was suposed to work in Tuba City Arizona for a few weeks back in 1993. We took the road that goes from Window Rock to Tuba City. It was day time and that stretch of highway is about as desolate as can be. About half way there we passed a very old Navajo or Hopi man walking along side the road in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty hot and we decided to offer him a ride so we turned the car around and drove back to the spot where we saw him. We had only driven about one hundred feet passed him but when got back to the spot where he was, there was no sight of him. There were no culverts or bushes or anywhere even a jackrabbit could have hidden, only flat open desert for miles. We looked for him, on and off the road for about twenty minutes and never even found a foot print. This was the middle of the day and to this day we still can't figure out what happened.
There's something a bit similar to the skinwalker (literally) in ancient Aztec culture, the God Xipe Totec (The Flayed One), who is the god of Spring, new growth, fertility and also a companion to goldsmiths.
Xipe Totec is represented as a priest who wears the skin of another person, who is sacrificed and carefully skinned for this purpose. The skin is dyed or colored yellow or golden, and is stitched onto the priest, who wears it for 20 days until it cracks and bursts apart (representing the skin of a corn kernel bursting so that the plant may grow and flourish) and gradually falls off the priest's body. Yum!
This is called [SIZE=4]teocuitlaquemitl ("golden clothes"). [/SIZE] It was thought a great thing to touch this skin, so many families made sure their children were at these ceremonies.
This also has to do with the "this is my body, this is my blood" rituals that Christianity celebrates in communion, though many Christians may not see, or want to see, the parallels.
In any case, it's certainly as creepy as a skinwalker.... Xipe Totec - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wow, great thread! I have a great respect for the unkown, I try to walk in peace with everyone and everything. I will be mindful on my trip, I don't plan on any night driving outside the city, but want to be aware of any sacred places to stay away from...out of respect.
I think respect is the key word here. When I worked on the NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) project, we dealt with all the tribes in NM, TX, and OK. We dealt not just with tribal government officials, but with spiritual leaders and elders from the various tribes.
The strangest occurrence came from a non-Indian PhD who had absolutely no belief in Native American superstitions. The anglo PhD was witched by a tribal member and laughed it off. Of course, he had some strange occurrences that led him to retract his disbelief in Native superstitions. And the only reason he was witched was because he was being disrespectful.
Last edited by _redbird_; 08-27-2009 at 02:47 PM..
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