Wendigo...Werewolves: 'W' flesh-eaters

This is a real Texas security cam image showing a witch skin-walker? Wendigo? Hoaxer? Dogman? Werewolf/wolfman cryptid with odd gait for a man in a costume? (magazine.todo)

Nothing to see here. Oh, that? That's just light and shadow illusion. Tree stump? Loose bark?

.

The Buddha reasons with abusive Alavaka.

What does Buddhism know about cryptids? Buddhism, like the other older Dharmic religions Vedic Brahmanism (now morphed into Hinduism) and Jainism, have long history of acknowledging non-human creatures in, on, and above the earth. There are monsters, ogres, reptilians, shapeshifters, gnomes, fairies, avians, and giants (maras. yakkhas, nagas, petas, kumbhandas, bhumi-devas, garudas, and asuras respectively). Among these, the cannibal ghouls known as ogres (yakkhas, yakshas, rakshasas, yakshis, yetis) are very smart humanoid creatures.

Ancient Greek Dolon lycanthrope (lekythos)

They are able to communicate with humans, take human "wives," and be reasoned with except in their ferocity and rapacity. They are sometimes in possession of advanced ET technology and dwellings, with psychic powers and preternatural strength, fierce emotions and lust. They are very dangerous and liable to attack humans. The most famous one found in Buddhist sutras is the Yakkha Alavaka. Others dwell in the Himalayas and in woodland, forests, and wilderness areas.

Some Natives not only saw them, they interacted and sometimes intermarried. They're human.

Is the cryptid Yeti ("Asian Bigfoot") a man or a bear? It is a meh teh (a "man bear")

Joshua Cutchin/Timothy Renner

Dogmen (lycanthropes, humanoid wolves) are real, and the wendigo goes by many W names, according to different Algonquin tribes. Others may have the Sasquatch tribe (hominin cryptids) to contend with, some of which are cannibal rapists and skin-walkers. Not all Bigfoot are bad, just it seems the unattached juveniles wilding and running rampant in the forest, stealing food and violating boundaries.

Not simply an animal species

The elder yakkhas and rakshasas ("forest guardians," "nature protectors") -- with fierce females of the species, the yakshis and yetis -- can't always rein in the youths entering puberty or their rutting season and must cut them loose. They then violate a cardinal rule to avoid human tribes.

Because these creatures are not strictly flesh and bone but in possession of technology or the paranormal ability to transform into orbs, alight in the middle of a field after a long set of footprints or enter the earth through crevices, caves, caverns, tunnels, or straight into rock (as with the rock-dwelling Tahquitz), tracking them is dangerous and confounding. Search parties become cases of high strangeness.

• Native American soul-stealing beast 'Tahquitz' comes alive in Riverside art exhibition | KPCC: NPR News for SoCal

Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend | Monstrum

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Portals: Teleport in, phase shifted disappearances

(Storied) This cannibal monster (yakkha, yakshi, rakshasa, naga, yeti, sasquatch) hunts during the coldest time of the year, traveling with the snow to terrorize humans with its insatiable hunger.

Ignore folklore. Come into the woods 

Armed with sharp claws and teeth and capable of running with incredible speed, the wendigo, or windigo, is a lesson in excess and a manifestation of the anxieties that emerge in the harsh realities of winter — to survive it.

Explore the symbolic interpretations of the wendigo with Dr. Emily Zarka, who explains how this Native American legend can teach us about the spiritual beliefs and social values of the early indigenous peoples of North America.

Forest Service puts up joke signs, pamphlets?

#windigo #wendigo #cannibal #MonstrumPBS #wendigomovie #wendigoart 

Huge thanks to Dr. Will Oxford (Department of Linguistics at the University of Manitoba) for his time and assistance with the various pronunciations and spellings of the Algonquian languages used in this episode.

Islam knows wilderness monster jinn (djinn, genies)

Ancient Asian depictions of ogres (the jinn, djinn)

Killer origins of the werewolf | Monstrum

(Storied) Long before a full moon could transform a human into a beast, the werewolf (lycanthrope) was present across the literature, lore, and mythologies of ancient Europe. Whether a punishment for the wicked, a cure for the unlucky, or a blessing for the strong, the human to wolf shapeshifter is almost always violent. Real wolves posed a real threat to humans and their livestock, but how did these predators come to be associated with cannibalism, sorcery, and mental illness (lunacy)? The first in a two-part series, featuring werewolf expert and Gothic scholar Dr. Kaja Franck, this episode tackles the rise of the werewolf in its myriad forms, looking at what happened when Catholicism/Christianity interceded and turned the werewolf into the embodiment of evil — a change that reached its devastating climax with the persecution and execution of accused werewolves and the murder of countless wolves. #werewolf #mythology #werewolftrials #MonstrumPBS

The jinn are as real to Muslims as drags were to ancient Christians

(Storied) Monstrum takes a look at Nordic history of trolls

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• 

  American Cryptids (K.W. Irish)

  Algonquian Spirit: Contemporary Translations of the Algonquian Literatures of North America, Ed. Brian Swann, University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
• Atwood, Margaret. Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, Clarendon Press, 1995.
• Barnick, Adam. “The Shape of the Wendigo.” Glass Eye Pix, YouTube, 17 Oct. 2015, • THE SHAPE OF THE WENDIGO.
• Blackwood, Algernon. “The Wendigo.” The lost valley and other stories…Illus. W. Graham Robertson, Vaughan & Gomme, 1914, pp. 71-132.
• DeSanti, Brady. “The Cannibal Talking Head: The Portrayal of the Windigo ‘Monster’ in Popular Culture and Ojibwe Traditions.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 27, No. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 186-201.
• Englehart, Steve. “Spawn of the Flesh-Eater!” The Incredible Hulk, Vol. 1, Issue 162, April 1973.



Bigfoot and the Tripwire

• Harring, Sidney. “The Wendigo Killings: The Legal Penetration of Canadian Law into the Spirit World of the Ojibwa and Cree Indians.” Violent Crimes in North American, Ed. Louis A. Knafla, Praeger Publishers, 2003, pp.75-104.
• Johnson, Basil. The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway, HarperCollins, 1995.
• Schwarz, Herbert T. Windigo and Other Tales of the Ojibways, Illus. Norval Morrisseau, McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1969.
• Smallman, Shawn. “Spirit Beings, Mental Illness, and Murder: Fur Traders and the Windigo in Canada’s Boreal Forest, 1774 to 1935.” Ethnohistory, Vol. 57, No. 4, 2010, pp. 571–596.
• “The Orders of the Dreamed”: George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823, Eds. Jennifer S.H. Brown and Robert Brightman, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988.
• Vess, Charles. “Cry of the Wendigo!” Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1, Issue 277, June 1986. Windigo: An Anthology of Fact and Fantastic Fiction, Ed. John Robert Colombo, Western Producer Prairie Books, 1982.
• Written and hosted by Dr. Emily Zarka. Director: David Schulte. Executive Producer: Amanda Fox. Producer: Stephanie Noone. Illustrator: Samuel Allen. Editor: Produced by Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios. Instagram: monstrumPBS
• Monstrum, Storied, Oct. 21, 2021, PBS; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Neanderthals had sex w/ modern humans?

Ancient humans had a wild sex life

(Intrigued Mind) It turns out that ancient humans weren’t just having sex with each other. They were also having sex with other now-extinct human sub-species like Neanderthals and Denisovans. With the power of modern genome sequencing, scientists have been piecing together what parts of our DNA might be the result of interspecies affairs. #AncientHumans #Neanderthals #Denisovans #Pre-HistoricalAffairs

• Natives of the Americas: Huge network of ancient cities uncovered in the Amazon rainforest
• Natural sleep patches (wellamoon.com, Megan)
• Pope excommunicates Trump-loving ultra-conservative
• Democide: a new COVID variant is on the rise in the US. What are its most common symptoms?

The strange truth about Neanderthal sex lives

(Weird History) Neanderthals (an extinct human species) remain one of the great mysteries of human evolution. They are modern human's closest relatives, but their habits elude us. We are learning more about our hominid cousins every day, and there is still so much we do not know, including the mystery of Neanderthal mating habits, as there is not a lot of evidence to describe what Neanderthal sex would have been like. Thankfully, there are new advances in genetic paleontology shining a light on this elusive subject, and the discoveries surrounding ancient human mating rituals continue to develop.

To learn more details about Neanderthal Sex lives, go here: ranker.com/list/love-and... Be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Newsletter: ranker.com/newsletters/we... #neanderthal #sex #weirdhistory

• Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy); Intrigued Mind, Aug. 29, 2022; Weird History, March 17, 2024; Seth Auberon, Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How cryptids can live inside mountains

There were never giants. People around the world are just imagining it. This? Natural pile.

There's nothing to see here, no world below the surface of the planet, no boring machines...

Missing 411: Mt. Shasta disappearances

(The Missing Enigma) Sept. 21, 2023: Abduction or imagination? Perhaps the most bizarre missing person case ever. Link to Patreon: themissingenigma.

(The Lore Lodge) Missing 411. Mount Shasta is in the Cascade Range of Northern California, USA. It has become the center of a number of cases of high strangeness. The land of the Klamath Indians is a hot spot for paranormal encounters. Robot grandmas, vanishing hikers, and an underground city of Lemurians in the mountain... Is something in our forests?

There is a local Native American legend of a shapeshifting green fireball named Tahquitz (a mountain-dwelling cryptid, the Idyllwild Monster, possibly a jinn or Sasquatch, called yakkha and rakshasa in Buddhism), said to be a spirit or ghoul, only worse because it can transform itself and fly or disappear into and reappear out of solid rock in and around Agua Caliente, where it resides.

No one lives inside rocks because it's impossible.

Both are part of Native American lore in Riverside, the county next to Los Angeles. (Who are the cryptids of cryptozoology?)

Anyone who has listened to the careful detective work of former police detective David Paulides (Missing 411) or read his carefully compiled and ever-growing list of more than 1,000 curated cases will know that the greatest danger one is in when one is about to go missing -- disappearing on a hike with companions or becoming so lost that one is never again seen alive -- is when traveling in or near a granite boulder field, such as Yosemite.

There are maps of enormous cave systems in the U.S. that overlap almost perfectly with concentrations of missing persons reports.

Creatures live in those caves, entities haunt them, portals exist in or near them, and there are D.U.M.B.s (deep underground military bases) with guards and agents that utilize, extend, and allow these tunnels, tubes, and caverns to remain in use by or all of these.

Cases in haunted Iceland show that this lore is not limited to some modern hysteria in the United States. Others in the Old World are very familiar with the notion of "hollow hills" and the beings that dwell within. See, for example, that popularity of the famous Edvard Grieg song "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

Peer Gynt was a Norwegian confabulator, an exaggerator, a liar, and it bit him in the behind. He should have listened to his fiancée Solveig. But that this Norwegian tale is told reveals the deep-seated belief in ogres, trolls, gnomes, dangerous mountain folk in hollow hills.

One place over all others in the U.S. is famous for these sorts of goings on and that is the mysterious Mt. Shasta. People, particularly children, are abducted and taken "into" the mountain. What does that mean, into the mountain?

It is as if they step right through as in the famous case of the American who went to the Andes near Lake Titicaca to a mysterious portal carved into the side of rock. He learned from the local shaman how to use it with a precise series of whistles and tones. And he succeeded in leaving our dimension and time, vanishing from this side to the other.

He reported that when he passed into the stone, it is as if it were glass. He could see out but could neither be seen nor heard. What if there is a simple -- albeit until now an unbelievable one -- answer to what has been going on in Shasta and elsewhere? These abductions could have been using these high-tech passageways rather than some plasma or other rarefied state of stone to enter and exit.

It seems evident the military did not build these features into the rock and then simply forget about them until reminded by this cowardly explorer who immediately called the authorities. He could have documented, observed, and explored them for everyone. Now they are closed off, lost to explorers, just as infinitely deep holes around the country get raided, cordoned off, and erased from Google Earth maps.

For all the mysteries here, particularly the many subterranean worlds already existing, being built by secret boring technology (though Elon Musk brags he has the biggest borer), there is a cover up. Every weekday, scientists in Southern California go underground and enter a high-speed train system that quickly takes them Nevada, alighting in Las Vegas and being taken out to bases. So go much farther east, and nearly everyone in the country is kept in the dark about this.

• The Missing Enigma; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly

Mara, O, Mara (the defilements)

Eds., Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit of Mara (demon)

Mara's daughters Craving, Lust, Aversion

Etymology The word māra comes from the Sanskrit form of the root verb mṛ. Māra is a verbal noun from the causative root that means "causing death" or "killing" [4].

It is related to other words for "death" from the same root, such as Pali maraṇa and Sanskrit mṛtyu. [In English we have mort and mortuary, French le morte, Spanish Muerte.]

• Mara's daughter Arati, Arāti, Ārati, Ārāti (wisdomlib.org)

The latter is a name for Death personified and is sometimes identified as the kind judge Yama, the King of the Dead. The root mṛ is related to the Indo-European verbal root *mer, meaning "die, disappear" in the context of "death, murder, or destruction."

It is "very widespread" in Indo-European languages suggesting it to be of great antiquity, according to Mallory and Adams [5].

Four types of Māra

In traditional Buddhism, four or five metaphorical forms of Māra are given [6]:

• Kleśa-māra: Māra as the embodiment of all defilements (unskillful root intentions, underlying motives, pernicious emotions, kleshas, kilesas), such as greed, hate/fear, and delusion.
• Mṛtyu-māra: Māra as Death personified.
• Skandha-māra: Māra as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence [explained in terms of the Five Aggregates clung to as self].
• Devaputra-māra: The deva (being of light, lit. "shining one") of the [top of the] Sensuous Sphere, who tried to prevent the Bodhisattva Siddhartha Gautama from from becoming a buddha by attaining liberation from the Cycle of Endless Rebirth (samsara) on the night of his great enlightenment.

Character

Early Buddhism acknowledged both a literal and psychological interpretation of "Mara" [7, 8].

• EDITOR'S NOTE: It is easy to believe nowadays that Mara is only a metaphor for the subtlety of the mental defilements. But this is contradicted by extensive texts describing his deeds. It would be very difficult to read the collection of Mara texts (Mara Samyutta in the fourth section of the SN, S.i.103 27) and come away thinking he is anything but real.
• Indeed, there are many maras, at least one in each world-system. The word may also refer to ogres (yakkhas), as Mara seems to be their chief, as on the night under the bodhi tree at the great awakening.
• In the Mara Sutra, Rādha asks the Buddha what is meant by "Māra.” Anything that perishes, answered the Buddha -- such as [the Five Aggregates clung to as self, namely] form (this body), feelings, perceptions, mental formation, and consciousness..." (S.iii.188.).
• FOR MUCH MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, SEE Māra

Mara is described both as an entity having an existence in the Sensuous Sphere (kāma-loka) [9] and coming down to interact with the Buddha and also as described in the description of Dependent Origination (pratītya-samutpāda) as, primarily, the guardian of passion and the catalyst for lust, hesitation, and fear that obstructs meditation among Buddhists.

The Denkōroku refers to him as the "One Who Delights in Destruction," which highlights his nature as a light being among the Parinirmitavaśavarti devas [10]. More

"Suchness" in Theravada? (Kalaka Sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly based on Ven. Thanissaro (watmetta.org) translation of the Kalaka Sutra: "At Kalaka's Park" (AN 4.24); Wikipedia edit

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was staying in Saketa at Kalaka's park, where he addressed the monastics: "Meditators!"

"Venerable sir!" they responded.

The Blessed One then said, "Meditators, whatever in the world — with its devas, maras, brahmas, its human-generations with their wandering ascetics and Brahmins, royalty and commoners — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect, that I know.

"Whatever in the world — with its devas, maras, and brahmas, its human-generations with their wandering ascetics and Brahmins, their royalty and commoners — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect, that I directly know.

"That has been realized by the Tathagata ["One Arrived at Suchness"], but in the Tathagata [1] it has not been [not become] established [2].

"If I were to say, 'I do not know whatever in the world... is seen, heard, sensed, cognized... pondered by the intellect,' that would be a falsehood in me.

"If I were to say, 'I both know and do not know whatever in the world... is seen, heard, sensed, cognized... pondered by the intellect,' that would be just the same.

"If I were to say, 'I neither know nor do not know whatever in the world... is seen, heard, sensed, cognized... pondered by the intellect,' that would be a fault in me.

The Truth is not arrived at by mere reasoning.

"Thus, meditators, the Tathagata, when seeing what [there] is to be seen, does not construe [imagine] a seen. He does not construe an unseen. He does not construe [an object] to-be-seen. He does not construe a seer.

"When hearing...

"When sensing...

In the seen let there be only the seen, Bahiya.

"When cognizing what is [there] to be cognized, he does not construe a cognized. He does not construe an uncognized. He does not construe [an object] to-be-cognized. He does not construe a cognizer.

"Thus, meditators, the Tathagata — being the same with regard to all phenomena that can be seen, heard, sensed, or cognized — is 'such' [3]. And I tell you, there is no other 'such[ness]' higher or more sublime.

"Whatever is seen or heard or otherwise-sensed

and fastened onto as true by others,

One Who is Such — among the fettered —

would not further claim to be true or untrue.

"Having seen well in advance that arrow

where generations are fastened and hung

— 'I know, I see, that is just how it is!' —

there is nothing of the Tathagata fettered."

NOTES

1. Reading tathagate with the Thai edition.
2. That is, the Tathagata has not taken a stance on it.
3. "Such": thus; just so; as it is; like that; tathātā.

"Such"?

Tathātā (Sanskrit तथाता, Pali तथता or tathatā, Tibetan དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་, Chinese 真如) is variously translated as "thusness" or "suchness." It is a central Mahayana Buddhist concept [Notes 1, 2], having a particular significance in Chan (Zen) Buddhism. The synonym dharmatā is also often used.

Suchness.

While in the world the historical Buddha referred to himself as the "Tathāgata," which can mean either "One Who Has Thus Come" [more commonly in Mahayana writings rendered the "Thus Come One"] or "One Who Has Thus Gone" (Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, p. 296), the "Welcome One" ("Well Arrived") or "Well Gone One" and may perhaps more correctly be interpreted as "One Who Has Arrived at Suchness" [who understands, "This is the way things are and not otherwise" or "Thus are things by their own inherent nature"]. [Mahayana seems to confound the Buddhist "suchness" with the old Hindu concept tattva].  More

1. Arthur Goldwag (2014). 'Isms & 'Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World (p. 206). Most of its doctrines agree with Theravada Buddhism, but Mahayana does contain a transcendent element: tathata, or suchness; the truth that governs the universe.
2. Jay Stevenson (2000). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eastern Philosophy (p. 144).

• See also MN 2, MN 58, MN 63, MN 72, AN 10.93, AN 10.94, AN 10.95, AN 10.96, Ud 1.10, Ud 8.1

Native American MONSTERS are real! (audio)

Xochitl, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; JC Johnson (facebook)

JC Johnson of Crypto Four Corners has a lot to say about American monsters (facebook).

(TruthSeekah) Monsters are real! Stories of Cryptozoology with JC Johnson

We have met many strange visitors from the sky (space) and from other dimensions. Shown here are indigenous shamans American Apache "spirit dancers," 1887 (Native Skeptic).

(The Peasant King) 

Buddhism in America is very old in (see the astonishing evidence of American researchers Edward P. Vining, Inglorious Columbus: Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America, 1885, and Rick Fields, How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America, 1992). It once flourished in and around the Grand Canyon. Wisdom Quarterly has frequently covered this topic.

Of course the Sasquatch tribe is real (Ex)

According to researcher JC Johnson, a Caucasian married to a Native American woman, the Four Corner States (a.k.a. "Navajo Country") are rife with supernatural creatures, except that in Buddhism the supernatural is natural (shapeshifters, pretas, nagas, asuras, kumbandhas, gandharvas, garudas, yakshas, rakshasas, narakas, etc.); the same is the case for Native Americans in the region, the Navajo, Hopi, Anasazi, and others. There was once a city called Sipapu in Ancient America, an UNDERGROUND cave/cavern/tunnel city in the Grand Canyon. JC Johnson and Crew go on location to investigate. It is not that these things are unknown by the U.S. government then and now, but rather that they are hidden and denied.

(KernalPanic) Mind Blowing Hidden Cave in the Grand Canyon

There is a cave hidden in the heart of the massive Grand Canyon, Arizona. The only way to get to it is by taking a raft down the Colorado River and climbing into the cave through a waterfall. [This is just the kind of place described by those who come into contact with Sasquatches (northern American Yetis), usually friendly but preferring to remain hidden from other humans.] Enjoy KP's footage of the family exploring this cave (arizonafpv.com).

• VIDEO: Hidden Archaeology: Isis Pyramid, Grand Canyon
• Chinese Discover America (Hendon M. Harris)
• VIDEO: The Secret Canyon in Range Creek, Utah (PBS)

The Secret Canyon

(PBS) The Native American "Freemont" of Range Creek, Utah. Corn, a famine food, became important to the Freemont. What were they facing, why were they building in such difficult locations, placing their granaries in hidden and often  inaccessible places? What was haunting or worrying them?
 
Cryptids of the Southwest
JC Johnson and George Knapp (coasttocoastam.com) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

JC Johnson, who appeared recently on Coast to Coast, is a serious cryptid researcher.

.

We told that guy because he married in.

Cryptozoologist JC Johnson (Crypto Four Corners) joined Coast to Coast host George Knapp. He provided an update on his research and experiences with cryptids (creatures unknown to public science), in particular Native American "skinwalkers" (shape-shifters) in the Southwest USA.

Mothman (gastroruas.com)

Johnson explains that skinwalkers are Native American sorcerers believed to be able to transform into animals such as wolfmen (werewolf creatures), giant sheep, rabbit, bear, or pterodactyl (even the owl-like "Mothman," shown at left photographed on a bridge) by supernatural means.

According to Johnson, Navajo skinwalkers originally led a peaceful coexistence with their tribe and served as scouts against advancing European forces such as the Spanish Conquistadors or the U.S. (post-British) cavalry. However, following Navajo imprisonment, torture, and captivity at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, he said, they began adopting practices they learned from their white captors -- who tortured and twisted them in unspeakable ways.

• FORT SUMNER was a military fort in De Baca County in southeastern New Mexico charged with the internment of Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863-1868 at nearby Bosque Redondo. More
• U.S. Genocide: Long Walk of the Navajo (death march)
• Navajo Nation sues Urban Outfitters over misuse of name
• Werewolves like Aswang are real (phantomsandmonsters.com)
• Humanoids: Tikoloshe, Aswang, Mono Grande (Pt. III)
• PHOTOS: 13 Vampire animals, bloodthirsty monsters
• Paranormal: "Ghost" attacks an investigative news team

Die, Nava-Joe, die! We'll teach you to stay on OUR land! (Bosque Redondo Memorial)

 
The Navajo became more concerned with personal property, capitalism, sexual perversion, revenge, and occult practices. In turn, Johnson revealed, skinwalkers started performing more nefarious deeds against their own tribe as in-fighting grew amongst the community. There had always been clans the white men called Navajo, and these subgroups became more important than the umbrella group or "tribe" (Navajo Nation).

• SKIN-WALKER: In some Native American lore and legends, a skinwalker is a person with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal he or she desires. To be able to transform, or shape shift, sometimes requires that the skin-walker wear a pelt of the animal. In most cases, this skin is not used in modern times because it is an obvious sign of them being skin-walkers. Similar lore can be found in cultures throughout the world and is often referred to as shapeshifting by anthropologists.

Marching Navajo to death (W)

Johnson, who married into the modern tribe or its remnants, has many stories involving encounters with strange entities which may have been skinwalkers.
 
In one such tale, a Navajo tracker named Darren confronted a creature that had been stalking his wife and children in a remote part of the reservation. "When it stood up, it was eight or nine feet tall," Johnson reported, "covered in hair and it had ram horns that came off the side of its head."

Armed with a rifle, Darren shot the creature three times in the chest and saw the bullets make impact. But it managed to escape the area. Eerily, he would learn a few days later that a "medicine man had died of a heart attack," leading him to conclude that this man had been using his skinwalker abilities to torment Darren's family.

U.S. legends of Native giants and dwarves are very old and widespread.

 

Aswang (phantomsandmonsters)

Johnson also detailed accounts of "little people" [called duendes or goblins in Mexico and kumbandhas or gnomes/dwarfs in Buddhism] being witnessed by many people in the Southwest. He recalled one instance when a Native American group was on stake out camping overnight in the hopes of catching whatever had been slaughtering their sheep.

Around dawn, the men were stunned to see 15-20 little people who stood only 12 to 18 inches tall and were heading toward the sheep corral. They were dressed in buckskin and armed with bows or spears, essentially resembling "miniature Natives" in the words of the witnesses, who chased them away from the area but lost sight of them during the pursuit.

Misuse of Navajo (Daily Mail)

Johnson also recounted his work on the American geneticist Dr. Melba Ketchum and the DNA project examining Bigfoot tissue, sightings, and physical evidence as well as his own encounters with seemingly "supernatural" entities who are altogether natural for Native Americans who have lived on this land for millenia. More +AUDIO

One of the most interesting revelations made during Johnson's appearance was the explanation of what a chupacabras ("goat sucker" creatures) are. They are drawn on petroglyphs (such as one invaders dubbed "Newspaper Rock") and petrographs (such as ancient Buddhist rock art from Ili river, Kazakhstan in Central Asia north of Afghanistan) because the Native Americans are well aware of them, and the Navajo explain that they pushed them out of the area by agreement. They stealthily sneak back in to feed from time to time, which is a violation of that agreement. The stone art shows them to be humped bipedal creatures with large tubular snouts for drawing blood, like a giant mishmash preta (Buddhist "hungry ghost," which are depicted as shapeshifting entities with giant bellies and tiny mouths).

"Newspaper Rock," Native American rock engravings, Canyonlands, Utah (wiki)

Buddhist "rock art" along the Ili river, Kazakhstan, Central Asia toward Russia (wiki).