Native American Ghost Stories
Skin-walkers, UFOs, & Wolf Woman.
A rendition of a skin-walker. Art by Seth McCombs
We grew up on native land in Oklahoma. More than half the state belongs to the Plains tribes now, but the land has been torn between two owners for centuries. The land has a way of honoring those it respects and causing turmoil to those it rejects. There are many stories of this, passed down from generation to generation, even within my own family. Tribes cursed the land when they were forcefully removed from it, and the land listened.
Have you ever heard the legends from the Crow tribe surrounding the Crazy Mountains?
The Crazy Mountains, nicknamed “the Crazies,” are a hauntingly dramatic island of mountains in Bozeman, Montana. Local lore is that the land is haunted by a woman whose entire family was slaughtered by a group of Indians. The Crazies are unsurprisingly familiar with making headlines regarding missing people—most recently in the bizarre disappearance of hunter Aaron Hedges, who vanished in 2014 even though he had a working cellphone, walkie talkie, and GPS. No dogs could pick up on his scent, and his body wasn’t found for two years—15 miles away from where he was last seen.
There are native stories passed down through the Crow tribe that they cursed the mountains to make the white man go crazy if he was to ever step foot in them. Another myth is of a man named Samuel, part of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, who wandered into the Crazies and disappeared. His journal was later recovered, full of frightened scribblings of headless ghosts, demons, and talking animals.
What’s even more interesting is that before Europeans ever arrived, the Crows would call the range Awaxaawapìa Pìa, or “ominous mountains.” Other tribes wouldn’t dare follow the Crows into them because it was said that the Crazies gave the Crows supernatural powers. These mountains have held many secrets for many years, and the list of secrets continues to grow with each disappearance.
The Crazy Mountains in Montana.
Every tribe has a story that has survived time. Stories breed storytellers and storytellers walk the earth looking for a listening ear so the stories can continue.
The Iroquois have the legend of “Dry Fingers,” a bogeyman, a vengeful apparition that appears to terrorize people lost in the wilderness. If a person is touched by this ghost, they would be killed or given the gift of going blind. The Omaha and the Sioux have the legend of the “Two-Face.” Two-Face is thought to be humanlike but with a second face that lives on the back of its head like Voldemort in Harry Potter. One face is beautiful, but the other face—the one on the back—is hideous and frightening. Those who see this second face are said to be mutilated and murdered.
Almost every tribe has a legend of Bigfoot, of Dogman, of vampires. Tribes that had no communication with each other outside of war; all have similar stories and cave drawings.
How could this be?
Most are probably familiar with Skinwalker Ranch, also known as Sherman Ranch, in Ballard, Utah. Skin-walkers are another common theme we see in Native American mythology, and its roots begin with the Navajo tribe. Skin-walkers appear to humans as half-human half-animal; they can take the form of any animal but usually appear as a wolf. Picture a grotesque, disproportionate werewolf crawling on all fours. You can travel as far as Mexico and hear the wolf legends—more on this later.
Much like the Crazy Mountains were considered forbidden to nearby tribes, the same goes for the Uintah Basin where Skinwalker Ranch sits. The Ute Indians that inhabited this region of Utah would say that it was a place where unearthly terrors preyed upon mortals. Today, it's the place where UFO sightings, unexplained crop circles, and cattle mutilation take place—where farmers discover dead cattle with their “anus cored out “and the cow's udders and genitalia removed, all with laser-like precision and no visible sign of blood.”
If you ever find yourself wanting to dig further into this, the best place to look is in old Deseret newspaper articles. You’ll find many clippings that go back to the 60s: accounts of flying saucers, little green men, and all things paranormal.
Now that you’ve been introduced to a handful of famous Native legends, I’d like to tell you about my own. My family are descendants of the Apache tribe. Thousands of years ago, the Apache and the Navajo were essentially a single group; the majority of our legends are twins to the Navajo’s. The Apache believed in many supernatural beings including Usen, the Giver-of-Life, and the Ga’an, mountain spirits. Males dressed themselves in sacred costumes to impersonate the Ga’an in ritual dance, wearing kilts, black masks, tall wooden-slat headdresses, and body paint.
The above photograph is haunting for its resemblance to occult ceremonies. They worship their gods but who are their gods?
The most famous, and most feared, is named Yolkai Nalin. She is the Goddess of Death, and she controls all the souls that pass into the afterlife. I’ve heard her called La Loba, wolf woman, or La Huesera, bone woman. Her cave is said to be filled with the bones of desert creatures, including the deer, the rattlesnake, and the crow. Her speciality, however, is wolves.
The only gift my grandfather ever gave my mother is the stone statue of a black wolf head. As a child I never knew its origins, but we were always drawn to wolves—this weird pull, an unexplainable connection. One I still can’t explain. La Loba creeps and crawls through the desert looking for wolf bones, so that she may collect an entire skeleton and bring it back to life. She sings over the dry bones in a valley and a strong, large wolf jumps up from the sand and goes into the world, never looking back. Some say she takes a human soul in its place. In fact, the Apache know to never utter the name of a deceased person, because that person now belongs to La Loba, and she would be very angry to hear you speak their earthly name.
So when you are wandering in the desert and you hear the howls of a wolf pack, or see the glimmer of the full moon on the sand, La Loba has just taken a life and replaced it with that of a creature. A werewolf? Dogman? Skinwalker?
Only those who have met La Loba truly know.
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