paya Wrote:
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> what is the entire need to be informed about this
> type or religion and what is its benefits? who has
> had first hand accounts with this "visitations" or
> has seen it up close and personal.

Great questions. If skinwalkers only visited Navajo, then keeping information within the tribe itself would be of no issue. However, skinwalkers do not just limit their visitations on Navajo only. They will visit anyone of any race, tribe, religion and so on. What ends up happening is that you may have a family experiencing this without any information whatsoever at their disposal in regards to either what they are and how they can be handled. It can be a very dangerous situation. It's also very easy to "write off" stories about them because they can be construed as figments of a person's imagination. Having something out there, presented in a reasonable manner, can actually help some people. In my own personal case, I disregarded the concern over any strange witchdoctors in skins running around on the reservation and approached one closer than what would be considered safe. I was lucky. I could've been knocked out cold and who knows what would've happened to me. To me, it's better to have this information "out there" than to keep it hush hush. Some other woman may not be so lucky as I was.

I have had a close personal encounter with one as well as my husband, multiple members of his family, several friends of the family, and members within the same clan. My husband has had an even closer look at a skinwalker than I. He has seen one with light on its face from roughly three feet away as the skinwalker peered at him through a window. It's a memory he doesn't like to talk about.

I have lived out here for almost 4 years now and during this time, we have been visited for probably a total of 4 months, sometimes near nightly occurences--other times, spread out to roughly once a week. That's just my own experience. My husband has experienced skinwalkers since he was a very little boy. He's pretty much grown up with them. The information compiled here is based on a huge number of firsthand accounts whose sources are both within the family (the majority of the family has experienced them firsthand and several have had very close encounters with them) and outside sources (friends, coworkers, and members of the same family clans).

Stephanie




In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.--Ralph Waldo Emerson