Stephanie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Most Navajo, irregardless of religious preference,
> will turn to a medicine man. "Christianity" among
> Navajo is not so clear cut. One can go to church
> and still believe in the Great Spirit. There is
> alot of blending that goes on. In the case of the
> minister and his wife, they had to use a medicine
> man as well.

I appreciate that, but my question is what do Christian clergy and NAC roadmen do about skinwalkers? In some cases, they must have a preference for their own faith.

> As I said above, they go to a medicine man. To
> give an idea of how prevalent medicine man usage
> is on the reservation, it was recently made
> reimbursable through the tribe's insurance that is
> provided for tribal employs.

A medicine man who follows the traditional way. What about an NAC roadman? Among other nations, some medicine men practice more than one tradition.


> I mentioned that there is such a ceremony that
> medicine men can do in another post. I'll repeat
> it here. This ceremony is held in a hogan (of
> course) and at night. Only smoldering coals in
> the center of the hogan light it so it's quite
> dark. The participants in the ceremony sit in a U
> shape with the open end towards the door of the
> hogan, which is left open. This is an invitation
> to parlay with a skinwalker who has been visiting
> an area, whose reasons for visiting are unclear to
> the medicine man. I think it would be really
> quite hard to get them to stop visiting
> permanently. Even if an agreement was made with
> one skinwalker, you have many, many others who
> may--just like regular people--have differing
> opinions. My family would probably have to leave
> the SW in order to stop the visitations.

I guess what I was trying to get at is for you to reach some understanding of why, if this has been going on for generations. What do the skinwalkers get out of it?