Stephanie,

I have a suggestion: to prevent any misundestandings why don't we call the shapreshifters "the shapeshifters" and the Navajo skinwalkers "the skinwalkers". This for two reasons. Firstly, I don't think the Navajo skinwalkers are pure shapeshifters, and secondly it allows us to pinpoint better the differences between the shapeshifters and the Navajo skinwalkers. And maybe thirdly, this way I'd always know what we are talking about, heheh.



> You bring up some very interesting and valid
> points. I think it's clear in Stryfe's
> description of the actions that the skinwalker who
> came to parlay with the Elders was decidedly in
> some sort of trance. Even though he was still
> saying "I hate this, get me out of this, I can't
> get out of this, they'll kill me", he was behaving
> as an animal would the entire time. Skinwalkers
> obviously don't completely shapeshift mentally as
> they would forget their capacity of speech.


Yes, but even a shapeshifter would act exactly as Stryfe describes it, because even if he/she takes on the essence of the animal and therefore looses some (but only some) of his/her own, the personality to it's great part rests, as does the speech. It is a state of being very much inbetween, not completely one or the other.




> I think that it might be a little too romantic to
> assume that even shapeshifters 10,000 bp only used
> their gifts for positive ends. In the skinwalker,
> you find both hunter and warrior if the stories
> are true. "Positive" ends, I would think, would
> depend on which side of a battlefield one is on.
> In this sense, what we perceive as being evil,
> malicious and possibly unwarranted attacks, they
> could be perceiving their victims as the enemy.
> In this case, the motivation isn't so much about
> evil, it's war (though imo war is evil lol). If
> they believe that they are right and just in their
> actions, then they would not find it wrong
> whatsoever to be using shamanistic powers in this
> way.


I think you are wrong in assuming my view not realistic. Shapeshifting was what shamans did/do, and shamans were/are healers and seers, or "white witches" if you will. The ability to shapeshift is in all of us, but the access to it's use must be earned, so to speak. What can be earned can be taken away, if not used accordingly! And that's where the mechanical shapeshifting comes to play. The only problem is, that while the meachanical shapeshifting produces the shift in the state of mind, it is not "given", it is not "sacred" and far lacking from the abilities of the pure one. That is why the Navajo skinwalkers are capable of illwilled and even selfish purposes when shapeshifting.
While I agree that the shapeshifters have been hunters and have aided the hunters, after all, those peoples only hunted and killed prey for they needs, I do not agree about the shapeshifters being warriors. I think that the shapeshifting for the purposes of fighting is done mechanically by rituals, chants, dances and hypnotic drumming. And most of it very probably is due to wayakin. I have no clue what this Nimipu word is in Navajo, but it is a sort of guardian and guiding spirit, that presents itself as an animal. It is often present in the situations, where warrior skills are called for and protection needed, and where it takes over and mixes with the person in question. The wayakin is also tightly linked to the use of the flute made of bird's bone, the war whistle, which the warrior has made himself according to the instructions of the vayakin.


>
> I apologize ahead of time if that made zero sense
> or I missed your point. Have had a 2 year old
> tugging on me for the majority of the time in
> responding to your post. One more thing, I don't
> see skinwalkers as being unique throughout
> history. What I do feel is important is that they
> are still very much alive and active today. Even
> if they have lost some of their purity over the
> last century or so, they are still pretty darn
> pure.


No worries. Shut off your computer and go play with the two year old. After all, that is real life!







Ritva