Item Detail
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Skin-walker
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2/4/2017
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Provo, UT
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Female
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Gallup, NM
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Saint Michael's, AZ
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22
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Friend
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Native American, Navajo
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Latter-day\rSaint
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none
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This is from my friend who was teaching an extracurricular Native American Hoop Dance class in the morning to me and one other girl. After class ended I asked the two of them if they would be willing to tell me folklore stories. They were both willing so we sat down on the ground and started talking. They both told me stories about the coyote in Navajo legends. I then asked they wanted to tell any scary stories, Navajo or not. Our teacher asked whether I wanted actually real-life experiences or folklore and I said either one would do. She then proceeded to tell a story to me and the other girl. She believes this story actually happened.
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This dance class was offered through BYU's multicultural center for anyone to participate in regardless of ethnicity. She was not our regular teacher but was subbing while our normal teacher was gone.\rIt's a Native American Hoop Dance class, which involves dancing with a varying number of same-size hoops. She stated beforehand that she loved to tell stories with three friends of hers at work and so knew a lot of them. She could have chosen any story but I think she choose this one because it was one she had heard firsthand from someone she knew and also because of the setting. We had just danced Native American dances and discussed Navajo legends so I think she wanted to tell a real Navajo scary story.
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Navajo reservation skin-walker
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How collected: This conversation was recorded and then later transcribed. Ums and uhs were edited out as well as a number of "likes". Some likes were preserved to indicate the speaker's telling style. All spoken grammatical errors were preserved. \r\rText: So also in Navajo culture we believe in, well like it- I don't even know what you call it, but the skin-walkers? There are like a bunch of stories about that. You're not supposed to talk about them but like, it's okay. It's fine. So skin-walkers their known to be half-animal, half-man, and they're like super dangerous. Basically they're mess with black magic which is like really bad and they're kind of scary. They're just like, if you go on the reservation and like to the reservation parts where there's like nothing, it's so scary because a lot of people talk about it, even my dad like have experiences and so my auntie. And so this one happened to my auntie and she was driving down the road late at night and she's a correctional officer and she used to work graveyards and so this happened around like two in the morning cause she was driving back to her house. And so she was driving on the road and she lives on a dirt road and it's like, her house is\rlike in the middle of nowhere. And she doesn't have electricity or water out that area. And so she was driving home and it's like pitch black. And as she was driving she saw something like running toward her but she just thought it was like an animal or something. And so she was driving and she was like oh it's whatever but she saw it on the side like just coming at her and she like tried speeding up but the, whatever, thing, I'm pretty sure it was a skin-walker, caught up to her and like rammed the side of her door and she felt it as she was driving. And she didn't want to stop and get out because she was like what in the world? So she just kept going and then she looked behind and she couldn't see anything so she was like you know it's whatever. So she got to her house and she got out and she checked the door and it had like a little dent in there and she was just like freaked out. But that's one story that really scared me. You can see the doors like still all\rdented in from like what that happening. And she lives in the area it's rumored that there's skin-walkers there cause it starts with like a family and they like do the black magic and then at night they come out. So that really scared me and I don't like going out there now. So that's like one skin-walker story that I know. But yeah, they're sketchy people.
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Emma
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George
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Female
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23
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ENG 392
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Eric A. Eliason