Skinwalkers are to be feared by all

Halloween is the time of year that supernatural creatures are present to try and scare people. Most scary stories have some form of creature, whether it’s ghosts, zombies, or vampires.

For me, there is one supernatural creature that will remain consistent with each scary story that features it. Those stories will freak me out nine times out of 10, and this creature is the Skinwalker.

This creature comes from the Navajo culture, where they are considered to be dangerous witches. These witches are harmful due to their ability to turn into, control, and disguise themselves as any animal, but normally are seen as coyotes, wolves, bears, or other predatory animal.

With the different concepts of magic, there is normally a light and dark side. Within the Navajo, this difference is present in their lives, the light side of magic being associated with medicine men. 

The way to become a Skinwalker is a dark act in itself. The person has to be initiated by a secret society after they commit what is considered the evilest of deeds, killing a close family member which normally ended up being siblings. 

Upon completing this task, the individual acquired the supernatural powers of a Skinwalker. This includes shapeshifting, reading minds, controlling a person’s thoughts and behavior, causing disease and illness, destroying property, and causing death. It’s also believed that they can control creates, reanimate corpses. They are fast, agile, impossible to catch, and are quite difficult to kill.

It’s considered taboo for the Navajo to wear predatory animal skin and to talk about the creature due to fear of being punished by Skinwalkers.

Stories of these creatures are usually encountering of a strange form of partially human and animal forms. There have been stories of people walking by themselves, hanging out with friends at night, or even driving down the highway with a parent.

The idea that an animal you see may appear slightly off, and the reason is because it is a human that has the ability to disguise itself gives me goosebumps. 

It could also be from the act being killing a close family member, that scares me as well, because of how close I am to my siblings and family. Being controlled or just being unable to do anything against this creature if I come across one could be another reason.

Whatever the reason is for disliking this creature more than others, I’m just lucky that I don’t live in an area where most of these encounters happen. If I find myself in New Mexico or Arizona anytime soon, I will not be traveling by myself and I will constantly be on high alert.