There is no real misunderstanding of what people are getting at these conferences, except for when they go outside of their realms of spiritual beliefs and enter the domain of science. This particular conference is described as being more of a “continuation” of previous gatherings referred to as the “Language of the Spirit” dialogues. These meetings are professed as being an attempt “to bring understanding between Indigenous ways of knowing and Western science.”

Indigenous elders, social visionaries, ecologists, philosophers, and healers with different backgrounds from around the world are asked to help prepare for the future by taking pages out from the tribal culture system of religious belief. SEED is attempting to examine and discuss the prophecies associated with various cultures to reconcile them under one common theme by declaring that “we see this time as an unprecedented opportunity to co-create our collective future; a time when people of all traditions and races are called to come together to explore and rediscover what it means to be human.”

History of SEED

SEED was initially run as an “open university,” not for credit, but for those with a personal interest in the course material. It was not until more recently that the SEED Institute began to sponsor the event known as the Language of Spirit Conference.

This eclectic group featured physicists, elders, linguists, philosophers, authors, and even an astronaut. According to the SEED website, “The 1992 dialogue coincided with the 500th year since Columbus came to Turtle Island, and completed a cycle in which indigenous, wholistic [sic] thinking, once suppressed and disregarded, reemerged on equal footing with leading edge Western science.”

SEED considered these series of meetings to be “Science and Cosmology conferences” that helped branch out into their latest programs, one being the Wisdom from the Origins. The SEED Graduate Institute states that, “The master’s program in Sci­ence and cosmology (Fire) integrates Native science and new scientific models of wholeness, including quantum theory, general systems theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory with comparative philosophy and religion, mythology, depth psychology and cosmology.”

By no means is this a clear definition of science; however, it is an indication of what they believe it to be. There is a recurring theme of mentioning cosmology and science, whereas “cosmology” appears as the more general definition, the study of the universe. This more broad usage of cosmology by SEED incorporates philosophical and metaphysical questions that are not relevant to science. A religious cosmology, if you will, attempting to blur the lines and blend the commonalities found in various religious creation myths and brandish them as useful tools to inform our future lives as human beings. It seems they are operating under the premise that these spiritual beliefs of our ancestors gave us a better understanding of the universe or our place in it. The major concern is that there is no real standard for “knowing” or “knowledge” as described by SEED. They do acknowledge the abundance of misunderstandings surrounding the subject of the Mayan calendar. But they overlook or ignore the inaccuracies and see it as “an opportunity to educate and prepare the people for the times we are in, and to rebirth a wisdom consciousness based on the natural rhythms of the Earth.”

Under the section, “The SEED Vision for Original Education,” the following intro­ductory quote from Mark C. Taylor reflects the basis for their proposed education model, in which a claim gets made about the current state of higher education in America: “Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields and publication in journals read by no other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)” (SEED Graduate Institute 2012b).

The argument that education does not work due to “fragmented thinking” serves as the motivation for this idea that we need to unify beliefs through “participatory thought.” Which is also the common motif found throughout the official website of the SEED Institute and their offered programs as described in their following vision: “What is needed is an original model of education that is coherent, cohesive and whole in itself, in which all aspects of a school are in relationship to each other. SEED is seeking funding to establish a graduate institute with such a structure, bringing together four lodges of learning in one whole: Science and Cos­mology; Ecology; Ex­pres­sive Arts; and Inte­gral Healing” (SEED Graduate Institute 2012b).

There does seem to be some genuine interest in knowledge. SEED believes that its brand of open-mindedness holds an advantage to other methodologies because, “. . . dialogue has the potential to diffuse seemingly intractable dichotomies.” But they never establish any standards of logic or reasoning. Therefore, every idea is just as good as the next according to this system. For example, they offer this almost skeptical sounding passage describing the answer to this type of “fragmentary thinking” according to physicist David Bohm, “He developed unique method of dialogue that asked participants to suspend their present assumptions and beliefs and listen deeply for the purpose of understanding, rather than to convert another to one’s point of view” (SEED Graduate Institute 2012b).

Bohm was said to have postulated that this “participatory consciousness” might be found in tribal societies. While the idea of opening a dialogue between various cultures does appeal to me, through this lens the enticing allure of pseudoscience becomes stronger and the potential for being susceptible to falsities grows. These science dialogue initiatives between Native American elders and “Western scientists” seem to introduce more uncertainty and confusion into their concepts of the universe and our place in it. The Integral Healing program that SEED provides introduces alternative modalities of healing from the Ayurvedic Institute and the Institute of Chinese Medicine teaching to view the human body as being connected with the environment in a mystical way.

A quick search on the background of some of the speakers and sponsors reveals much of the same brand of pseudoscience that is found permeating through the entire institute, its offered programs, and the Wisdoms of the Origins conference. Gregg Braden is an author known for his books attempting to bridge the gap between science and spirituality, with titles like The God Code, The Divine Matrix, and Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012. Author Barbara Marx Hub­bard has been praised by Deepak Chopra as “the voice for conscious evolution of our time.” The list of sponsors also includes the Institute for Noetic Sciences and the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine. Both of these writers and the mentioned sponsors rely on the complexities found in quantum physics to overcomplicate and maneuver around the fact that these metaphysical and philosophical notions are not science.

Sometimes people fall prey to the idea that having an answer is better than not having one at all—even if it’s the wrong one. Sometimes people simply stop searching for alternative explanations because they be­come accustomed to the pre-existing ones. When the stories are taken for what they are and examined with the frame of reference in mind of the time and place that people lived, the purpose of each tale comes into focus.

The Cheyenne have an account involving a “great pole” that gets described as being like the ones used for their sacred sun dance, except this one is significantly more impressive and large enough to hold up the entire earth. Their version of “the end of times” is expressed through the story “The Gnawing,” as originally told by Mrs. Medicine Bull (1984):

The Great White Grandfather Beaver of the North is gnawing at that pole. He has been gnawing at the bottom of it for ages and ages. More than half of the pole has already been gnawed through. When the Great White Beaver of the North gets angry, he gnaws at it faster and more furiously. Once he has gnawed all the way through, the pole will topple, and the earth will crash into bottomless nothing. That will be the end of people, of everything. The end of all ends. So we are careful not to make the Beaver angry. That’s why the Cheyenne never eat his flesh, or even touch a beaver skin. We want the world to last a little longer.

The White River Sioux have their own version told through the story, “The End of the World,” illustrated through the life of an old woman, over a thousand years old, who is sitting in a cave next to a fire working endlessly on a blanket while a black dog watches. A pot rests above the fire that the woman gets up to periodically stir, and every time she does so, the black dog pulls out some of the porcupine quills used to make the blanket: “The Sioux people used to say that if the old woman ever finishes her blanket strip, then at the very moment that she threads the last porcupine quill to complete the design, the world will come to an end” (Leading Cloud 1967).

The Brule Sioux culture incorporates a “creating power” into their story, called Remak­ing the World, in which it is revealed that the world we live in today is actually the third created version. In 1974, Leonard Crow Dog (1974) told the story to Richard Erdoes on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. After the first two unsuccessful attempts of starting a new world, the Creating Power says, “Now, if you have learned how to behave like human beings and how to live in peace with each other and with the other living things—the two-legged, the four-legged, the many-legged, the fliers, the no-legs, the green plants of this universe—then all will be well. But if you make this world bad and ugly, then I will destroy this world too, it’s up to you.”

When it comes to Native American be­liefs, the focus is often placed more heavily on the journey than the destination. Cultural stories are often used to encourage or teach others about specific behaviors or life lessons. Stories are simply a way to make learning fun. The more outlandish a story is, the more memorable it will be. But if the cultural relevance is missing from the experience the purpose becomes fragmented and that initial power of the story gets lost as well.

References

Crow Dog, Leonard. 1974. Remaking the World. Re­corded by Richard Erdoes in 1974. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 496–499.

Leading Cloud, Jenny. 1969. The End of the World. Recorded By Richard Erdoes in 1969. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 485–486.

Medicine Bull, Mrs. 1984. The Gnawing. Recorded by Richard Erdoes with the help of an interpreter. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 484–485.

SEED Graduate Institute. 2012a. Wisdom from the Origins Conference: The Mayan Calendar and Other Prophecies on the Future of Humanity. Albu­querque, New Mexico. From September 13 to September 17, 2012. Available for download on­line at http://seedgraduateinstitute.org/pdfs/brochure-for-emailing.pdf.

SEED Graduate Institute. 2012b. Source for Educa­tional Empowerment and Community Dialogue (SEED). Available online at http://www.seedgraduateinstitute.org/.

Signs of the Times (www.sott.net) was created by historian and author Laura Knight-Jadczyk. The About section on the site mentions that her husband is “one of the world’s few living experts in hyperdimensional [HD] physics” (Knight-Jadczyk 2002). Another notable person that claims to be an “expert” in hyperdimensional physics is Richard “Face on Mars” Hoag­land. HD physics has been associated with energies at the “mysterious” Coral Castle in Florida and Comet Elenin, and it has even been linked to the Mayan Calendar (Scott 2011). The network page QuantumFuture.net lists Cassiopaea.org, Cassiopaea.com, and QuantumFuture.net as separate websites founded by Arkadiusz Jadczyk and his wife (Jadczyk and Knight-Jadczyk 2000).

In 2011, Signs of the Times featured an intriguing article under the category “Science of the Spirit” titled “The Truth about Hair and Why Indians Would Keep Their Hair Long.” The author, C. Young, sets the tone of things to follow: “Our culture leads us to believe that hair style is a matter of personal preference, that hair is a matter of fashion and/or convenience, and that how people wear their hair is simply a cosmetic issue” (Young 2011). However, just a little further along in the article, another more interesting claim pops up: “Back in the Vietnam War however, an en­tirely different picture emerged, one that has been carefully covered up and hidden from public view.”

This particular story involves an account from a woman going by the name of Sally (to protect her privacy) who reported a shocking discovery made by her husband while he was working at a VA Medical hospital as a “licensed psychologist.” Sally is quoted in the article:

I remember clearly an evening when my husband came back to our apartment on Doctor’s Circle carrying a thick official looking folder. Inside were hundreds of pages of certain studies commissioned by the government. He was in shock from those contents. What he read in those documents completely changed his life. From that moment on my conservative middle of the road husband grew his hair and beard and never cut them again. What is more, the VA Medical center let him do it, and other very conservative men in his staff followed his example.

According to the author, the contents supposedly contained details about special departments being sent undercover to infiltrate Native American reservations in an attempt to recruit young scouts who ap­peared to have “almost supernatural” abilities. It also allegedly mentioned that these men were “. . . extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival.” However, much to the dismay of the military re­cruiters, “Once enlisted, an amazing thing happened. Whatever talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field” (Young 2011).

This was said to have been followed by a government-led investigation into what could cause such a drastic reduction in performance. The investigators’ findings are presented in the following quote from Young’s article: “When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older recruits replied consistently that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer ‘sense’ the enemy, they could no longer access a ‘sixth sense,’ their ‘intuition’ no longer was reliable, they couldn’t ‘read’ subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information.”

More trackers were recruited in order to carry out further testing. This time, men who received similar scores were tested in pairs; one of them got a military haircut and the other kept the more traditional longer hair length. When these changes were put into effect, the testing resumed and “time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high scores.”

If there is any doubt as to what is going on here, the author of the article provides an example of some typical tests. One scenario describes a recruit sleeping outside in the wilderness who would suddenly wake up before anyone approached within earshot. Another example involves an attack situation where the recruit “pretending to be sleeping” would turn things around and subdue the potential assailant. After this series of tests, a military haircut was administered, and the recruit would start to fail “many other tests that he had previously passed. . . .” In the end, the government “recommended that all Indian trackers be exempt from military haircuts. In fact, it required that trackers keep their hair long,” according to Young.

Close investigation into various tribal beliefs might help explain the origin of this story. Though Native American legends and belief systems do incorporate terms for the supernatural, they do not use phrases found in New Age mysticism like “aura” or “sixth sense.” The aspects surrounding the long hair of Native American boys and men cannot be accurately understood without in­sight from a part of American history that might not be as widely known. While there might be some variability in the details re­garding the reasons for long hair from tribe to tribe, there is one major component that has remained consistent: long hair has never been about aesthetics but instead is a religious concern. Generally, long hair has strong religious implications based on tribal beliefs that often go unnoticed, but it is commonly more known to be associated with a connection to the ancestors; severing it symbolizes the mourning of a close loved one or family member.

During the early periods of America’s history, Native Americans were subjected to a conversion process administered by the United States government. The religious be­liefs of the government agents and other missionaries led them to consider long hair offensive, simply labeling Native American religions to be un-Christian. The aspect of this government program that makes it an infamous part in Native American history is the notion of using boarding schools to systematically remove tribal cultures and traditions from the lives of young Native people in an attempt to “civilize” them. During this time, phrases like “Kill the Indian and save the man” and “The only good Indian is a dead one” (Pratt 1892) became quite popular and were ultimately adopted as slogans by the federal government.

Most of the struggles that Native Amer­icans face seem to come from the fact that their spiritual beliefs are not recognized as a legitimate religion. Not only is this reflected in society, but it also floods over the walls of institutions and into the system itself. Most recently, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling in the case A.A. ex rel. Beten­baugh v. Needville Independent School District, which involved a young Lipan Apache boy attending kindergarten in Texas. A trial court originally settled in favor of the parents, but the school district appealed the ruling. The Circuit judges’ ruling appears in the official document filed in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals as follows: “A Native Amer­ican boy and his parents challenge a school district’s requirement that he wear his long hair in a bun on top of his head or in a braid tucked in his shirt. We agree with the district court that the requirement offends a sincere religious belief and hold it invalid under Texas law” (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit 2010). Accord­ing to tribal historian Nancy Minor, many considered this a “. . . victory for the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, since it validates the fact that we are a legitimate American Indian tribe with members who practice traditional beliefs” (Minor 2010).

C. Young also claims that “Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved ‘feelers’ or ‘antennae’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex” (Young 2011). However, this does not fit the description of what hair is according to Hairbiology.com (2012), an informative website that is solely dedicated to helping explain the biology of hair. There is mention of hair being used for everything from trapping heat to protecting the scalp from ultraviolet light from the sun and even providing “. . . tactile information about the environment.” There is actually a variety of different types of mammalian hair, but human does not fit the antennae description. While the hair that grows on a person’s head might provide some sensory input, it functions more like cat whiskers than insect antennae. Even in this case, the whiskers of a cat are not really doing the feeling; it is in the follicles below the whiskers where most of the sensing is occurring. In fact, Robert Kunzig’s (2002) article in Discover magazine, “The Biology of . . . Hair: Zeroing in on the Molecular Switches That Regenerate Hair Growth,” tells us that “The hair we see, fuss over, curse, write lyrics about, is just dead stuff, pushed up and out of the skin by the follicles below. It is those follicles that are alive, and that drive the growth and shedding we see.”

Not only are there many holes in the presented account of the government using Native Americans in special experimental research, but also records pertaining to the special tracker units seem to be missing. The only source that appears associated with this account comes from United Truth Seekers, a website that promotes itself as “A ‘SOCIAL NETWORK’ & Was Created To: Expose The New World Order! Join Us Exposing The Evil New World Order!” (Suggs 2012).

However, the Signs of the Times site also has another conspiracy-tinged statement providing insight into the perspective shared by its contributors: “Our work has been attacked, suppressed, and marginalized by the Powers That Be in ways that no other work has been, leaving us with the distinct impression that we must be on the right track!” (Knight-Jadczyk 2002).

Laura Knight-Jadczyk also makes another revealing statement by highlighting the point that her website “. . . stands out from the crowd . . . for its commentary on world events and tracking of global trends, patterns, and energies” (Knight-Jadczyk 2002). While the author and the website presenting the article both seem to show a genuine interest in science, there is a serious lack of the necessary critical thinking skills needed to effectively engage these specific subjects. For example, the following is the logic that Young offers as explanation for unique qualities of hair: “Not only does hair in people, include[ing] facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then rephotographed after the hair is cut” (Young 2011).

For those unfamiliar with Kirlian photography, or electrophotography, it involves fun with some conductive material and an electrode (Carroll 2010). Photo­graphing the corona discharge produces an impressive effect and array of streaking colors that some people allege is the depiction of the “human energy field” commonly referred to as the body’s “aura” (Barrett 2001). It is pure pseudoscience.

The following is another indication that this entire account of Native American “trackers” being used in any research resembling the sort mentioned is more than likely completely fabricated: “SOTT can’t confirm this story or the research it suggests took place, however, we have wondered on many occasions, what is the use of hair and why so many legends refer to hair as being a source of strength, from Samson, to Nazarenes, to the long haired Franks” (Young 2011).

In the end, Young finally manages to make one reasonable statement stick out through this aura of mystical energy and pseudoscience: “In searching for solutions for the distress in our world, it may be time for us to consider that many of our most basic assumptions about reality are in error. It may be that a major part of the solution is looking at us in the face each morning when we see ourselves in the mirror.”

References

Barrett, Stephen. 2001. Kirlian photography. Quack­watch (June 2). Online at http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/kirlian.html.

Carroll, Robert T. 2010. Kirlian photography (electro­photography). The Skeptics Dictionary (Decem­ber 9). Online at http://www.skepdic.com/kirlian.html.

HairBiology.Com. 2012. Hair fiber function. Online at http://www.hairbiology.com/hair-fiber/hair-fiber-function.shtml.

Jadczyk, Arkadiusz, and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. 2000. Quantum Future.net (May 6). Online at http://quantumfuture.net/.

Knight-Jadczyk, Laura. 2002. About sott.net. Online at http://www.sott.net/page/1-About-Sott-net.

Kunzig, Robert. 2002. The biology of . . . hair: Zeroing in on the molecular switches that regulate hair growth. Discover Magazine (February). Online at http://discovermagazine.com/2002/feb/featbiology.

Minor, Nancy. 2010. Arocha case won in fifth circuit court of appeals! The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas Official Website (July 31). Online at http://www.lipanapache.org/AdrielArocha/AA.html.

Pratt, Richard C. 1892. ‘Kill the Indian, and Save the Man’: Capt. Richard C. Pratt on the Education of Native Americans. History Matters. Online at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929/.

Scott, Greg. 2011. What Is Hyperdimensional Physics? Conscience Life News. Online at http://consciouslifenews.com/hyperdimensionalphysics/1120831/.

Suggs, Pam. 2012. United Truth Seekers. Online at http://unitedtruthseekers.com/.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 2010. Ruling of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas Official Website. (July 9). Online at http://www.lipanapache.org/AdrielArocha/AApages/1.html.

Young, C. 2011.The truth about hair and why Indians would keep their hair long. Signs of the Times (September 8). Online at http://www.sott.net/articles/show/234783-The-Truth-About-Hair-and-Why-Indians-Would-Keep-Their-Hair-Long.

The description of the Navajo witch consists of a rather general description that resembles the more familiar “witch doctor” found in much Haitian voodoo folklore. But even the standard American image of the witch character is depicted as casting spells and, more importantly, possessing the supernatural ability to transform shape; the witch is often depicted as mimicking the form of a black cat. While it is frequently mentioned that the Skinwalker possesses the ability to assume the form of any animal, it is most often reported in the forms of a few key carnivorous animals: a coyote, a wolf, a fox, an owl, or a crow.

Navajo tribal beliefs include the concept of living in harmony with nature, which is anthropomorphized as “Mother Earth.” The beliefs also involve two different types of “beings”: the “Earth People” and the “Holy People.” For instance, “medicine men” are thought to be the bridge between “Earth People” and the “spirit world.” Skinwalkers are really just another type of Navajo witch; more specifically, they are considered to be practitioners of what is called the “witchery way.” The distinguishing characteristics between these different variations of witches are in the details. For example, one specific type of witch relies on the usage of objects to transmit curses, referred to as the “frenzy way.” However, in most contemporary accounts, Skin­walkers often possess certain supernatural abilities that encompass multiple types of Navajo witch.

There is generally a common theme of the number four showing up in both the Navajo and Apache belief systems. Stories usually have spans of four days, tell of four “beings,” or contain four elements as part of the theme. Another example, from the 1944 book Navajo Witch­craft by Clyde Kluck­hohn, states that witches are actually divided into four different groups: witchery, sorcery, wizardry, and frenzy (Kluckhohn 1944, 22).

There seem to be slight variations to the origins of the Skinwalker that permeate the folklore of Navajo people. There is also the notion that this brand of witch started off as a “medicine man” that was corrupted by absolute power. Another suggestion points out that the practice of wearing dead animal skins and emulating them started for hunting purposes. Thus there are countless Native American legends that tell the story of how people were given the ability to hunt by the gods, but these origin stories do not ex­plain the aspects surrounding the bad intentions of Skinwalkers or the Navajo witch.

United States Army surgeon and Civil War veteran Washington Matthews is historically known for his ethnographic study of Native American cultures. In one of his early accounts into Navajo beliefs, “witchcraft” gets first established in the Navajo emergence story “Creation of First Man and Woman,” reported by Matthews in 1894:

In four days after the last twins were born, the gods came again and took First Man and First Woman away to the eastern mountain for four days. The gods may have taught them the awful secrets of witch-craft. Witches always use masks, and after they returned, they would occasionally put on masks and pray for the good things they needed—abundant rain and abundant crops.

Witches also marry people who are too closely related to them, which is what First Man and First Woman’s children had done. After they had been to the eastern mountain, however, the brothers and sisters separated. Keeping their first marriages secret, the brothers now married women of the Mirage People and the sisters married men of the Mirage People. But they never told anyone, even their new families, the mysteries they had learned from the gods. Every four days the women bore children, who grew to maturity in four days, then married, and in their turn had children every four days. In this way many children of First Man and First Woman filled the land with people. (Matthews 1897)

Since both Navajo men and women can become “witches,” technically, women can become Skinwalkers as well. However, the generally accepted view is that mainly men are this type of “witch”; otherwise it is thought to be only old or childless women who may possess these abilities. It is also said in the account of this legend that Skin­walkers are a specific type of “Navajo witch” that have committed some sort of cultural taboo to gain their supernatural ability. Some present the following portion of this legend from Matthews of “First Man” and “First Woman” as the evidence for the origins of witchcraft within the Navajo culture:

The gods had the people build an enclosure of brushwood, and when it was finished, First Man and First Woman went in. The gods told them, “Live together now as husband and wife.” At the end of four days, First Woman bore hermaphrodite twins. In four more days she gave birth to a boy and a girl, who grew to maturity in four days and lived with one another as husband and wife. In all, First Man and First Woman had five pairs of twins, and all except the first became couples who had children. (Matthews 1897)

There is one other account that rarely gets discussed that involves the origins of the Skinwalker legend: the Navajo “witch purge” in 1878. Apparently, in the 1800s, the people of Salem were not alone in their quest to hunt down witches. As A. Lynn Allison wrote in the introduction of her article “The Navajo Witch Purge of 1878,” which appeared in the Arizona State Uni­versity West literary magazine Paloverde:

The words “Navajo Witch Purge” might at first call to mind the similar phrase “Salem Witch Hunt” and all the lurid imagery that goes with it. A bit of investigating, however, produces a cultural and historical picture of the Navajo and their tradition of witchcraft profoundly different from anything ever imagined by those early New England Puritans. As the Salem Witch trials in seventeenth-century Massa­chusetts may have evolved as a societal re­sponse to the religious thinking of the day, so the Navajo Witch Purge of 1878 evolved as a cultural response to the effects of colonialism on the Navajo way of life. Witchcraft was always an accepted, if not widely acknowledged, part of Navajo culture, and the killing of “witches” was historically as much ac­cepted among the Navajo as among the Europeans. The events of 1878 were a culmination of situation and circumstance that created the seemingly sensational out of what had been the cultural norm. (Allison 2001)

This reported incident is said to come from the days of the “Long Walk of the Navajo,” the deportation to Bosque Re­dondo (Fort Sumner) of the Navajo people by the U.S. Government. Apparently, it was during these dire times that some Navajo people would “shape-shift” to escape their impoverished living conditions. In an at­tempt to describe some of the conditions that Navajo people were being exposed to while at the Bosque Redondo in 1878, Raymond Locke states in The Book of the Navajo that “They were convinced that their gods—even the benevolent Changing Woman—had deserted them” (Locke 1976, 365). Some people, like Ruth Underhill, think that it was these tragic events that left a void in Navajo societies and ultimately lead to the resurgence in accusations of witchcraft: “The indigenous cultural reality and the jealousy that the new rules caused, as well as unexpected sickness that killed both people and livestock, cumulated in an age-old Navajo response: accusations of witchcraft” (Underhill 1956, 160).

The Navajo people used witchcraft to explain a sudden sickness or unexpected tragedies during these times of plight. After they thought their gods had left them, it is believed that witches went unchallenged and became prevalent once again. The struggles that the Navajo people went through during that time are often not fully detailed or well known. Another reason this topic is still reasonably difficult to put together is due to the nature of cultural beliefs differentiating from each other in so many variations from one tribe to another. The general avoidance of death among the beliefs of the Navajo also contributes a great deal to the scarcity of information. How­ever, there has always been witchcraft in Navajo culture since the creation of “First Man” and “First Woman.” It is simply part of the “Navajo way” and is considered to be amoral but just another integral part of the spiritual system. l

References

Allison, A. Lynn. 2001. The Navajo witch purge of 1878. PaloVerde 9(1). Available online at www.west.asu.edu/paloverde/Paloverde2001/Witch.htm.

Kluckhohn, Clyde. 1944. Navajo Witchcraft. Boston: Beacon Press.

Locke, Raymond Friday. 1976. The Book of the Navajo. Los Angeles: Mankind Publishing Co.

Matthews, Washington. (1897) 1984. Creation of First Man and First Woman. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (New York: Pantheon, 39–40).

Underhill, Ruth M. 1956. The Navajos. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.

Various civilizations have used culturally relevant stories to teach their people the importance of community and respecting the power of nature. Nearly every culture speaks of the common notion of the changes that life often brings. The Native American Thunderbird, who brings changes to the people, serves as a reminder that change is inevitable. Traditionally, tribal elders teach younger generations how to navigate through the emotional struggles of life by giving some explanation or insight into the purpose of fear and their struggles with change. The Thun­derbird is seen as an agent of change that helps determine be­havior within the dynamics of both family and community. Thunder­bird stories are a way of relating the people to the natural world by using metaphorical depictions of things that the people have always understood, such as birds that can fly or live in the sky (i.e., the heavens).

The tale of “Wakinyan Tanka,” the great Thunderbird, originates from one of the seven Western Sioux tribes known as the Brule Sioux. This group, which received its name from the French word brule (meaning “burned”), presently occupies the Rosebud reservation located in the southwestern region of South Dakota. A Sioux medicine man, John “Fire” Lame Deer, recalls the story of the Great Thunderbird:

Wakinyan Tanka, the great Thunderbird, lives in his tipi on top of a mountain in the sacred Paha Sapa, the Black Hills. The whites call it Harney Peak, but I don’t think he lives there anymore since the wasichu, the whites, have made these hills into a vast Disneyland. No, I think the thunder beings have retreated to the farthest end of the earth, where the sun goes down, where there are no tourists or hot dog stands. The Wakinyan hates all that is dirty. He loves what is clean and pure. His voice is the great thunderclap, and the smaller rolling thunders that follow his booming shouts are the cries of his children, the little thunderbirds. (Lame Deer 1969)

Lame Deer goes on to describe the nature of these beings:

There are four large, old Thunderbirds. The Great Wakinyan of the West is the first and foremost among them. He is clothed in clouds. His body has no form, but he has giant, four-jointed wings. He has no feet, but enormous claws. He has no head, but a huge, sharp beak with rows of big, pointed teeth. His color is black. The second Wakinyan of the North is red. The third Thunderbird of the East is yellow. The fourth thunderbird of the South is white, though there are some who say that its colors are blue. That one has no eyes or ears, yet he can see and hear. How that can be is a mystery. From time to time a holy man catches a glimpse of a Wakinyan in his dreams, but always only a part of it. No one ever sees the Thunderbird whole, not even in a vision, so the way we think a Thunderbird looks is pieced together from many dreams and visions. (Lame Deer 1969)

Some modern sightings and cryptozoological accounts tell of terrifying encounters of giant bird-like creatures carrying people off and building nests out of their bones. However, according to the Brule Sioux, these “Thunder Beings” are painted with a much different tone, as Lame Deer notes:

Thunderbirds stand for rain, and fire, and the truth, and as I said before, they like to help the people. In contrast, Unktehi, the great water monster, did not like human beings from the time they were put on this earth. Unktehi was shaped like a giant scaley snake with feet. She had a huge horn coming out on top of her head, and she filled the whole of the Missouri River from end to end. The little water monster, who lived in smaller streams and lakes, likewise had no use for humans. (Lame Deer 1969)

The Great Unktehi and her offspring were said to have been the source of many floods when they “puffed” up their bodies, causing lakes, streams, and even the whole Missouri river to overflow. The Thunderbirds protected humans from these “water monsters” in an epic battle to make the world a safer place for people to live, and in doing so gained the water power by taking it from Unktehi.

A sand painting tapestry from Navajo medicine man and artist, Hasteen Klah, depicting each of the Thunderbirds of the Four Directions (North, South, East, West). Located in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Heard Museum’s Navajo Textile Exhibit: 100+ Years of Weaving. (Photo by Noah Nez)

Some attempt to correlate the various stories from different tribes of indigenous people into modern Thunderbird sightings. However, when one looks a little more critically at these legends, it is clear they serve a much different purpose.

The Yaqui tribe also has its own legend describing a giant mythical bird. In the tale of the “Otam Kawi,” it is said that “a great bird lived on a hill of Otam Kawi. Every morning he would fly out in search of food. He caught men, women, and little children and carried them back to Otam Kawi to eat. In those days the people always were watchful. They couldn’t have fiestas because when they had pascolas [ceremonial dances], always two or three of the people were carried away by the big bird. The Yaquis lived in hu’ukis, little houses made of mud and branches that looked like the house of a pack-rat, because they were afraid of the giant bird” (Giddings 1959).

Rather than describing a Thunderbird, this account more closely resembles a creation story. The following quote provides some insight into the intention of this particular account: “There were cows in those days, but no animals of the claw” (Giddings 1959). Upon closer review, this particular story sounds much like the Navajo’s “Mon­ster Slayer” legend, an alternate creation story. The story follows the life of a boy whose parents were taken by the giant bird during the time when the earth was still unsafe for people. The grandfather makes the boy a set of arrows and a bow and as time goes by, the boy becomes a better hunter and grows stronger as he ages. One day he ventures off to avenge his parents’ killer, seeking out the big bird. The story describes the giant birds: “He saw everything; the size, the colors of the feathers, the big eyes, and all.” When the boy returns back to his village to speak to his grandfather about the things he saw while hiding in a hole near the giant bird’s mesquite tree, he gives another similar description: “I saw him. I saw all of his colored feathers and his big eyes.” When the other villagers catch word of what the young boy has seen, they all go to visit him to ask if he has really seen the legendary giant bird. The boy gives the following response: “Yes, I saw it. It has feathers of many colors, a big body, and long claws”¹ (Giddings 1959).

Often the legends of Native American folklore include the common theme of a giant bird-like creature nesting in a “pile of bones.” For example, in this story, the young boy declares his intent to kill the terrorizing bird to the dismay and doubt of the elders. After being equipped with a new set of arrows and a stronger bow, the boy sets off on his journey to Otam Kawi. Along the way he encounters an older man who lived near the mountain who tells him, “Wait for this bird near Otam Kawi. He lives there. He only goes away to catch the people. He always comes back there. You will see there a great pile of bones.” The story continues:

He pulled out a handful of feathers and threw them into the air and the feathers become owls. With another handful of feathers he made smaller owls. With four handfuls of feathers, he made four classes of owls. In the same way, with other handfuls of feathers, he made birds of every kind, crows, and roadrunners. He threw the feathers and they became birds of different colors. When he had finished all of the feathers, he cut off a piece of meat from a dead bird. He threw this and it became a mountain lion. He cut another piece and made another kind of lion, which is a little braver. With another he made the topol, and with another, a spotted cat. Thus, the boy made four classes of big cats. After that he made four smaller kinds of cats. “I killed the big bird. Now you may walk about the world.” Upon returning to the village, the boy encounters some elders, stopping to ask if he has indeed killed the giant bird. “Yes, sirs. I made many little animals out of the feathers and the meat. I made owls of four kinds. I made four kinds of coyotes, four kinds of small cats, four kinds of lions, all animals of the claw.” The boy described some of the other animals made from the remains of the big bird: “These little birds don’t do any harm to us. But those animals I made from the meat of the big bird, you must take care about those. From today on they are not going to be gentle. We no longer have danger from above. Now we must take care from below. These animals aren’t much good for food, only for clothing. The birds are valuable only for their pretty feathers.”

This is clearly part of the creation story of the Yaqui, which is not to be taken literally. Those who offer the Yaqui legend of Otam Kawi as historic evidence for the existence of the Native American Thunderbird are misrepresenting the actual accounts of these vastly diverse groups of people and their different tribal beliefs.

Thunderbirds and Cryptozoology

Mark A. Hall, a leading cryptozoologist and self-proclaimed Thunderbird expert, has been investigating historical records and the eyewitness testimonies of cryptozoological phenomena for over fifty years. He is the author of Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds and is quoted on the Cryptomundo blog as being “an old fashioned patriot who allows himself to question the scientific establishment with every breath he takes” (Coleman 2010). Hall offers the following description of Thunderbirds:

The bird is distinguished by its size and lifting capabilities exceeding those of any known bird living today anywhere in the world. Wingspan estimates are necessarily all guesswork. But observers sometimes have the benefit of a measurable object for comparison or the benefit of time to ob­serve a resting bird. The results most often provide sizes of 15 to 20 feet. The bird at rest or on the ground appears to be four to eight feet tall. Typically the coloring of the birds overall is dark. (qtd. in Heinselman 2011)

However, Thunderbirds are unlike any extinct, prehistoric, or living species of birds presented by many cryptozoologists and monster enthusiasts because they are mythical creatures inspired by animals familiar to the groups of people living at the time these stories originated; they are intended as a way to explain the natural world.

As part of the city’s public-art program, this mural runs along the Thunderbird exit of the I-17 freeway located in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Noah Nez)

Craig Heinselman has contributed to cryptozoology with works such as Elemen­tum Bestia, which chronicles various subjects such as “elusive” prehistoric dino­saurs. In his article on Thunderbirds featured on Cryptozoology.com, he writes, “The evidence thus far for the existence of a large predatory bird in North America is based on historical and modern sightings and legends with no physical evidence, there is however two images of the Thunderbird, or at least a large bird” (Heinselman 2011).

Claims of modern Thunderbird sightings are not even supported by Native Amer­ican stories. No person has ever seen a Thun­derbird, even in dreams or in the “visions” of medicine men. According to the Native Amer­ican mythologies, Thunder­birds have no actual physical form. Most accounts resemble any other modern citing of a large bird-like shape with the potential of being misjudged in size and distance, which is notoriously common in eyewitness accounts. Some stories and reports offer various bones, possibly fossils, of large birds as physical evidence of Thunderbirds, but they are not necessarily the same creatures mentioned in these “sightings” from all around the world.

The majority of the “evidence” proposed for this mythic bird-like creature is given as literal interpretations of Native American folklore, which as we have seen are erroneous. Any eyewitness sightings (and certainly those by non-Natives) by definition cannot be Thunderbirds. In fact, it may even be considered disrespectful to suggest that a person could see, or has seen, a Thunderbird. Some may have looked to the Thunderbird legend to help rationalize these various strange encounters that people experience, but in doing so they bastardize these legends, misinform their readers, and do a disservice to the people and their tribal culture. If any part of the story should be taken out of the legend of Wakinyan Tanka, it should be that Thunderbirds are a link between the supernatural and natural worlds. They do not exist, but they are very real in the hearts and minds of Native American people.

Note

1. A major difference between this Yaqui story of the Otam Kawi and the Thunderbird legend is in the detailed descriptions given by these respective tribes. While the Thunderbird has “no body form, no eyes or feet,” the giant bird of the Otam Kawi is described in the story as having “colorful feathers with a big body and big eyes.” ↩

References

Coleman, Loren. 2010. Men in cryptozoology (blog post). Cryptomundo (June 14). Available online at www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/mencz-hall/.

Lame Deer, John. Wankanyan Tanka, the Great Thunderbird. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, (New York: Pantheon, 1984): 218–222.

Giddings, Ruth W. 1959. Yaqui myths and legends. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 2: 78–83.

Heinselman, Craig. N.d. Thunderbird. Available on­line at www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids/thunderbird.php.