Skinwalkers

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Globe, Arizona
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: Okay. So. I’m going to tell you about Skinwalkers. The first time I heard about them was in 7th grade. One of the things is that you’re not supposed to talk about them or think about them because it attracts them, which is very scary, because also I’m in Arizona, which is where it happens, except I’m not near any reservation, which is good, but it’s still very scary, because everybody that I’ve talked to about it just talks about it like it’s a real thing, like it’s a matter of fact, which is actually very scary, and some of these people are people I, like, respect a lot. Anyways. So basically what I know about it is – so, I believe it originates from the Navajo, but there’s also some similar stuff like everywhere, mostly on reservations, and basically, it’s like, these medicine men who go to the dark side. I think they have to do some creepy rituals to, like, give up their humanity, and then they become, like, pure evil and they have the ability to transform into animals, the animals they have the pelts of. They’d generally use predator pelts, which makes it, like, so you aren’t supposed to wear predator pelts in the tribe. Unless you’re a Skinwalker, and you shouldn’t be a Skinwalker. 

Anyways. So there’s a bunch of stories about them appearing at night, and one of the things they can do is imitate voices, but like it’s… not right. So, one of the descriptions that comes up a lot is that they can… imitate the voices of animals, but it can morph into a voice of a loved one or a friend so they can lure people out to help – or a child – so they can lure people out. Which is super scary!! And one of the things they’ll do is, if you’re camping, they’ll separate someone, like, bodysnatch them, and transform into that person, and rejoin the group, except something’s off with them, because they’ll, like… mimic what other people are doing? To act as one of them? It doesn’t really make sense if they were human to begin with, but that’s one of the stories.

And the story that really freaked me out was of – if you’re driving at night on a reservation, it says that sometimes they’ll chase your car, or just hop in front of your car to make it crash. But the chasing of the car really scares me, because – and I think I told you about it before – they’ll knock on the side of your car until you think something’s wrong, and you’ll pull over, and then they’ll get you. But another one I’ve heard was where it was running alongside the car, and they looked over, and its eyes were human, and it was an animal running but it got on two legs and was still running alongside the car, like 60 miles per hour! And it’s a very scary concept. And it’s taboo, so people don’t generally talk about it, because talking and thinking about them is supposed to attract them, but I’m not on a reservation, so hopefully, it’ll be okay. 

Oh! And the way you’re supposed to… defeat them or destroy them is to know they’re name from when they were a person. Because when they become a… SW, sorry, I feel weird saying the name so much, they are – they denounce their humanity, so if you face them with their name… I don’t know what happens actually, I think they just die or crumble or something. 

Background:
My informant is a 19-year-old college student at USC, who grew up in a small town in Arizona. She is the youngest of three sisters, who she thinks may have toned down the story elements of various legends or myths to avoid scaring her (although she admits that doesn’t seem quite right with this piece). While she remembers first hearing about Skinwalkers in 7th grade, she doesn’t have a memory of who told her first. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this piece was collected via an interview that took place over FaceTime. 

Thoughts:
I’d never heard of Skinwalkers before. I find it really interesting how some stories become so commonplace in a particular area, but then are completely unknown in other parts of the country or the world. I also found it interesting that the informant was still uneasy talking about Skinwalkers, even though she didn’t wholeheartedly believe in them. The fear she had about them hurting her as a child has carried on as she continues towards adulthood, and even after all these years, she was still a bit spooked when she heard noises outside while describing them.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Nationality: American (Norwegian heritage)
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Developer
Residence: Woodinville, WA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Me: Could you tell me about the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival? Was it always a festival or was it originally just… tulips! (Fakes jazz hands)

Informant:  When I was in high school, there was no festival. In fact, the tulips themselves were considered waste, because it was from the Washington Bulb Company. They grew the tulips to get the bulbs. They didn’t want the flowers. In fact, they wanted you to come and take the flowers. So, for… student elections, which normally happened around when all the flowers were blooming, we’d go out with garbage bags, and take all of the blooms off the tops of the flowers. Snip off just the buds, put them in garbage bags, and you’d have a whole truck full of garbage bags of just blossoms, no stems, and take it back to school and you could write your name in blossoms, giant piles of blossoms, on the front lawn. So you’d come into school and your name would be spelled out in flowers. Every year. Call them up, and say, “Where should I go to get my blooms?” And they’d tell you which field was in bloom, and you’d go and fill up your truck full of – literally, full of just blossoms.

Me: When did it become an actual festival?

Informant: After I left high school. I was in college. I wasn’t really around. The Chamber of Commerce just decided. Trying to make people come. 

Me: Is there anything associated with the festival or is it just a festival in name?

Informant: No, there are activities that go on the entire month. Probably the best one is the salmon barbeque. The local Kiwanis club hosts a salmon barbeque every weekend – maybe even every night – during the tulip festival. The salmon is actually caught by the members of the Kiwanis club. So that’s good. You just go and have a nice dinner. They get hundreds of salmon, probably go through dozens a night, and they build a giant barbeque out of wood. There are guys who are just in charge of getting the firewood to fire the giant pits where they barbeque the salmon. You eat salmon, coleslaw, corn, and baked potatoes. Potatoes from the farms nearby, corn… ehhhhh… depends on the year. 

Background:
My informant is my father. He is in his mid-fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State called Burlington, which is the home of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, the festival described in the above piece. I grew up going to see the tulips every year with my parents and my whole extended family, so the festival is quite important to me as well.

Thoughts:
I’ve attended the tulip festival almost every year for as long as I can remember, even if it was just to drive by and see the huge fields of tulips. It’s one of my favorite things about being from Washington state, getting to go to this tulip festival. The salmon barbeques are a huge community gathering, and it’s a chance to see your entire extended family, all of their friends, all of their friends’ extended family, and so on and so forth. Even if you don’t live there, you feel like a member of the community. The festival itself is very important to me, and I had to miss it this year due to the pandemic, which is devastating. 

Salish Tribe – Thunderbird and Spirit of the Water

Nationality: American (Norwegian heritage)
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Developer
Residence: Woodinville, Washington, USA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: We also have to talk about the myths of the Salish people, particularly the Thunderbird and the Spirit of the Water. I don’t know them that well, I just know that the Thunderbird is the bird that makes the thunder in the sky with the clap of his wings, and the Spirit of the Water is the Orca. He’s like… a brother. Someone who protects you and watches over you. 

Me: Where did you first hear about them? 

Informant: I grew up with them. The Swinimish tribe was just down the road in La Conner. We’d play them in sports all the time, the kids in the tribal school, so we were always over there. I think they were called The Braves. They hosted a basketball tournament every year, and it was a big deal, to go to the Swinimish Basketball Tournament. But you would always be – you’d always learn about their history. That was just the way it was. And it was really considered a good thing. You’d go to their school, and they’d have a giant Orca in their gymnasium. It was everywhere! That was just kinda what it was. And the totem poles, and you’d learn the history of the totem poles, how to read them and what they were and what they represented and things like that. 

Background: 
My informant is my father. He is in his mid-fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State near some Native American tribes. As he described in the piece, he played sports with kids from their tribal school, so he was exposed first hand to Native American history as opposed to learning about it in school. The myths of the Salish people are pretty well known in the general Seattle area, and many have been turned into children’s books you might find in school libraries or bookstores. (While that’s not how my father learned the stories, I think it’s important to bring it up for context of the area he grew up in)

Thoughts: 

While the stories of the Thunderbird and other characters in these myths are widely known across Washington, I personally didn’t know that the Orca was the Spirit of the Water. It made a lot of sense, and made me rethink if that’s why Washington is so protective of their Orcas. I always thought it was because they aren’t very common, and that made having them nearby a source of pride; however, now I’m wondering how much of Washington’s attachment to the animal has to do with the myths that say the Orcas will watch over us and protect us. It’s a perspective I’d never thought about before, and I found it to be really interesting.

Sasquatch

Nationality: American (Norwegian heritage)
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Developer
Residence: Woodinville, Washington, USA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: Sasquatch! Ahhhhh, a good Northwest legend. Or maybe… Real? (Fakes a dramatic gasp, then laughs) You might not know this, but of the most recent in Bigfoot, which kinda really started in the 70s, a lot of the earlier sightings were up by Mount Baker. Particularly on the south fork of the Nooksack, which is a place where I used to go to all the time when I was in high school. It’s veeeeeery remote, and if you don’t know how to get there, you’d never – you’d have a thousand acres to yourself, and there’d be no one else around, and it got creepy at times. You know that feeling, how you feel like somebody’s watching you? Yeahhhh, I felt that a couple times out there.

Me: Were you ever specifically looking for Bigfoot, or did you just want to be alone?

Informant: Nah, I was just hanging out. Just something to do. But you’d be sitting there by the river and all of a sudden you’d be like “… Someone’s watching me.” And then you would leave. Yeah, it was creepy. And there was one time, after graduation, me and a bunch of friends went up camping, up in that general area, and we all got freaked out in the middle of the night, ‘cuz we all kinda woke up, and we actually got in the car and left in the middle of the night, ‘cuz we were too freaked out – you just have these feelings. So, never saw any footprints, but definitely felt a presence.

Me: Like… a ghost?

Informant: No. Bigfoot.

Me: It had to be Bigfoot?

Informant: Of course. It was definitely Bigfoot.

Background:
My informant is my father. He is in his mid-fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State, where Bigfoot is a widely accepted legend. We have Bigfoot merchandise sold in almost every store, and are very proud that he’s from our area. I’ve never known the informant to be the type to believe things without evidence, but Bigfoot is the one he’s always accepted, despite never having any experiences seeing footprints or coming face to face with him or anything like that.

Thoughts:
I personally don’t know if I believe Bigfoot’s real, but I like him as a character. I’m proud that he’s from the Pacific Northwest, because I’m very proud of being from the Pacific Northwest. I’ve never had any interactions with him, or known anyone who’s had interactions with him. I have no reason to believe he’s real, but I also have no reason to believe he’s not real. 

Tooth Fairy

Nationality: American (Norwegian heritage)
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Developer
Residence: Woodinville, Washington, USA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: So. Tooth Fairy. I, actually, was always kinda questioning the Tooth Fairy. So when I was – I think it was probably around the third grade or so, when you lose your molars – I took my last molar, and – for us, instead of under the pillow, we put it in a glass of water, and set it by the bedside.

Me: Why??

Informant: That’s just how it happened. 

Me: They never told you, “You have to do this otherwise the Tooth Fairy won’t come…?”

Informant: That’s just how it was done. You don’t question it. That’s just how it was done. And you’d wake up and there’d be a quarter in the glass of water. 

Me: So… Your parents just fished into glasses of water to find teeth?

Informant: No, the tooth would still be in there. 

Me: You kept your tooth?

Informant: Yeah, got to keep the tooth.

Me: That’s… so different from everything else I’ve ever heard!

Informant: That’s the way we did it. So for my last tooth, I actually put it in the glass of water, and then I hid the glass, so I could prove – ‘cuz if it was smart enough to find it by my bed, should be smart enough to find it someplace else. Yeah. No. Didn’t find it. And I was like “A ha! Gotcha on that one.” 

Background:
The informant is the interviewer’s father. He is in his late fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State. He was a child going through the whole thing with the Tooth Fairy in the early 70s. He’s also the youngest of three, with both older siblings considerably older, so his parents had gone through the Tooth Fairy rituals multiple times when he started losing teeth.

Thoughts: 
I also had questions about the Tooth Fairy, as I’m sure many people did, so I also hid one of my teeth and didn’t tell my parents. However, I did not ever put my teeth in glasses of water, or get money in the water. It was always done under my pillow, and everyone else I’ve talked to besides my father put teeth under their pillow too. I have no idea where the glass of water idea came from, and neither does he. I feel compelled to ask my grandparents now, or look into whether or not that was popular in Norway in the olden days, because my family is very Norwegian and adheres to those types of traditions sometimes.