Tag Archives: wilderness

Skin-walkers of New Mexico

Context: H is a  23 year old American, born in California and lived there until moving to Denver Colorado for College. After spending nearly five years in Denver he moved to New Mexico where he currently lives and has lived for the past two years. This entry was collected over a Zoom call. 

Intv: “So a few years ago you moved out to New Mexico, have you heard any folklore from out there?”

H: “Oh yeah, people talk about these things called skinwalkers out here. I’ve been here for two years, and my first job out here was cooking for a diner up in the woods, in the national forest here. Which there’s not a lot of in New Mexico, but there are some forests. So I cooked out there, and I’d often hear about this old folklore of these things called skinwalkers. I think it comes from some of the native communities out here, but I’d be lying if I said I knew that for sure. I’ve just heard it mostly in conversation out here, a lot of the people, especially people who live out in some of the towns near the woods, like Cedar Crest, Tijeras, Madrid, and Edgewood, just like very much believe in these things. They all have a handful of stories of times when they’ve seen these things… I haven’t seen one of these things, but the legend is they’re kinda like these possessed animals, or kinda like shapeless amorphous things, that cause bad luck. There’s definitely a negative connotation, but most of the stories I’ve heard are like ‘I saw a deer stand up on its hind legs and look right at me.’ When I was working at the diner, everyone out there, very much believed it, and I know one of my coworkers who lived out in Edgewood. If you drive 30 minutes towards me you’re in the middle of the city, 20 minutes the other way and it’s the middle of nowhere, that’s where they went. They saw what they thought was a deer, but weren’t sure because it didn’t look much like an animal they had seen just standing in the middle of the street. They drove around it and tried not to look at it, because you’re also not supposed to look right at them, which obviously adds to the, you know, purposely not looking at something that’s supposed to be really strange adds to it. It’s just a really common thing to hear about out here, especially out of the city which is most of New Mexico. Lots of wild stories, lots of wolves or deer standing on hind legs and doing things wolves don’t do, oftentimes they can speak too. I haven’t heard a lot of folklore in New Mexico, but stories of skinwalkers are everywhere.”  

Analysis: While being a very spooky and interesting story, the theory that these “skinwalkers” are animals experiencing some sort of prion disease is quite high. Either way, if you were walking across the frontier in America in the 1800s and something with a prion disease is near you, coming up with a monster absolutely makes the most sense, as there wouldn’t have been any other possible way to explain what one saw. I believe that’s what we’re hearing about when it comes to skinwalkers but I couldn’t say for certain. To read more about Skinwalkers, see “Sacred Evil: The Dark Side of Life Along the San Juan.” McPherson, Robert S. “The Dark Side of Life Along the San Juan.” Dinéjí Na`Natin: Navajo Traditional Teachings and History, University Press of Colorado, 2012, pp. 72–99. 

Proverb for How to Approach Different Kinds of Bears

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/27/2019
Primary Language: English
Language: German

[The subject is MSt. Her words are bolded, mine are not.]

MSt: If it’s black, attack; if it’s brown, lie down; if it’s white, good night.

ME: Could you explain that for me?

MSt: Alright, so when you’re, like, in the backcountry, you see a bear, there’s different, like, responses that you should have depending on the type of bear, so if it’s black, attack; brown, lie down; uh, white, good night. So black bears are easily scared… One time I, like, there was a black bear- a black bear kind of came into my campsite and was like, rustling around, scaring everybody, but we were just, like, real loud that night, and we all sang into the campfire, and like, we scared it away.

ME: So black means you attack.

MSt: Black means you attack. ‘Cause they’re scared of humans. So they mostly just don’t want the trouble. Like, any bear’s gonna get between you and their cub, but pretty much, like, black bears don’t want the fight. They just wanna, like, live their own life. Which, retweet.

Brown bears: brown, lie down. So brown bears, grizzlies, will attack you, but only if, like, you’re interesting to them. So just, like, lay down, try to make yourself small, like, be very clear that you’re not gonna try to attack them, ‘cause they will fight you and they will win. Play dead, because you will most likely die if you see a grizzly bear, but there’s a chance you won’t if you just, like, play dead.
And then white is good night, because, like, if you see a polar bear you’re fucked.

Context: MSt is one of my suitemates, and a sophomore student in college. She was born in Germany and moved to Michigan when she was five years old, where she grew up and lived until coming to USC. German was her first language, and though she still understands it she has forgotten how to speak fluently and now considers English her primary language. She has always been interested in hiking, camping, and spending time outdoors. In the middle of a conversation about our favorite deadly animals, I mentioned polar bears and she recited the proverb above, which I then asked her to explain. She told me that she had heard it from a teacher on a high school camping trip after they saw a brown bear pawing at one of the tents and scared it off by blowing whistles and loudly singing songs.

Thoughts: The reason MSt saying this stuck out to me in the middle of our conversation was that growing up, I always knew that there were different ways you were supposed to react depending on the type of bear you ran into, but I had no way of remembering what there were. This was the first time I had heard something like “leaves of three, let it be” (a proverb about avoiding poison ivy) that applied to bears, and it feels like something I should have learned growing up. I can see it being spread very easily from person to person because in addition to being short, catchy, and easy to remember, it is actually helpful to know if you’re in a situation where you might encounter a bear, and besides that, the last third of it is funny. It makes sense as a proverb that an authority/mentor figure would tell a student (which is how MSt first heard it), but also as something kids could say to one another for fun in a relevant conversation (which is how I first heard it).

Sespe Ouija Ghost

Age: 20
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Carmel, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/16
Primary Language: English

TO is a student at the University of Southern California, and current president of SC Outfitters, the student-run outdoors club.

TO shared an Ouija board encounter with me that took place on her first retreat:

“We were backpacking for our first guide retreat in the Sespe Wilderness near Ojai, and someone decided to bring an Ouija board. My friend Mac told us that a long time ago, exactly where we were camping, there was a troop of Boy Scouts that got caught in a flash flood and all drowned, so we decided to try and summon them with the Ouija board. We tried to get in contact with them, and the board spelled out “J X I,” which we were convinced meant “Jimmy.” We asked Jimmy if we could talk to him about the afterlife, and he said “no.” We attributed this to him being a young boy who wasn’t allowed to talk to strangers, so we let him go…I slept with a knife under my pillow that night, I was so scared.”

I asked TO if she had been back to that campsite since, and if she remembered hearing or seeing anything unusual.

“I’ve never been back to that specific campsite, no. We’ve done guide retreats in Sespe since but we seem to purposely avoid that campsite…new guides who weren’t there that first year want to go back and try and talk to Jimmy again, but I’m going to say no. I don’t remember seeing anything, but I was so on edge I thought every noise that night was the ghost of a Boy Scout or something.”

My analysis:

Campfire ghost stories are even scarier when they take place where you’re campfire is located, but people seem to enjoy telling these kinds of legends while out in the wilderness. Ouija boards are a fun folk object, but also a terrifying one, used to start and further new or existing ghost stories. TO says whether or not her friend made up the story of Jimmy and the Boy Scouts is uncertain, but her reluctance to return to the campground indicates she at least somewhat believes him. It also turns into a fun story for her to pass down to new generations of guides/members of the club, and possibly something they can one day go back and test, to begin creating their own sort of folklore for the club.