American Vampires

by Bob Curran

  The killing of witches and skinwalkers was traditionally accepted as part of Navajo culture. The tradition was similar to the killing of witches and the destruction of vampires in Europe (the main difference being that the latter were already deemed to be dead). And as with European witch accusations and slayings, it was motivated by petty jealousies and animosities. Some of the skinwalkers survived the Purge, but had to leave the Navajo settlements, never to return.

  It is commonly said that the first witch/skinwalker to be killed as part of the Purge was murdered right in front of Hubbell’s trading post. The murder later necessitated the removal of the post to a different location at Ganado Lake. While it is unclear exactly who was killed and exactly where, it is clear that the slaying was brutal and that there was a lot of blood. It was also vicious enough to frighten Charles Hubbell himself. There was a widespread belief in a form of Navajo, Ute, and Zuni witchcraft known as antiih, in which spirits were evoked by spilled blood and violence, and would bring misfortune wherever they were drawn. Whether or not Hubbell believed in this, he moved to Ganado Lake. It is probable that none of the local Navajos would now use his post, because of the murder connotations and the fear of the dark and malicious spirits, which the spilled blood had drawn to it.

  On May 31st, 1878, Charles Hubbell wrote a frantic letter addressed to “W.B. Leonard, Fort Defiance, Arizona Territory, Yavapai County.” In it, he pleaded for ammunition and rifles to be sent urgently as he expected “a big row” among the Native Americans and he feared that large bands of them would arrive from “Canon de Chelle” (Canon de Chelly, Arizona) in order to create trouble. He feared that all whites in the area were in danger, and that his store and its contents would be destroyed. In a second letter written that same day, Hubbell stated that an informant named Ganio had told him that the Native Americans were arming themselves and that his own life was in danger. He appealed for soldiers from Fort Defiance to come and protect them. The restlessness had been caused by the slaying of a Navajo named Hastiin Biwosi, who had been murdered as skinwalker by a group of his own people. It is estimated that there were about 50 of his own community who hunted him down with horses and guns, eventually finding the place where he was hiding. He was dragged out at gunpoint and was taken before Totsohnii Hastiin, who was a naataani (a kind of informal but highly respected leader); he pronounced him as a skinwalker and witch. One of Biwosi’s relatives, Ganado Mucho, spoke up for him, telling the others that the spirit of a skinwalker could return from the dead and cause them harm. But others were determined that the creature that was Biwosi should be killed. In the end, Totsohnii Hastlin threw up his hands and said, “Do what you want,” whereupon they dragged Biwosi out, shot him, and then stoned his dead body.

  For many days afterward, the tension remained. Ganado Mucho was particularly fearful, as he had committed a grievous act in being party to the killing of a close relative. And it was assumed that if a skinwalker had been malignant when alive, he or she would be doubly so when dead. Two witches had been killed, but they could certainly return and wreak vengeance on the community. A few days later, another naataani, a healer named Manuelito, arrived at Fort Wingate with a letter, which he dictated to J.L. Hubbell—who was Charles’s brother—reporting that the Navajos had taken six medicine men prisoner under the suspicion that they were skinwalkers and that they intended to kill them all. He asked for military intervention to prevent this from happening. His request was answered. No less than 10 “witches and skinwalkers” were brought before Lieutenant D.D. Mitchell, who had arrived from Fort Wingate (and who had previously given a stern speech condemning the killing of such people by their own families) and all of them survived.

  For a number of months afterward, there were isolated killings of alleged witches and skinwalkers throughout the area, but not on the scale of the Purge. Leaders such as Manuelito and Ganado Mucho assumed the roles of local naataani and helped to defuse much off the tension that still existed. Nevertheless, the fear of the skinwalkers remained, and their influence would be felt all through the region for many years after. The Purge had simply been a physical explosion of that fear. In this respect, the Navajo had been no different than the European communities of the medieval and early modern periods, who had been just as terrified of vampires, witches, and night wanderers.

  During the Navajo Witch Purges, there was one secondary feature (after the curses of the witches themselves) among the instances of witchcraft that struck terror into the native population. This is the phenomenon of cattle mutilation and it stems from the widely held belief that if a skinwalker cannot attack a living individual or family, it will attack and injure his/her livestock. The belief was common in many parts of Europe as well. Unable to enter houses, European vampires often turned to the nearest form of sustenance, which usually happened to be the communal livestock, and many medieval and early modern farmers often lived in fear of losing either cattle or sheep to the wandering dead.

  One of the most frequent livestock killings are what are known as “cattle mutilations” (bovine excision), which were quite common during the Purge. Although the term refers largely to cattle, it should be pointed out that the term is often used in a “catch-all” sense and that the cattle can also refer to sheep and horses. One of the striking features of such attacks (in modern times at least) is the deliberate nature of the injuries involved. Further, such slayings are often characterized by the loss of blood on the part of the animal, even though there is little spilled blood in evidence. This has led to suggestions that the killings are the work of vampiric creatures that have drained the cattle of their blood.

  In the southwest, such stories (or indeed mutilations) are not new, but stretch all the way back to the time of the Spaniards. Late in 1540, the army of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado came through the area on its way to seek out the Native American cities of gold, which were supposed to exist in the region. They were following a trail that had been laid out for them by the monk Fray Marcos de Niza, who assured them that great wealth lay somewhere in the southwestern region. With them, the army brought herds of cattle that could be slaughtered along the way, in order to sustain them. At night, as the conquistadores and their men slept, the cattle were corralled in large pens on the edge of their camp. One night, well into the expedition, the cattle were attacked. The attackers were “little gray men” with hard and spiky skins, which set upon the animals in order to draw their blood and consume some of their internal organs. They were only driven away by fire—the men held lighted torches to push them back. Local natives later told the Spaniards that these were chupacabra (goatsuckers) and that they lived in the surrounding hills. They were cannibals who drank blood, and, if confronted they would attack humans as well as animals. It was said that they only came out at night. Coronado’s generals sent a number of small expeditions out into the nearby hills, but found nothing. Locals, however, told them that the beings were certainly there and had lived there for a very long time, attacking their goats and cattle and sometimes themselves, and that there were some among them who could change shape, taking on the guise of a bird or a coyote. Many of Coronado’s livestock had been severely mutilated and completely drained of blood. The great general marched his army through the region quickly, leaving the dangerous hills and their strange shapeshifting creatures well behind him. Other Spaniards in the area told similar stories of the chupacabra and of beings that could change their shape at will, all of which drank blood or devoured internal organs.

  During the governorship of Ponce de Leon, there are a number of stories concerning cattle mutilations, chupacabras, and skinwalkers. There is a legend that a conquistador named Ferdinand Cubero led an expedition against chupacabra somewhere to the west of the present-day city of Albuquerque (although some variations say the vampire colony was based along the Santa Cruz River). Cubero was attacked several times during the hours of darkness by “little gray men” and sometimes by creatures that took the form of dogs and even the guise of some of
his own men in order to create confusion in the poor light. The creatures seemed to have scant respect for the church, for among those slain were two friars who accompanied the expedition and their blood was drained from their bodies. Terrified that the powers of the Holy Orders did not seem to be able to protect them, Cubero ordered his men to pull back, but the creatures appeared to follow them for a time and several more men were killed.

  After the establishment of Albuquerque as Ranchos de Albuquerque with a presidio (military garrison) in 1706, stories of skinwalkers and chupacabra still persisted in the farming communities throughout the area. The place was a military outpost and a number of patrols were sent out to investigate, but encountered very little. There were stories of soldiers finding the creatures sleeping in holes in the ground or in abandoned pueblos and killing them with both fire and sword.

  Other stories concerning chupacabra and skinwalkers come from neighboring Arizona. Many of these tales also have their roots in the time of Spanish occupation there. The Jesuit Italian explorer, Father Eusebio Franscisco Kino, explored the area of what is now southwestern Arizona (then known as the Pimeria Alta) in the early 1700s and recorded a number of local tales concerning the skinwalkers. Following him, Jose Romo de Vivar ran cattle in the Huachuca Mountains, an area in which some of these creatures were said to live. De Vivar complained frequently to the authorities that his cattle were disappearing and were later found slaughtered and drained of blood. Locals said that the Huachuca were full of chupacabra and it was probably these that were creating the mischief. The Spaniards did not venture forth into the mountains, as it was suggested that they might encounter the likeness of walking men who could suddenly change into the semblance of animals or balls of light that could attack and kill them. Presumably what Spanish there were in the area were superstitious enough to keep well within their pueblos at night, so de Vivar’s complaints probably went unheeded.

  As more Spanish colonists trickled into the area, the authorities considered establishing a mission in the region and invited the Italian Jesuit and missionary Father Kino to do so. Father Kino had already established a number of missions around Sonora and Nogales, and he gladly accepted the invitation and founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac, just south of present-day Tucson. Local natives told the early missionaries of witch things that dwelt in ancient pueblos nearby, which would attempt to infiltrate and destroy the missions if they could. Such being could take on the guises of many things including penitentes (local Christian Native Americans seeking absolution from the fathers). According to legend, some of the early missionaries in the area encountered some of these beings and, although it is claimed that they were driven back to their abandoned and ruined pueblos by the impressive power of the Christian Cross, some variations of the tale leave out the Christian symbolism and speak of fire, musket, and cold steel. However, perhaps a more pressing threat than any supernatural witch came from the groups of marauding Apaches in the locality who frequently attacked the Sonora missions. These finally destroyed San Xavier around 1770.

  In 1767 Charles III, King of Spain, banned all Jesuits from the mission lands in the Americas due to his vast mistrust of the order. He placed the missions in the hands of much more easily manipulated and “responsible” Franciscans. Once again, local natives complained to the fathers who set up in the rebuilt mission of attacks on their cattle by supernatural creatures. Away to the west in the wilderness, the Tohono O’odham told them there were evil men who had “turned their backs on God” and lived in crumbling pueblos where they practiced something that resembled the “witchery way.” This turned them into great magicians and enabled them to take the form of owls and coyotes and other things in order to attack God’s children. There are tales that the Franciscans (like the Jesuits before them) went out into the waste armed with crucifixes and Latin Bibles. Whether this was successful or not is debateable, for it is thought that the cattle mutilations in the area still continued despite the priests’ intervention.

  Indeed, such mutilations continued unabated for many years. The present mission church was begun in 1783 and completed in 1797. It was built under the guidance and direction of two Franciscan friars, Father Juan Bautista Velderrain and Father Juan Bautista Llorenz working mainly with native labor. A garrison had been established further downriver at Presidio San Augustin de Tucson to protect the building from any further Apache raids, but even this could not really protect the area around from the supernatural evil, which appeared to be stalking the region. Even at this time, stories of chupacabra and skinwalkers were still prevalent. Many local farmers said that they had seen their cattle attacked by what looked like small balls of light, which appeared to draw off the good (and blood) from the animals in question. The locals said this could only be vampire beings intent on doing mischief in the district. Although the good fathers investigated, it is thought that there was little trace of the supernatural threat to be found. A military expedition from the presidio and led by both the Fathers is said to have ventured out into the wasteland and even visited several of the abandoned and ruined mud pueblos there, but if they found anything, it is not recorded. They may have found a few native hermits living there, but probably little else. If this was the case, what became of these men? Were they put to death by the soldiers under the direction of the priests? Maybe they were skinwalkers after all. The expeditions returned to the mission, but allegedly, the cattle mutilations continued. All throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, farmers in Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah have recorded sporadic instances of cattle mutilation. Although sometimes separated by many years, the mutilations are strikingly similar. Almost all involve the loss of blood and some internal organs. Local Native American groups attribute the activity to that of skinwalkers who could not attack humans.

  Although such mutilations tend to be in “cluster groups” sometimes years apart, there have been some that have been particularly frequent and especially brutal. In 1999, for example, a spate of mutilations at Ash Fork, an area west of Flagstaff, Arizona, was so bad that the authorities decided to investigate. A team from the United States Department of Agriculture arrived in Phoenix. This time it was not cattle that they had come to investigate. Since 1998, more than 19 horses and a mule had been mutilated, and much of their blood was gone. The teams arrived at Ash Fork to determine whether these animals had been the victims of “an infectious agent” (that is, some disease), which had caused them to die in this manner. Two pathologists and an epidemiologist accompanied the groups and carried out extensive work on the dead animal bodies. Their conclusion was that “no infectious agent” was present at Ash Fork. Samples were sent for testing to the labs at the University of Arizona in Tucson, but the results of this investigation were never made public. Of course, when they arrived in the area, the teams heard many stories about chupacabra-like creatures and skinwalkers, and the cattle mutilations were often directly attributed to the activities of local witches. Balls of curious light—some of them behaving in peculiar ways or traveling at great speeds—were frequently seen in the Ash Fork area, and this was a sure indication that skinwalkers were present. Other tales told of uncanny creatures that were not altogether human, moving about under cover of darkness, and they were taken to be witches who had discarded their human skins and were now appearing in their true form for the purposes of attacking their neighbors’ livestock. The teams, however, seem to have disregarded such stories and concentrated on the path of toxicology. Or did they, as some suggest, find other things, which is why their report has never been made fully public?

  An even more extensive investigation, however, was carried on in New Mexico in the mid-to-late 1970s by the FBI. Between 1975 and 1980, more than 100 mysterious cattle deaths were reported in New Mexico with many more going unreported. It is thought that the total number may have been nearly 1,000. In most cases, the cattle were found, completely drained of blood, and with deliberate and precise cuts on their carcasses. In many cases, they were also swollen
up with various organs (including sexual organs) removed. Once again, the old theories about the skinwalkers resurfaced, although this time they were accompanied by theories about UFOs and about clandestine criminal or even government activities. As with the Melon Heads in Ohio, it was thought that the military was conducting secret experiments somewhere in the wilderness that had somehow gone awry. However, the idea of skinwalkers was certainly very prevalent. Indeed, so frequent were these stories that the FBI were compelled to investigate as a response to the urging of local Senator Harrison Schmitt. The Senator wrote to the then-U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, demanding an investigation into what he believed was “organized interstate criminal activity.” Bell responded the following month, stating that what Schmitt had described was “…one of the strangest phenomena in (his) memory.” The FBI were therefore sent to Phoenix to investigate the mutilations and immediately heard the stories of skinwalkers and vampires in the region.

  Initially, the Bureau was very reluctant to investigate the incident, and this reluctance remained throughout. Several times they tried to pull out of the investigation, but were directed to continue by the U.S. Department of Justice. They commenced in March 1979, but with the agreement that the scope of the investigated should be restricted to New Mexico’s Native American lands, which lay in federal jurisdiction. The Bureau collected a file filled with memos and newspaper clippings from the area. FBI laboratories analyzed flakes of an unknown substance taken from the roof of a pick-up truck, the driver of which had encountered balls of light on a road near Taos. The determination of the tests was inconclusive, but agents determined that they were probably a type of house paint. At least that is the result of a report signed by now-retired agent Kenneth Rommel, one of the lead agents in the investigation. Local people begged to differ—they insisted it was the blood of a skinwalker and proof of supernatural activity. Others claimed it had come from a UFO.