DEDICATED TO:
John Rohner,
a Master Craftsman, turning Story into Art
Dreamscape
The hour is late,
the night is long, and it is cold,
the trail is long, and it is old.
Stories kept and stories lost,
once you read a story that filled you with hope,
and read one that filled you with loss.
But it was that one about ghosts,
that you remember the most!
Who are they and from where did they come?
Are they as old as us, are they as wise, are they even the same?
Are they the truth, or are they a lie?
Why is it that the one about ghosts,
we remember the most?
Sleep this night, and many more, until you grow old and wise.
Forget those stories of fairies, gremlins, and trolls.
Close your eyes and sleep tonight.
All is filled with hope, fear of loss is far away …
But that story of ghosts,
you will fear the most!
—SASUWEH, PONCA NATION, 2020
Title Page
Dedication
Dreamscape
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE: GHOSTS
My Great-Aunt’s Last Ten A.M. Visit
The Mashpee Sailor
You Don’t Live Here Anymore
The Lame Warrior and the Skeleton
The Dark Figure
The Boy Who Watched Over the Children
CHAPTER TWO: SPIRITS
Twin Child Was Arapaho
The Deer Hunter
The Rock Baby
The Little People
La Llorona
CHAPTER THREE: WITCHES
The Walking Doll
The Garage Sale
Exorcism of the Blood Bull Boy
The Lost Hunters and the Skudakumooch’
Hand Games: Tiny Man versus the Witch Twins
La Lechuza, the Owl-Witch
The Deserted Children
CHAPTER FOUR: MONSTERS
Pa Ki Sko Kan (Bones)
Billy Goat and Bigfoot
The Great Horned Serpent
The Chenoo: The Cannibal with an Icy Heart
The Vampire of Sleeping Child Hot Springs
The Flying Head
CHAPTER FIVE: THE SUPERNATURAL
My Brother, Last of the Crow Men
Sleeping Buffalo Rock
The Kushtaka
Deer Woman
The Stikini
Warning
Skinwalker
Coyote and the Turkeys
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
Ghost stories were a big part of my life growing up as an American Indian. As a young member of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, I spent many evenings listening to our tribal elders tell us chilling tales. When I was older, I traveled across the country to collect stories from other tribes. Until then, I did not realize that ghost stories are held as deeply in other American Indian tribes and nations as they are in mine. Many of these stories take place long ago; some are in the recent past; and many are told as if they’ve just happened—because sometimes they have. Ghost stories are always close to us because ghosts are part of our daily world.
Not all things strange are ghosts. Stories of the unknown come in many shapes and forms that tell of unexplainable—sometimes horrible—things. Some are about demons or evil spirits. Others are about inanimate objects, like glowing orbs, apparitions, or even dolls that take on the breath of life. In this book, I have divided the world of American Indian ghosts into five categories: “Ghosts,” “Spirits,” “Witches,” “Monsters,” and “The Supernatural,” to give a clearer, more defined picture of what you may encounter—from an unseen noise to a hideous face to maybe something no one else has ever experienced. But let me start from the beginning.
While on summer break from the University of Colorado, instead of taking my usual trip home to Oklahoma, I accepted an invitation to stay with a friend from the Colville Indian Reservation, in Washington State. His family owned a ranch with lots of extremely beautiful land that bordered tribal lands. That provided a welcome getaway from the city. They had horses, and there were trails from their land to the tribal lands, which were filled with clean rivers, lakes, and beaver ponds. You could spend weeks there and rarely see another person. My friend and I put together a tepee and a month’s worth of food and headed into the wilderness. We met people living there and recorded their ghost stories. I spent the next five years crisscrossing the nation, living on American Indian lands, meeting some of the most fascinating people and collecting their stories, too.
I lived without electricity, and after dark, friends would gather for a firelit evening meal followed by a night of telling stories. I was fascinated by all the master storytellers I met. Their audience might never be over a hundred people in their life of storytelling. Yet they pass on stories that will live for centuries within their own cultures.
It soon became clear across all the regions I traveled that there was one type of common, recurring story—the ghost story. This became my umbrella term for the stories about all the things that frighten people the most: ghosts and monsters and witches and other unknown beings that live all around us.
Years later, when I began compiling my stories, they seemed to fall into categories—not scientific in any way; just natural. Each is a chapter in this book, and at the beginning of each chapter, I will define these different types for you and explain their importance to American Indian cultures.
I hope you’ll enjoy what I learned in my travels throughout Indian America. At the top of each story I’ve included information so you’ll know where that tale came from. You’ll see my byline next to my own ghost encounters, both during my travels and at home among my Ponca tribe. I have also included some ancient stories to show the differences between types of stories and cultures through time. Other stories I collected from authors today. I am deeply grateful to the storytellers I met in person and to all the other authors who contributed to this book. Some tribal cultures are not allowed to share certain ghost stories because the spirits are so real to them that saying the spirit names may endanger the storytellers and their families—I respect that, and I did not include those stories.
Of the many stories from Indian America, this collection just scratches the surface. But the stories are real, and they have kept many young listeners awake late into the night …
—Dan SaSuWeh Jones
A ghost is a form of energy. In life, that energy is in the form of a person, an animal, or any other being. When that being dies, the energy takes on a new form, as a ghost. Ghosts are mostly associated with an event, usually a tragic moment when a life is lost suddenly. The heart stops beating in this world, but the sound of the beating heart remains, leaving a bit of the energy among us. The rest of the energy transfers to a spiritual plane. Generally, ghosts appear around the place of the tragic event, and they relive it repeatedly. Usually this energy is angry because it feels trapped. It is looking for a way out. Many cultures believe that ghosts are not here to harm us, while others consider them dangerous. In my experience, they have little to no physical effect on the living—unless someone hurts themselves when reacting to a ghost! Indeed, some ghosts may carry a message that can save lives or warn people of trouble. While less frequent, the ghosts of animals may also relive the tragic event that took their life. In the end, of all possible otherworldly events, ghost encounters are the least dangerous.
Sometimes ghosts are confused with spirits—but they are just one kind of spirit. And many other spirits have far more complex agendas, as we’ll find out in Chapter Two.
My Great-Aunt’s Last Ten A.M. Visit
TOLD BY DAN SASUWEH JONES, PONCA
It is an old belief of the Ponca, my tribe, that after a person passes away, they come back for a last visit to all their relatives. While we may not see them, or they may appear only in our dreams, they let us know they have come.
We lived in the country far from town, but members of our extended family had homes nearby. One was my great-aunt Agnes. She had lost her husband many years before my time and she was quite elderly, but still active. Almost every day that weather permitted, she would walk from her house to our home, a distance of about a quarter mile, or three blocks by city measure. It was her daily exercise and maybe the reason she had lived so long. We knew when she’d gotten to our house because she always came in the door of the screened-in porch. You could hear the old screen door make a creaking sound as it opened and its spring was pulled taut, followed by the slam as it closed hard.
Aunt Agnes would walk the few steps across the old board floor to the back door of our kitchen. She had a very distinctive walk with a limp—she walked heavier on one side, with a louder footstep than on the other side. While she made her way across the old porch floorboards, her steps were amplified, and from about anywhere in the house you could hear her entering. She would always visit at midmorning, around ten a.m. You could set your clock by her visit. When Mom would first hear the screen door stretching its spring, she would yell out, “Go help your aunt Agnes open the back door.” And my father or one of us kids would run to the back door to let her in.
My great-aunt Agnes was a historian of our tribe, and she would spend about an hour with my mother on each of her visits, telling her about our heritage. Mom always had water on the stove to boil and would make tea for the two of them. After her visit, Aunt Agnes would be off, back to her home. Mom would offer her a ride, but Aunt Agnes would always refuse it and say that the walk did her good.
It had been a few days since Aunt Agnes’s last visit, but the weather had been bad, with rain and storms in the late morning and afternoon, so it wasn’t of any concern to us. During that time my father had started to replace some of the old boards on the back porch. He had cut the boards to length and set them in place, but he hadn’t nailed them all down. One of those stormy mornings, my mother and sister and I were sitting in the dining room when we all heard the spring on the screen door being pulled taut as it opened.
My mother said, “It must be your father working on that floor.”
“No, Mom,” my sister replied. “He went after some nails in town.”
Then my mother turned as white as a sheet, thinking her aunt had come for a visit and may have fallen through the loose boards. She sat straight up.
“It’s your aunt Agnes. Go help her!”
We all heard the old boards creaking and Aunt Agnes’s signature limp moving to the kitchen door. Mom and my sister were up in a flash, and I followed behind them as Mom began to open the door. Then she turned to us with a look of relief, as my aunt was nowhere in sight. “That was strange,” Mom said. “I swore I heard her!”
That’s when there was a loud knock on our front door. It was my cousin Susan, who had clearly been crying. When my mother asked her what was wrong, Susan said words that I still remember to this day: “Dear Aunt Agnes. They found her dead early this morning. She died in her sleep.”
At that moment it was ten a.m.
The Mashpee Sailor
BASED ON A TRADITIONAL WAMPANOAG TALE, MASSACHUSETTS, TOLD BY SAMANTHA HATCH
For twelve thousand years the Mashpee have lived on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Their name means “Large Water.” Part of the big Wampanoag Nation, they were among the first Indians to meet European settlers in the 1600s. The Mashpee made a living fishing and trading along the coast, so seafarers and fishermen were familiar sights in a Mashpee village. Life changed after the Europeans came, but Mashpee values of hospitality and family ties remained strong. In this story a ghost returns to the realm of the living to test the generosity and loyalty of a young mother. Will she pass his test?
It was a cool night near the Cape, and the young mother sat in her wigwam knitting a blanket late into the night. It was hours until she would sleep, for she had much work to do. She would sell the blanket to feed her two children, for her handiwork was all she had to trade. The children’s father had been lost to illness two winters ago.
Her door flap was wide open in a welcoming gesture, as was customary of her people, and maybe it was just the wind that made her look up, or maybe it was a different kind of chill. When she looked outside, she saw a man standing there in the dark.
“Hello?” she said. “Is someone there?” The fog was thick this night, and it seemed to somehow billow more thickly around the dark figure.
The figure stepped closer, and she was no longer afraid. He had a kind face and wore a sailor’s clothing, the kind her people wore, though it looked a little worse for wear.
“May I warm myself by your fire?” the sailor asked. “My clothes are wet and I have traveled far this day.”
She invited him inside and added another log to the fire. As the stranger sat, she returned to her knitting. After a few moments, she glanced at the man sitting near the fire, and that is when she saw it. She could see the fire right through his legs. As if he were made of the mist that had surrounded him outside. She realized, with a jolt, that this was no man. He was a ghost!
The young mother was brave and showed no fear. He had not threatened her with harm. She glanced quickly over her shoulder at her sleeping children to see that they were safe, then returned to her knitting, keeping a close eye on the ghost. They sat in silence for several minutes before he spoke.
“I see that you are not a rich woman,” the ghost said.
The young mother said nothing, for it was not a question.
“I see that you have little,” he continued, “but you have helped me this night. If you would like a large pot full of gold, you will find one buried behind your wigwam, near a large rock. It will be enough to keep you for many years to come.”
And with that, the ghost stood and left her home.
The young mother shivered. It was not until he was gone that she noted the extra chill in the air that the ghost had brought with him. She waited a few minutes, tucking the blankets tighter around her little ones while she waited. She wanted to be sure that the ghost was gone before she considered what to do.
After a few long moments, thoughts of the gold crept into her mind. She needed money to buy food and new clothes for her children.
The mother took her hoe and walked out and around to the back of her wigwam. There, as the ghost had said it would be, was a large rock sitting beside a patch of freshly dug earth. She began to dig. As she did, she heard her daughter cry out. She ran around to the door of her home to check on the child. But her daughter was sound asleep, the blankets undisturbed.
The young mother was confused, for she was sure that she’d heard her daughter scream. Again she walked around to the back of the wigwam and began to dig. With each strike of the ground with her hoe, she heard a child cry as if in pain. This time it sounded like her young son. She dropped her hoe and ran around the wigwam.
But she was wrong again. Her son lay quietly next to his sister, sound asleep.
One more time she returned to the site of the large rock and the promised riches. She picked up her hoe and began to dig. This time she heard them both, clear as they could be, screaming as if something was hurting them, killing them! Dropping the hoe, she ran inside.
Again, she found them sleeping.
Trembling, she had to clear her mind of the memory of the screams. She climbed into the bed with her children, pulled them close, and emptied her mind of their cries and the pot full of gold. She slept.
In the morning, she woke with the sun. She wondered if last night’s visitor had been a dream. After dressing her children and giving them breakfast, she ventured out into the cool gray morning. As she reached the spot where she’d left her hoe the night before, she knew it wasn’t a dream. Near the large rock was a deep, round hole. The earth had been dug up, and whatever buried treasure had been there was long gone. She had no time to lament this before she heard a woman scream.
This scream did not come from her home. Instead it came from far away. Still, the sound was unmistakable—an earsplitting shriek of grief.
She dressed her children warmly and they joined the other villagers running toward the sound. When they arrived, the mother learned that a woman had awakened to find her child dead. It was her shriek the mother had heard piercing the morning. The villagers had tried to comfort the woman, but she’d run toward the cliffs.
They had tried, but they had failed. The mist swallowed her forever.
Near her bed the villagers found a dirt-covered hoe and a chest overflowing with gold coins.
The young mother never forgot that cold night or her ghostly visitor. She held her children close to her and they lived for many years. They never had riches, but they were happy having one another.
You Don’t Live Here Anymore
TOLD BY HERMAN VIOLA, SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
In 1972, while I was the director of the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, I started a program for Indian communities to build their own tribal archives. One of my first interns was David Fanman Sr. from the Southern Cheyenne tribe in Oklahoma. We became close friends, and several times I visited his reservation and his successful tribal archive. I also came to know his son, David Fanman Jr. David Jr. was proud to be a Cheyenne, but he did not share the spiritual beliefs of a traditional Indian. One day I asked him: “Hasn’t anything spiritual ever happened to you?” He replied: “Well, I had one experience that I still can’t understand and explain, and since you asked, I will tell you.” Here’s David Jr.’s story in his words.
Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters Page 1