A few years back my younger brother Jim was killed in a car accident near our home in Canton, Oklahoma.
On the day of the funeral and burial, our whole family was at home, sitting silently. My mother and some of my sisters were crying. We were looking at photographs. Sometimes one of us would speak up with a memory.
Suddenly, our dogs started barking. Then they raced down the hill to the road that runs along our property.
We all figured a car was coming because the dogs always did that when one came up the hill to our house.
“It must be friends of Jim who want to pay their respects,” Dad said to us. “I know you don’t want to talk to anyone, but please be polite. These visitors mean well and they are coming in honor of your brother.”
We all nodded as we wiped the tears from our faces. We stood up to prepare to greet the guests.
Within a few minutes we could hear the dogs barking as they returned up the hill. We listened for the car engine. Nothing. Then one of my sisters went to a window to see who was coming.
Suddenly, she yelled out, “Daddy, there is no car! What are the dogs barking at?”
Dad stood up, frowning. Then he let out a sigh and started walking toward the door. “I was worried this would happen,” he said to us. “It is your brother. He thinks he still lives here.”
We all looked at one another. How could he possibly know that?
As Dad went outside, all of us kids gathered at the windows and watched. My mother stood on the porch, her handkerchief to her eyes.
Dad walked out to the little rise where the road met our front walk. The dogs stopped barking and came to sit quietly next to him.
Dad smiled sadly as he spoke to the air in front of him, waving his arms and hands as he would do when talking in sign language. Then he stopped, put his hands to his sides, and nodded again to the air.
He stood there awhile. It looked as if he were watching someone walk back down the hill. On the porch, our mother was crying again.
After a few minutes, Dad turned around and headed slowly up, onto the porch. Taking my mother’s hand, he walked with her back into the house.
“What happened?” We all gathered around our parents.
“Yes,” he said, “that was your brother. I told him we loved him and would never forget him, but he had to join the spirit world. I told him, ‘You don’t live here anymore.’ ”
The Lame Warrior and the Skeleton
TRADITIONAL ARAPAHO TALE, OKLAHOMA, TOLD BY LITTLE-CHIEF, ARAPAHO
The Arapaho are legendary for their skill as horsemen. In the 1700s and 1800s, long after Europeans had introduced horses to North America, Arapahos galloped across the Great Plains of Colorado and Wyoming to hunt buffalo and wage war. But in earlier times, the Arapaho traveled on foot. A spiritual people, their world revolved around the land where they grew crops and hunted. A hunting party would pursue a herd of buffalo on foot, with bow and arrow. Once they had killed a creature, the hunters took care to give thanks to the animal and to their Creator, Be He Teiht. Deep respect and admiration for elders has always led young Arapaho warriors to build successful lives following in their elders’ footsteps, even becoming great chiefs.
In the days before horses, a party of young Arapahos set off on foot one autumn morning in search of wild game in the western mountains. They carried heavy packs of food and spare moccasins, and one day as they were crossing the rocky bed of a shallow stream, a young warrior felt a sudden sharp pain in his ankle. The ankle swelled and the pain grew worse until they pitched camp that night.
Next morning the warrior’s ankle was swollen so badly that it was impossible for him to continue the journey with the others. His companions decided it was best to leave him. They cut young willows and tall grass to make a thatched shelter for him, and after the shelter was finished, they collected a pile of dry wood so that he could keep a fire burning.
“When your ankle gets well,” they told him, “don’t try to follow us. Go back to our village and await our return.”
After several lonely days, the lame warrior tested his ankle, but it was still too painful to walk on. And then one night a heavy snow fell, virtually imprisoning him in the shelter. Because he had been unable to kill any wild game, his food supply was almost gone.
Day by day he grew weaker. Then late one afternoon he looked out and saw a large herd of buffalo rooting in the snow for grass quite close to his shelter. He reached for his bow and arrow, then shot the fattest one and killed it.
He crawled out of the shelter to the buffalo and gave thanks to Be He Teiht.
Little by little he skinned the animal and brought in the meat. After preparing a bed of coals, he placed a section of ribs in the fire for roasting.
Night had fallen by the time the ribs were cooked, and just as the lame warrior was reaching for a piece to eat, he heard footsteps crunching on the frozen snow. The steps came nearer and nearer to the closed flap of the shelter.
“Who can that be?” he said to himself. “I am here alone and unable to run, but I shall defend myself if need be.” He reached for his bow and arrow.
A moment later the flap opened and there stood a skeleton. It was wearing a tanned robe pinned tight at the neck so that only the skull was visible above. Sticking out from the robe below were its skeleton feet. It looked down at the lame warrior.
“Who are you?” cried the warrior as he hid his eyes in fright.
“You must not be frightened of me,” the skeleton said in a hoarse voice. “I have taken pity on you. Now you must take pity on me. Give me a piece of those roast ribs to eat, for I am very hungry.”
Still alarmed by the presence of this unexpected visitor, the warrior sat up straight and offered a large piece of meat to the bony hand that came toward him. He was astonished to see the skeleton chew the food with its bared teeth and swallow it.
“I am the one who gave you the pain in your ankle,” said the skeleton. “I am the one who caused your ankle to swell so that you could not continue on the hunt. I did it for a reason. If you had gone on with your companions, you would have been killed.”
It continued in its low voice: “The day they left you here, an enemy war party made a charge upon them, and they were all killed. I am the one who saved your life.”
Now the young warrior looked up at him. “Thank you, Father,” he said with respect. “I am grateful to be here.”
Again the skeleton’s bony hand reached out, this time to rub the warrior’s ankle. The pain and swelling vanished at once.
“Now you can walk again,” the ghost said. “Your enemies are all around, but follow me. I will lead you safely back to your village.”
At dawn they left the shelter and started off across the snow. The skeleton led the way.
All day long they walked—through deep woods, along icy streams, and over high hills. Late in the afternoon the skeleton led the warrior up a steep ridge.
When they reached the summit, the warrior gazed down into the valley below. There he saw the smoke of tepees in his Arapaho village.
With grateful eyes, he turned to his companion, promising to protect his people as the ghost had protected him.
But his companion had vanished, leaving only an icy wind in its wake.
The Dark Figure
TOLD BY STEPHANIE SLIM, NAVAJO, ARIZONA
I grew up on the Navajo Reservation with deeply rooted culture and traditions. My childhood was full of stories of skinwalkers and ghosts, and hearing testimony of my family members’ encounters with them. A skinwalker is usually a healer who transforms at night—maybe into a coyote or wolf—and uses his good powers to do evil work. Ghosts can take many forms and visit in many ways, sometimes even following us from place to place. As an adult I now live off the reservation, but I return to my homeland once or twice a month to check on my hogan. I usually bring my dog, too. My dog is my security. She barks more during my stay, but it’s normal, considering all the wildlife living out there in the wilderness. This t
ime was different.
It was last summer. I went to bed as usual. I often leave my battery-operated lamp on at night because it’s very dark inside—day or night. My hogan is a roundish structure made of mud. It only has one window and no electricity or running water.
My dog usually wakes me up in the middle of the night when she needs to go outside, but this time she didn’t. I just happened to wake up and turn to my side to face the woodstove at the center of my hogan. That’s when I saw it.
Someone was standing behind the woodstove—a dark figure shaped like a person. I watched it for a few seconds; then it seemed to notice me, almost as if we made eye contact … except it didn’t have any eyes. It shifted slightly.
I needed a brain check. I shut my eyes to make sure I was really awake. When I reopened them, the dark figure was evaporating into the ceiling, rushing out through the opening for the woodstove pipe.
Whoosh! I quickly closed my eyes because I could feel its wind against my face as it left. It felt like someone fanning me with feathers. I must have fallen back to sleep immediately afterward.
I didn’t have time to question what I saw until I woke up later that morning. I had no doubt in my mind that I had seen something. I wanted to believe it was an angel, but it was dark—and angels aren’t dark.
I now believe it was a ghost.
My dog didn’t even bark or go outside that night—she stayed deep asleep. Years before, my mother, who lived alone at the time, would tell me she heard tapping on her wall at night, and her dogs would bark and cry. A healer/medicine man had told her that a ghost would come into her house when she was asleep—a ghost sent by a living someone to spy on her. Now, I believed, that ghost was coming to spy on me and my family.
After seeing this dark figure, I became more aware of my surroundings, and I watched for it again. I didn’t see it in my hogan at Christmas break, but when I got back to my house in the city with my family, things started falling, mostly in my daughter’s room. A blessing feather that was tightly secured to her bedroom wall lay on the floor one afternoon. I picked it up and put it back, only to return a few minutes later to see it on the floor again. In the middle of the night I would wake up to crashing noises as toys and other objects fell off the shelves.
One night I was sleeping with my daughter in her room. Suddenly, I felt a poke—like a finger, or maybe my dog’s nose waking me up to let her out. But nothing was there. I didn’t want to alarm my family, so I kept it to myself.
Then my daughter started to be scared at night—even with the lights on. She knew nothing of what I was experiencing. But I believe she was feeling the presence of the ghost.
I had to do something.
I asked my sister to send me some cuttings of cedar and ash trees from the homeland. When they arrived, I burned them to release their medicinal properties. By smudging my house with their smoke, I could cleanse and protect it from bad spirits.
“You must leave!” I said to the thing in my house.
The smudging worked for a while. I even made two visits back to the reservation with no problem. But after the second visit, things started going wrong again. The lights in the city house would be on when I came home, even though I knew I’d turned them off as I left. In the garage, my car alarm, which never goes off, would start honking out of nowhere. And the garage door kept getting stuck—even after someone came to fix it.
The garage! I thought. I hadn’t smudged it with the rest of the house. I immediately smudged it with cedar smoke, and that’s been the end of the problems—for now.
Somehow, I believe, a ghost attached to me or my daughter. Was it the same dark figure I saw in my hogan that summer? Was it the same ghost that had haunted my mother? Will it come again? I don’t know.
All I can say is I have no fear of it. My prayers keep me strong for my family and myself.
The Boy Who Watched Over the Children
TOLD BY DAN SASUWEH JONES, PONCA
Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, a boarding school on the Oklahoma-Kansas border, was established in 1880 by the United States government. Its mission was to separate American Indian children from their tribes, families, and cultures. Children from tribes across the United States were brought there to learn the American way of life and leave behind their traditional beliefs and values, including changing their native languages to English and their native religions to Christianity. Then they would not know how to carry on their tribal traditions. Sometimes, however, the culture does not die with its people but is passed on in dreams and through the spirit world. And the spirit never dies.
I am an artist who makes sculptures. In 2019, several tribes hired me to build a memorial at the abandoned American Indian boarding school Chilocco. Like a small city, the school and surrounding buildings once educated and housed American Indian children who were brought from reservations across America.
The school was established in 1880, soon after what was called the Indian Wars era. From the 1890s to the 1930s, the school kept records of more than a hundred children who died there and were buried at the graveyard because it was too far to send them home. The records included each child’s name, age, tribe, and when and how they died. Many died of illness, a couple died by drowning, and a few froze trying to walk home. For others, no cause of death was listed. Some say they died of a broken heart. One child was just four years old, most were grade-school age, and a few were teenagers.
The first day I went to the cemetery with my building crew, we marked off the boundaries for the monument for the children buried there and started digging the foundation. First, we would pour a cement pad, which would take several days to harden. Then we would place the monument on top.
The first night after working at the cemetery, I began to have a dream.
The dream always started the same way. While I was working at the memorial, a child would come up to me and begin speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand. He was dressed from another time in American history. I wasn’t afraid, just mesmerized by the boy and his strange language.
Then I noticed there were more children behind him. I couldn’t see how many because they disappeared into a fog. The boy spoke again, and I struggled to understand him. Then I tried to talk with him.
“Are you lost?” I asked him. “Where are you from?” He just stared back at me, not understanding my words.
Then the boy started walking backward, away from me, still looking at me. All the children were walking away from me, too, until they disappeared into the fog. I looked around, and my crew was still working.
I yelled over to them, “Did you guys see those kids?”
“No, boss,” they called back. “We didn’t see any kids!”
“I’m dreaming,” I told myself. I started working again. With each shovel of dirt, I dug a little deeper into the ground. Suddenly, I hit wood. As I cleared the dirt away, I saw that I had uncovered a casket.
I yelled to my crew members, “We can’t put the memorial here—this is a graveyard!”
When I looked up, instead of my crew, I was surrounded by the children—of all different ages—looking at me. The same boy came right up to me and again spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. Now I recognized it as American Indian, but I couldn’t tell which it was of the hundreds of American Indian languages across the continent.
Then a tall boy, the oldest of all the children, spoke to me: “Do you know what he said?” I shook my head.
“He asked you if you could help him go home.”
Then, one by one, the children started asking if I could take them home. I now understood them clearly. That’s when the older boy, who was now carrying a baby, spoke up to the children.
“Don’t bother the man.” He shook his head. “He can’t take us home.”
The children all gathered around the older boy. I watched him hand the infant to a young girl. The way he touched their heads was so loving, and it seemed to calm them. They lifted their eyes to him, and their e
xpressions of sadness melted. I could clearly see he was the one who watched out for all these children.
I said to him, “You are the children who are buried here, aren’t you?” He looked at me with a longing and gentleness that removed the fear I felt. He didn’t answer me, but I knew.
He gathered the children, and they all started walking away from me, into the fog. That’s when I woke up. I had this dream every night that we worked at the cemetery.
Back on the job, it was finally the day to pour the concrete pad. Generally, I like to wait on the job site as the concrete hardens, to make sure the wet cement is protected. But by the time we were finished, the sun had gone down. The concrete was still wet, but we were so tired we decided to leave for the night.
The next day we got to the job site to check on the concrete. I was at my truck unloading when one of the crew yelled out: “Boss, you got to come see this!”
I dropped what I was doing and walked over to the cement pad. To my total amazement, the concrete was covered in footprints!
“Look!” said another worker. “They are all little children—except this one.”
He pointed to a much larger print, maybe that of a teenager. There was only one of those larger prints on the pad, as if an older boy had stepped in for a moment, perhaps to pull a small child off the wet concrete. The boy who watched over the children.
All spirits are connected with the Great Spirit, called the Great Mystery by some. The Ponca tribal term is WakoNda. (Yes, the Black Panther comics likely borrowed the word from us!) Literally, the term means God, and was long ago explained as “the day that follows the night; that which creates movement in all things.” The Great Spirit creates a perfect balance in the universe—all based on movement and shared energy. Look at the sun as it rises and sets, and look at the Earth’s constant orbit around the sun. We believe that all things move in perfect circles, such as the one-year cycle from spring to winter, and the circle of life, death, and rebirth. This movement reflects the Great Spirit’s perfect energy in its infinite wisdom and power. We also believe that the Great Spirit came before all things, then all other spirits—such as ghosts—came from it. Everything contains a spirit—each river, tree, rock, building, insect, dog, and human. A spirit can change form, but it can never be destroyed. If a spirit changes, perhaps through death, its energy first moves back into the Great Spirit who created it; then it returns in another form—sometimes good, sometimes evil. In my experience, unlike ghosts, evil spirits can harm people. Perhaps a rock spirit waits to attack a passerby, or an undead woman tries to take you to replace the children she killed in a fury. Without evil, we would not appreciate good or strive to be better ourselves. That is a mystery we cannot fully understand. But in our stories, we respect it.
Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters Page 2