I received the following account in 2009, though I don't believe I ever posted it:
My story took place a few years ago when we lived on the Rez in Arizona. My entire family had gotten together for my Mom's birthday and spent the night at my Grandmothers house out in the sticks, in the middle of nowhere.
At about 10:30 pm her dogs started barking and howling like crazy. No one got up to check because it was pitch black outside. But I could tell that the dogs were running back and forth chasing something. I got curious, so I turned the outside light on and stepped out the front door to see what was going on.
Then suddenly, something jumped from the tree onto the side of my Grandmothers house and started crawling like 'Spiderman' all around the house. It was hard to make out, but it looked like a small man crawling like a lizard. The house was made of stucco, but it moved around easily. This thing was fast too. The dogs were going nuts.
I ran into the house screaming. Everyone was terrified and I remember crawling underneath the bed. The noises were horrible, and it sounded like there were more than one. I heard squeaking sounds that got real loud at times. They would jump on top of the roof and could be heard walking around. I don't remember how long it lasted, but I was under the bed the entire night.
When dawn came, we all went outside to check out the house. There were a few bits of stucco knocked off, but not as bad I thought it would be. The dogs were in the tool shed and too tired to move. Then my Uncle got a ladder, so he and I climbed to the roof. What we saw was really shocking. There were hundreds of white hand prints going around the flat roof, right up to the edge. The hand prints were small in size but were human. It looked like the hands had been dipped in white paint. I looked closer, but it wasn't paint. It was almost like a thick chalk.
My Uncle told me not to mention it to anyone in the family, especially my Grandmother. She had said all her life that Skinwalkers were after her. I didn't believe her, but after that night I began to wonder if she was telling the truth.
I later asked my Uncle what he thought it was. He didn't hesitate and said it was definitely witches. He said our family had been cursed during the old days before the treaties. He said someone in the family was a known witch and when they were killed, the elders had placed a curse on the family. My Uncle then laughed and said that no one outside of the family remembers any of that and it's probably a rumor anyway.
Well it scared me enough that I believe that there may be something to that story. After that incident, I never spent another night at my Grandmother's place again. JL
The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest
Skinwalkers: Witches of Navajo Country [DVD]
Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Navajo
Navaho Indian Myths (Native American)
