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Skinwalkers · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Why We Do what We Do. I am
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: your changing host Abraham.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And I am your mostly furless host Shane.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the things that people do, and in the month of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: October we pay special attention to the spooky and creepy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: ideas and stories that are out there. Yes, and the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: things that people do. So we're in the thick of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it now. We're in the thick of our Halloween episodes.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, we are so excited about this one. Today we
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: were going to talk about this concept of skin walkers,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: which I would like to put out is a little
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: bit different than were wolves. We're not talking about lycanthropy,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: even though it does come up in this conversation. We
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: are not necessarily talking explicitly about like aanthropy. We are
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: talking about the idea of skin walkers, which involves Native
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: American magic. So we'll get some interesting stuff involved in.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: This super fun yeah, before we do that. If you
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: like what you hear today and would like to support
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: us in whatever way makes sense for you, you can
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like and subscribe, leave us a rating and a review,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: join us on Patreon, pick up some merchant of course,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: go ahead and tell a friend let him know about
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: this cool podcast you listened to about skinwalkers or whatever
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: topic you heard. If you're joining us for the very
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: first time, I will also tell you again most of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: our episodes are not spooky themed, but during the month
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of October, that is the topic we choose to dwell
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: on for a handful of episodes. We have four or
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: five Wednesdays this October, I believe, Yeah, for tackling those,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we will have a good number of those. As always,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: it's usually four or five because that's how mad acts.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's usually how calendars work to unless we
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: went to a thirteen month calendar, which we should.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Apparently there are some countries that do that. Yeah, so
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I approve, And we have a whole episode on that
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that you can check out that is not spooky related,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: not directly at least.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, I hope you enjoy what you hear today. Thank
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you so much for being with us, And as it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: is October ninth, they would like to wish you all
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: a happy Bullying Prevention Day.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, it's also a Curious Events Day, which I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: feel like is appropriate for this.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It's getting curiouser and curiouser. It is Emergency Nurses Day,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: very important.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, love them. It's also Fire Prevention Day.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It's going to be important for much later in this discussion.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It is International Beer and Pizza Day. That is definitely
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a combination many people enjoy. That is certainly not for kids.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: For kids though, unless it's root beer, root Beer and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Pizza Day, I'm very into. You're on it. You solve it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yep, there you go. It's International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: A lot of that might just be like, I don't know,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: adopting green policies and trying to reduce our carbon footprint.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: But you know who am I to say?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Also related to fire prevention, Yes, it is International Top
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Spinning Day. Spin them tops, Spin them tops.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's also leaf ericson Day.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And Eric leaf Sin Day. Just kidding. But it is
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: moldy Cheese Day if that's your thing. Yeah, blue veiny cheese.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I like blue cheese. It's National Nanotechnology Day, which is
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: kind of cool.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: All right, all right, National pet Obesity Awareness Day. Indeed,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I'll take care of them fat dogs. National Sneakers Day.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Big fan of that.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Like that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: That was a good movie. Yeah. Yeah, it is stems
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: sell Awareness day. We might have to talk about stem
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: cells at some points. There's there's a lot of really
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: good science and a lot of pseudoscience in that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is definitely a thing that we're gonna have
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: to talk about, and a lot of like myths, like
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: people thinking that like babies are just aborted for their
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: stem cells. It's like, that's not how that works.
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  Speaker 1: But okay, yeah, sure, gross misunderstanding.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Gross misunderstanding. What I don't misunder Well, there's a little
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: bit of a misunderstanding here because I have I'm always
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: fascinating with like things having multiple names. So today is
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: submarine HOGI hero grinder.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Day, things squished between bread days.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, it's just sandwich day. Bro.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is Animal Welfare Week. I'm on board. I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: enjoy that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I like that. It's also Cephalopod Awareness Week or a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: day awareness days. I love that.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, yes, I enjoy I enjoy cephalopods another fun
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: one to talk about because they do not have centralized
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: brains way most animals do.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Fascinating creatures fall Astronomy Week ooh very nice.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I love Stori skies. So this is one that I'm
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: like really into. I like that you also like this next,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: next one. I think I love this next one. It's
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: my favorite. It's Great Books Week. Yeah, many books are great,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: not most, but many books are great.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Accurate. We have to remember there are some people who
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: have published books who maybe should not have.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: But that's true.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's true. International Postcard Week, the.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Postcards, postcards. I like the idea of postcards. I don't
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: like the waste of postcards.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's primarily where I come from on that.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, sure as a nostalgia thing before we could
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: communicate more effectively via digital mediums and phones and whatnot, right,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And like I like the idea of just like the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: really pretty picture, they represent a place you've been. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: think that point in history has kind of come and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: gone though.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. It's Mental healness, mental hellness,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: mental illness awareness Week, which for some people's mental hellness.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And finally it is Mystery Series Week.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Which is I think apropos for also Halloween spooky things.
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  Speaker 1: It very much is. So that is what we have
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to say about holidays. We do like to share those
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: because they're fun, but we're actually here to talk about
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: psychology things or at least psychology adjacent and today, as
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, we are talking about skin walkers. So as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: we dive into this for starters, there are going to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: be a lot of asterisks throughout this episode due to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the nature of the content and its origin. This is
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  Speaker 1: also not going to be a huge deep dive into
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  Speaker 1: the Navajo people, much as they might deserve a deep dive,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and they probably do, yes, but those stories are better
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: shared with the people who own them, So check out
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the resources in our show notes. We will post the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: links where you can find more. We are not Navajo,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: we are not the people to tell their stories, but
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we will sort of be again, it's adjacent to that.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and also consider donating to the Navajo Relief Fund,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: through the Partnership with Native Americans or other relief funds
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  Speaker 2: related to Indigenous peoples in the United States because of
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  Speaker 2: many of the atrocities that have happened to these folks
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  Speaker 2: and the current struggles that do exist on many reservations
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  Speaker 2: in these places that these folks are living right now,
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  Speaker 2: So please make sure to support these cultures, these communities
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  Speaker 2: and get them the resources they need through these Navajo
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  Speaker 2: led or Indigenous People's led relief funds.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you might be going, what does that have
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: to do with what we're talking about today. You'll see
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: when we get there. This episode, we are going to
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: talk about Navajo tradition, We are going to talk about JK. Rowling,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and we are going to talk about UFO, which you
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: know might all seem completely unrelated to skinwalkers, but I'm
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: gonna tell you right now not so much.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Get ready, it's been a minute since we've had one
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of those, like we're going to talk about how these
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: things are related. Yeah, eders in the episode. So it's
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: it's fun. It's fun to have that back.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So welcome back. So let's I think start with
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a definition.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: We have to we have to criteria it is.
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  Speaker 2: You've heard the term skinwalker in multiple spaces and we'll
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: kind of get to where that came from.
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  Speaker 1: Or you've never heard it and this is all new
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be that. That might be really fun.
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  Speaker 2: So the term skin walker is a term used to
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  Speaker 2: describe a type of witch who has the ability to
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  Speaker 2: turn into possess or disguise themselves as an animal. This
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  Speaker 2: comes from the Navajo ye gnlled lucy. I don't know
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: if I said.
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  Speaker 1: That, right, that's a lot of consonance back to back.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot of Yeah, so in a lot of
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  Speaker 2: as like, yeah, it's a lot of it's yeah, there's
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  Speaker 2: it's an LD. It's so it's spelled n A A
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  Speaker 2: L D L O O S h I I. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: and that actually directly translates to by means of it,
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  Speaker 2: it goes on all fours, okay.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, skin walkers were described as witches that
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  Speaker 1: were explicitly causing harm and never for witches or sorcerers
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  Speaker 1: who are considered sort of the on the healer end
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  Speaker 1: of things, or medicine men and women. So you might
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  Speaker 1: have heard the sort of distinction between good and bad
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  Speaker 1: witches or even somewhere in the middle, but skin walkers
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  Speaker 1: are are the ones that are the maleficent.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're definitely like the dark sorcery part
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  Speaker 2: of the tradition of like magics inside of these traditions.
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  Speaker 1: Hey we're back to black magic again.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Hey look at that. So isn't that funny how we
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: always come back to that. So a little background on this.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It's important to understand where this kind of storytelling and
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: stuff comes from. So this comes from the Navajo people
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  Speaker 2: and the Navajo are indigenous people populating areas in what
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: is now described as the southwestern United States. So you
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: can picture places like New Mexico, Arizona, that kind of
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: area of what is currently the US.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: They enjoyed the warm m HM. So at the time
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  Speaker 1: of this writing, there are about four hundred thousand members
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  Speaker 1: enrolled as tribal members, making the Navajo tribe the largest
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: current tribe recognized in the United States. So that's pretty cool. Yeah,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: so you might know a Navaja person, you might.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, members of the Navaja tribe speak a language called
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Nadane Southern Athabascan, or as they call it, Dene Bizad,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: which translates to the people's language. And there's also Navajo
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: sign language, which is a dialect of Planes sign talk.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Now planes sign talk refers to it's also referred to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: as handtalk, which it was used primarily for trading among tribes,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: for storytelling, and for ceremonies. It was used quite often
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: and kind of a universal language among tribes that were
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: kind of interconnected that would engage or clans that were
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: interconnected that would communicate with one another when they didn't
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: share like a spoken language.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much value to that kind of thing. It's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: one of those where it's like, right, if everyone learned
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to speak sign and just sort of incorporated that into
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the normal speech, that would already be really helpful for
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: people who have hearing impairments. Yeah, So, like it's helpful
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in a place that's really noisy, it's helpful in a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: place where you want to be very quiet. It's helpful
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to just help emphasize your points in different ways. It's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: like everyone benefits sort of thing.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: There's been this interesting thing in my world where, like
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I just got back from Hawaii not too long ago,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and I started doing research on this, and there is
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: something really fascinating about listening to the storytelling and some
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: of the traditions that existed among indigenous peoples in multiple places,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: because a lot of it goes, hey, we had this
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: thing figured out, and white people came over and fixed
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: up a lot of it. And now what we're learning
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: is they'd starting to come back because we actually had
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: stuff figured out that white people didn't, and this was
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: way more useful than what white people were doing. And like,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I've heard that sentiment across multiple indigenous peoples multiple times
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: in the last month and a half.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it seems like there's been a more
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: recent push in sort of science circles to be more
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: inclusive of people from these traditions that actually had done
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: really good scholarly work. Yeah, and from whom we could
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: have learned a lot centuries ago if we'd bothered to listen.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And now they're finally sort of figuring that out, and
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, better late than never, I guess. But yeah,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: unfortunately this didn't happen sooner. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay, Now
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: we've been using we've been calling this this tribe than
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Navajo tribe. That is more or less the name that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I believe that they have adopted for themselves as well.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: But it is important to point out that this actually
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: is not their name. The name Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and you know the other jerks who came in and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: began just sort of renaming everyone when they got to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the Americas and just coming up with their own names
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: for them. Yup, the Navajo people actually referred to themselves
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: as Deney, just as you were sort of describing in
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the name for their language, which translates to the people
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: other people like the Spanish missionaries who showed up would
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: refer to them as apaches or Quitcho's, And again, this
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: also is not an accurate name because they're just assigning
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: names to them that are not their names.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It's like if I met Shane and I was and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: he's like, hey, my name is Shane, and I'm like, yeah,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call you Steve right instead, yes, Like okay, yes,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And this actually.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Happened a lot. A lot of tribes were confused with
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: one another because of people outsiders coming in and just
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: kind of saying, ah, yes, this is this group. And
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: it was actually, like, you know, really important to understand
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: that a lot of these tribes had different traditions, different rules,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: different values, different social structures, like I mean, incredibly diverse
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: across all of the Americas and the indigenous peoples that
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: lived here, Like I mean, I live in Florida and
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of Indigenous history here Daytona. The area
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: that I'm in was originally the Timkwan people, and there
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: are like some tribal ruins and some spaces here too.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: It's really fascinating when you get into it. But somebody
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: from the outside would go, ah, yes, Navajo, and it's
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: like not even close to the same traditions, not even
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: similar in any regard.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: It's like ads pushing into a podcast, unasked for and unwelcomed. Okay,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: we're back. We've been talking about sort of the history
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a bit of Navajo culture, which is important as it
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: relates to the story of Skinwalkers that we're unpacking here today.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: The Navajo folks were a semi nomadic people's from the
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: sixteenth through twentieth centuries, though they eventually adopted farming as
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: part of their economic practices and formed trading posts that
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: helped with long distances between their clans because they did
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: spread out over quite a distance, so they would actually
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: set up trading posts where they trade goods and have
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: that kind of set up as like kind of mile
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: markers between their tribes.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah, I would be surprised if any remnants of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: those remained, but I would love to say one in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: case they did.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure some were preserved somewhere. I would imagine
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: they would.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Have to be maybe very interestingly, the DNAE or the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Navajo people, they formed a unique matrilineal system of society
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and if you're hearing some important sort of roots in
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: that that you might be familiar with. Essentially, a matrilineal
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: system is one which emphasizes women and their family owning
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: livestock and dwellings, et cetera. In this system, a navaja
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: man would live with the woman's family and daughters were
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the ones who would receive generational inheritances. The system primarily
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: centered around the mother's clan or the k e k
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: k okay.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically what this was saying was like, the
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: women of the clans and the tribes were in charge,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: and the inheritance is the wealth. The generational wealth stayed
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: inside of the women's family. It was not inherited by
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: the men of the family. They got to benefit from
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the women having this wealth in the land and all
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the resources and stuff, which I thought was really cool.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very unique.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so another part of this too is there
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: were not what would be described as traditional gender roles
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: inside of the communities, and said men and women were
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: considered equals since both were required to reproduce. Because a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: lot of the history and a lot of the storytelling
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: had to do with reproduction and building the clans and
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: building the families and strengthening the peoples. Look at that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It takes two to tango and both are equal members
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: of the community. Isn't that nice?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: That's insane. You can't you can't treat people as if
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they're the same.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what are we doing here? That's why we had
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to come in and fix it with the Bible, you.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Know, and inequality. Yeah, of the future, the way of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the past. Actually, as it were, you make any quality great.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Again, that sounds like a Florida slogan right now.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Indeed, let's talk about the spiritual practices, because again we
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: are trying to talk about the mythical things. A primary
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: focus of Navajo spiritual practices focused on balance and harmony
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in one's life. We're going to mostly use the name
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Navajo as that's the one that again seems to have
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: largely been sort of adopted by the tribe and people
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: who are more familiar with that. Yeah, but Denay is
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Yes, they believe that there were
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: only two classes of people. There were earth people and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: there were holy people.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And again I'm going to say this, this is not
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: our story to tell, so it's very possible these are oversimplifications.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: We're trying to give some historical context for this so
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: that you can understand why the skinwalker kind of mythnos
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: has come up. Right.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm a holy people.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I don't think I'm a holy people either.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I think I'm definitely an earth people and we'll talk
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: about that, right. So Earth people were task with maintaining
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: balance between Mother Earth and humans, with the expectation that
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: they maintain a positive relationship with Earth. So the earth
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: people were here on Earth. They were taking from the land,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: but they were giving back to the land. There was
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: a relationship there because Mother Earth gives, we receive, we
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: return back to the land, and we take care of
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Mother Earth as payment for her good graces.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Wow. Love that. Yeah, whole sentiment.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: If only we could get back to that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: There was also the belief in the four worlds, and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: so the four worlds were the Dark World, the Blue World,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the Yellow World, and the Glittering World. And the relationships
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: between each are interesting and the stories that describe their
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: formation are pretty amazing. So take the time to check
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: them out because I think most of you, if you're
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the curious type and you found yourselves at our podcast,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: so I think that you might be Yeah, but the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: gist of it is that no life exists in the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: dark world despite life having started there. So life moved
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to the Blue World, and then eventually Yellow World, and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: finally settled in the Glittering World.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, and so Navajo spirituality includes a variety of ceremonies
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that align with either the Blessing Way or the Enemy Way.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: The Blessing Way ceremonies focus on restoring balance and harmony
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: within the denay, whereas the Enemy Way those ceremonies are
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: focused on counteracting forces from outside of the clan. So
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: they are external forces that are trying to disrupt or
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: deharmonize the clan, and so the Enemy Way ceremonies were
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: designed to protect the clan from those outside entities to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: prevent them from causing more harm.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Wow. Interesting. I felt like I almost had an analogy
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: on the tip of my tongue and then I kind
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: of lost it. So if it comes back to me,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I think it can be fun to relate things analogically, Yeah,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: analogous whatever, you know what I'm trying to say, I gotcha,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And allogically I don't know. Words are hard. Most traditions,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: ceremonies and beliefs follow an oral tradition to help maintain
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and grow them. An oral tradition actually by itself might
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: be something worth discussing and the context of an episode,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: because they provide a unique opportunity for stories to sort
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of continuously evolve. And I certainly I think people will
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: find value in the recording of stories and the telling
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of stories through like a print medium where the stories
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: really don't change and evolve, or at least not as quickly,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and that there's certainly value to that. And I think
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: we could see the value in what is shared and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: what is afforded by an oral tradition instead or in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: addition to that, So that might be worth packing at
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: some point. Anyway, Absolutely, that was off track. Going back
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to this, there's traditions and ceremonies. This included creation stories
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: which follow the first man and woman, the sun, the moon,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the stars, et cetera. But again, those aren't our stories
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to tell. Go speak with the Navajo people, go look
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: into their writings literature, or better yet, go here in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: oral telling.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, So why are we talking about all this? Well,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: this does have to do with this idea of skinwalkers
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: and kind of how skinwalkers have made it into the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: zeitgeist of I would say current culture, like it does
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: exist inside of like some current culture, and we'll talk
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: about how it got there. So the term skin walkers
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: were part of what was described as an enemy class
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: that counteracted the balance and harmony that existed within the
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Navajo community. These were folks that would come from the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: outside in and try to disrupt that harmony and cause
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: chaos inside of the communities. They were a group of
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: witches who were considered criminals. They practiced black magic and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: had the ability to shape shift into any animal they chose.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That would be a cool power. I would accept that power.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I would accept that power as long as I was
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: practicing beneficians like I was, Like, I would do that
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: because I would want to like maybe turn into a
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: crow and deliver you shiny things or you know something
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: like that. Like, I would never want to like harm
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you as a result of this.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. I wouldn't want to do it as
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a weapon. Yeah, I would also do it if it
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: was just for fun for me and as I wasn't
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: hurting people.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. Importantly, though, if someone was identified as a potential
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: skin walker. Then that was pretty much a death sentence.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: You are to be killed on site. Leave no uh
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: no mercy here.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Folks who were identified as skinwalkers were like specifically identified
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: as aiming to be malevolent towards the community. They were
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: specifically out to hurt the community at large, and the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: navel peoples were not willing to let that happen to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: their community.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean it sounds like they were considered
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: particularly dangerous, you know, and sort of like if you
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: got the chance, you better take it because you might
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: not get that chance again, right. You know. They had
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the ability to change in any animal they chose, usually
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: taking the form of a wolf or a coyote, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: they transformed by dressing in the hide of the animals.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: So maybe they could turn into a bear if they
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: wanted to and be much harder of a thing. And
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: so again, if they're out to cause harm, that's their
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: only real mission, and you get an opportunity to stop one,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I think the tradition would suggest, like take the opportunity,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: otherwise more people will get hurt.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. In order to kill a skinwalker, though,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: they had to be shot in the neck wounds that
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the skinwalker obtained in animal form would remain when they
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: transformed back into a human. Though, so if you did
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: not have a kill shot where the skinwalker was mortally
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: wounded and died, like if they had an injury to
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: their leg or lost a limb, that would translate into
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: their human form as well, which is very different than
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: like what we know about lycanthropy, where like if a
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: werewolf is injured and they turned back into a human,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: they don't sustain those injuries afterwards. So like the mythos
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: of like the werewolf, and that's why I kind of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: wanted to bring that up at the beginning too. The
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: mythos of the werewolf in like aanthropy is very different
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: than the skin walker stories and kind of how we
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: arrive at these they might be derivative, but like it's
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the skinwalker stories a little bit different and has different
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: outcomes of different kind of like rules about it. You know.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Sure, this does make me think that it might be
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: worth for some Halloween episode covering the various ways to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: kill cryptids, because we talked about cryptids I think last
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: year or the year before. It seems like there are
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of the traditions and stories around cryptids have
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: unique ways that they must be killed, thinking like right,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: steak in the hearts, the silver bullets, shot in the neck,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: like things like that. I'm curious sort of like how
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: did those First of all, they had to be unique
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to the technology of the time, Like a silver bullet
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything several hundred years before guns are invented, right,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And so like what were the secret weapons of killing?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Why was that the secret weapon or whatever? And even
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: why were they mostly unkillable aside from a secret weapon, Like, yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: most other animals can die by any means really, yeah,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: including just putting them in an unfamiliar environment.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know one one of the for were wolves
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: in particular, like it was a silver bullet, or you
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: could like beat them with a stick with a silver handle.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, So like I guess the silver is like
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a whole thing, but like you know, like with or
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: with like yeah, yeah, it's like just get a handful
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: of silver and just like I guess maybe make some
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: silver brass knuckles or something that would probably be help helpful.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: So but I think, like the thing is is when
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you get into like these mythos, like you just learned
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that like you know, there's always a trap door. There's
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: always a weakness, right, and so like anytime there's a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: cryptid or like a story of like some evil thing,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: there's always like an achilles heel, and it feels like
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: that starts all the way, Like I mean, I would
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: imagine like the idea of like that weakness or achilles
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: heel starts way back then, and even before then, there's
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: always like something like I know, like for modern times,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: my achilles heel as ads.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have been talking about we finally got
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to skinwalkers. We're there now. Modern versions and stories of
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: skinwalkers exist in the media as well. So versions of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the werewolf story or the skin walker's cousin, the wendigo, Wendego.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've maybe heard it called. Yeah, these
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: all now have some type of media presence or version
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that really doesn't quite capture the original culture but is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: still sort of a a new retelling of that idea. Yeah,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: there's a movie I recommended that had the wendigo as
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the sort of monster in it that came out not
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that long ago Antlers, Oh that was it.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that coming up, because like the Wendigo
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: is like an interesting mythos as well, Like there's a
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: there's like an interesting kind of like story around that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, Stephen King used it for pet cemetery, so nice.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I think what I want to kind of point out
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: to is like this this term, like these these stories
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: show up, but they're kind of bastardized versions of it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: And we'll talk about that later. For now, I want
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: to talk about why the term skin walker might sound
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: familiar to you. So the most popularized skin walker story
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: is that of Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. I'm gonna keep
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: this brief because this story is a little bit wild,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: but it does involve scientists, which I think is really fun.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: So first, the Sherman family owned a four hundred and
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: eighty acre ranch in Uinta County, which already has a
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: long history. Like by the time you know they got
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: this ranch, it already had a long history of UFO sightings,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: cattle mutilations, and strange creature sightings. So this was something
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: that was already kind of happening in the area by
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the time the Sherman family took ownership of this ranch.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Sure, okay, is this our UFO tian or is there more?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is gonna be our UFO tie in for sure.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha. So the owner of the ranch, a person
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: going by the name Robert Bigelow.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Sounds made up.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It does actually sound very made up. Bob Bigelow, Bob's Bigelow.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Mister Bigelow here is the owner of Budget Suites of
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: America and the founder of Bigelow Aerospace, which is looking
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to expand into space hotels. Occidentally, just fyi, he was
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: successful in launching the Genesis one and Genesis two and
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: those are still in orbit. But this dude prefers paranormal studies.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: This is where his real passion lies.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: He's getting his financial backing for his paranormal studies from
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: aerospace design and invention in space hotels. So on the ranch,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: he had hired a team of scientists to start an
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: enterprise called the National Institute for Discovery Science, which sounds
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: really really formal.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: It does end very cool.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It sounds very cool, like I want to be part
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: of the NIDS the needs. The problem, though, is this
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: a group of scientists and paranormal researchers beginning to kind
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: of work and observe phenomena occurring on the ranch. Originally,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the ranch itself was called UFO Ranch because of the
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: UFO sightings that had been reported to take place on it,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: but it was changed a skin walker ranch because of
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you'll see in a second. But it also sounds easier,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: It rolls off the tongue easier, and has like more
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: media kind of glitz and glamour than UFO ranch.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is eventually with the Manson family would
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: hold up, just kidding different.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: They showed up a different ranch, Yeah, a scarier.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Ranch ranch dressing anyway. They never directly observed as skinwalker,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of course, but during their observations there were unexplained lights
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and occasional cattle mutilations Okay, yeah, which we talked about
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a bit in our episode on UFOs or UAPs objects
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that fly.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: What is interesting about the mutilations is that they didn't
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: align with predation behavior, which again we talked about there.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It appeared that they were simply just mutilating and killing
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: cattle without necessarily eating them, which predator typically do.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Right, right, So the team left the ranch with no
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: explanation for what happened, except for they landed on clinical lycanthropy,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: and they mentioned that a few times, but never fully
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: explain that. So you can if you don't know what
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: clinical ycanthropy is. That means when you are psychologically believing
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: you can change into an animal. We did an episode
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: on that as well. If you're interested in that, go
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: listen to that. But that's that's about as close as
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: they got to the skinwalker theory on the ranch without
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: any any sort of research on the traditions around what
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: a skinwalker was, what it did, and all that stuff like,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: so they just kind of went, oh, yeah, it must
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: be it must be a werewolf and kind of we're like,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: we're done and left.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Now that right there is just good science.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're tired of trying to answer this question. We
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: don't want to answer.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: We landed on skinwalker. It feels like our job is done. Here.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: As a quick just explanation of the cattle mutilation thing, essentially,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the animals die for all kinds of reasons. When they die,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: their bodies tend to swell from the gases inside, from
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the bacteria that are still in there. That causes the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: skin to tear in very straight lines. And also a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: lot of animals and insects when they are consuming a cadaver,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a corpse, a dead animal, whatever, they tend to go
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: for the soft tissue first, so they tend to eat
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: out the eyes and like just all the soft tissue parts.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And so what will happen is you'll go into observe
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: one of these animals and it'll have these like very
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: straight incisions where the skin tore, but it tore like
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: sort of along a very natural seam in the skin.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Animal skin, right, like tears tend to not be jagged
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: when they're stretched to that way. They tend to be
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a straight line. But anyway, so that's that's the just
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the call back to what was going on there.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they are observing.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that was what they saw that was looked
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: like cattle mutilation. But let's talk about cultural appropriation.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, as we mentioned earlier, the skin walker stories,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the origin stories, the oral traditions of the Navajo people's
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: belong to the Navajo people. So these stories belong to
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: them and are passed down through oral tradition and storytelling.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: But for cultures that their primary mechanism is this kind
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: of oral tradition, they preserve their culture through oral tradition,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: and any groups that take and bastardize that can be
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a real problem. So they'll hear some kind of snippet
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: of a story and they'll go, that sounds cool. Let
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: me bring this, let me bring this piece of your
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: culture into the limelight. And then they take it and
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: they change it and they alter it, and it actually
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: doesn't have anything to do with the original purpose or
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: reason or traditions about that. And so that's kind of
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: what ends up happening here with Skinwalker stories. They get
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: pulled into this world where they become kind of fantasy creatures.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: It's like making a deadpool that doesn't have a mouth
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and can spontaneously appear and disappear.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Uh huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you hear.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Us fox and shoot lasers out of his eyes.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a wild time.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Besides the constant portrayal as these sort of unquote fantasy creatures,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: elements of important cultural stories are taken again without credit
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and altered to ultimately create a sort of less nuanced
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: version of these tales. Because again, most of the time,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the more easily consumable version is black and white, good
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: versus evil. The motivation of evil is just to be evil,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: very sort of one dimensional.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Right, and it lacks the kind of the importance to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: the people that these stories belong to, right.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like the cultural relevance and how that relates to
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: sort of the mythologies and their history.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like when Vigo, like as a fantasy creature sounds
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: really scary, But like when you understand kind of the
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: origins and the nature of the storytelling and why we
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: tell that story, it's an completely different experience for understanding
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: where that comes from and why it's so important for
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: the people that tell that story. Right, for this next
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: little bit, I want to go and I want to
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: make sure we credit specifically Native Appropriations dot Com. This
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: is somebody who writes a lot about the cultural zeitgeist
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and how many storytellers will kind of take elements of
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Native people stories and like these types of things and
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: turn them into something they're not. One such instance is
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the Harry Potter series. Specific so known asshole JK. Rowling
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: shockingly began incorporating magical traditions inside of the Harry Potter
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: world in a series of short stories titled Magic in
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: North America. And this was all designed to kind of
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: lead up to the stories of fantastic beasts and where
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to find them. This was kind of a series of
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: short stories that were kind of describing magics and different
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: type of magical relics and behaviors and stuff that existed
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: inside of North America because the Harry Potter series kind
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: of focused more on like Eurocentric those types of practices,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: even like The Goblet of Fire was like France, Russia,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and England effectively, right, right, So, like The Fantastic Beast
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: takes magic to America and starts kind of exploring what
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: it looked like here, and the short stories Magic in
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: North America started taking from some of these traditions and
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: turning them into something very different for the sake of
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the concern here is that for the Navajo
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: peoples the day these stories and traditions, they're not like
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: they're gone. These aren't just like the stories that are
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: buried in history. These are still alive, like they're still
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: part of their cultures and traditions. And yet then they're
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: sort of being appropriated. They're being pulled into and repackaged
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and retold with not really credit to them either, and
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: being turned into fantasy stories that equated to things like
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the Salem Witch Trials with JK. Rowling producing such a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: surface level understanding of the concepts that it just does
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: a disservice to the culture and the people that it's
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: from whom it's stolen. So in the stories Rallying, Yeah,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: even goes so far as to say the skin Walkers
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: were just made up by nomage no Madge.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: They call them no Madges in the United Station. That's
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: essentially the equivalent of muggles in the Harry Potter world,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: which is just people who don't know magic.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's their way of explaining wizards. Essentially, is
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: how she sort of pulls in the belief system.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Basically she's saying that, like, oh, skin walkers are
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: just wizards that people who are non magic say, are
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: this story or this tale, rather than just going, oh,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: they're wizards, So basically saying skin walkers are made up.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: It's just wizards playing with this idea of changing changing
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: their skin, which is like kind of like dismissive to
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: the whole tradition of like what's going on here and
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: why the Skinwalker tradition, like the Skinwalker story is so
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: important for the people.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like it would feel that way, Yeah for sure.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Like that's that's an assumption that I would
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I would and I mean, and maybe there's some folks
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: that are like, I don't know, it's kind of cool
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: that people are talking about it, and it's very possible
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: that's the case, but a Native Appropriations dot com is like, no,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: this is actually real bad.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I think we should be respectful
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: If that's a thing that they're specifically asking us not
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to do, those are their stories.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, so I do think it's worth kind
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: of for you know, for the sake of the show.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Something that we always do is we try to look
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: at like the science behind something. At this time, there
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: is no scientific evidence that a human can turn into
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: an animal, and I just want to kind of say
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: that part out loud so that when we start talking
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: about animals, we are animals, right, but we're not gonna
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: like we can't shape shift. I guess is maybe the
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: word that I'm looking for, right, So, like, we don't
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: turn into different animals. We don't turn into different animals exactly.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: So there's no scientific evidence of that. But I do
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: think that it is important to look at some behavioral
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: scientific takeaways from this, And the one thing that I
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: kind of take away from this is that stories that
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: belong to people can do a few things for those people.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, real quick though, because we're talking about this, I
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: was watching a science video recently on YouTube and that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: pointed out that most species on Earth go through some
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: form of metamorphosis. The fact that humans don't is actually
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: kind of unique. Like a lot of species obviously don't,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: but like most of them do. Sure, think of like
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: a caterpillar to a butterfly jellyfish beginnings these like little
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: pull up things and then yeah, eventually that are like
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: plants and then basically turn into jellyfish.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Weird.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so most most species do. And so anyway, at
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: this time, humans don't do that. That wareware right anyway, Right,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: We were talking about the importance of the stories here,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and one is that the stories can often operate as
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: sort of a rule for specific behavior. These rules can
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: look like things not to do watch out, or blank
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: will get you or blank will happen to you is
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: one version of that, and then there are other ways
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that rules can also be like do this thing for
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: good fortune or good luck, or it's as a general
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: value to the group.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Right, And stories can also connect people in a shared
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: cultural experience and stick together important moral stories, like the
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: moral of the story is to do this, or the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: moral like kind of like these moral ideas, and that's
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: what the Bible is really supposed to do. The Bible
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: is not supposed to be a literal interpretation because humans
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: can't live in the belly of a whale or be
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: turned into pillars of salt. But they're supposed to be
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: moral tales, moral stories that allow you to think deeply,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: think critically about your behavior and how you act towards
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: other people inside of your community's And I think it's
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: really important that people do have a shared culture, and
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: this is the skin walker idea is part of a
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: shared culture of people that have these stories to share
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: with one another.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I was actually just thinking when you mentioned the I
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: was thinking of the pillar of salt as the moral
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: teaching there is, don't look back at a thing that's
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: happening that you're escaping, right, I guess, because it's a
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: moral issue.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Another thing about these stories is that they describe
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: cultural relevancies among a group of people. These stories are
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a way for people to share their ideas, their values,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: their perspectives in a way that just sort of stating
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: those as rules or declarations may not have the same effect.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So it's it's just a different it's a different way
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to spread that message.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Right, And there are important unspoken cultural factors to stories
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: that someone who lacked the nuance or lacked the insight
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: about that culture will not understand. If they misunderstand the
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: purpose of a story and they lack the cultural context
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: for what that story means or what it does, they're
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: going to take that and they're going to ruin it.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Which is very possible that we may have done the
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: same thing here by giving some basic structure to what
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the skin Walker story is. But like the truth is,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: this is pulled from Native American resources, So I want
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: to be clear about that. And if we take these
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: stories and we take them beyond the culture, we take
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: them outside of the cultural context, it doesn't have the
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: same meaning. So somebody and this is really true. I mean,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: this is where I kind of plug the How to
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Rethink Human Behavior book by Bernard gurd and I will
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: do that one hundred times over because this is exactly
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: what it is. An outside understanding of an internal culture
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: will yield a misunderstanding unless you have important cultural insights,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: or unless you are a part or embedded inside of
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: that culture to understand the importance of those stories and
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: the meanings behind them.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: It makes a lot of sense. I completely agree, and
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: it is important that we state that and make sure
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that that's really clear, because, as you said, it's we're
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: just not going to be able to get the nuance
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: from this in a format like a podcast, and like
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: you know, they're dealing with people who basically take their
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: stories retell them in a way that's not really faithful,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and then we go and play a bunch of ads
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: We're back, and I think that's mostly we've said what
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: we mostly plan to say about Skinwalkers, but we do
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: have a few interesting tidbits to share. One is that
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the War Department during World War Two used Navajo code
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: talkers to help relay information via radio using their own language,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and it was so effective that it was actually never decoded,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: and using this strategy led to several successful missions during
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the war, and something we have talked about coming back
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: to the code talkers in another episode, because yeah, just
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: such a cool, amazing little piece of history.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I think that's what I've learned as i've gotten older.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Is like the history of World War two is less
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: fascinating than like the smaller stories that like are interlinked.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Like I think that those are far more fascinating, like
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the random, you know, successful missions of like stealing thick
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: water so that the Nazis can't get it to build
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: the atom bomb during you know, the Manhattan Projects and
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: all that stuff. Like, there's a lot of really cool
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: things to happen inside of it. So I don't know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: that's I think, Yeah, we're stupid, Yeah, yeah, it's it's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: a war is the worst, but there at least there
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: are some interesting things inside of it that like you
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: like this, like the Navajo code talkers, which is like
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: we're able to leverage something that worked really well to help,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: you know, prevent Nazis from winning, and except they're here
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: now again, So did we really win? Anyway, I'm not
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: gonna get a real dark on that. That's a different
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: scary episode. Another I think interesting tidbit is that Stephen
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: King actually used the concept of skinwalkers in a book
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: called Win through the Keyhole, which is the eighth entry
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: into the Dark Tower series. If you have not read
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: the Dark Tower series, you should, But in this book
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Roland de Shane, who is the primary that he's the protagonist.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: He tells a story about when he was younger, he
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: had just become a gunslinger and he was dispatched to
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: a remote mining town to find and kill what he
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: called the skin Man, which was a sorcerer that was
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: actually wreaking havoc in the town and killing miners and
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: killing people in really gruesome fashion, and he would turn
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: into predatory creatures like bears and wolves and stuff like that.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: And it's a really awesome story and I think it's
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: probably closer to kind of the I would say, maybe
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: the general feel of what a Skinwalker was supposed to do.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Like it feels like there's a little bit more respect
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: to the idea of Skinwalker in this than what you'll
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: see in JK. Rowling stuff.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Is this where you actually got the idea for this episode?
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: It might be actually think about that. I was like,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I think, I feel like it's very possible because the
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Dark Tower lives in my head rent Free, so it
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: is very very possible that's where that came from. But
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I think like, either way, it's an awesome story and
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: it does kind of hit the hallmarks of the original
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: like ethos of the skinwalker thing, right, Like it's a
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: malevolent creature sorcerer. Yeah, which type of thing that is
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: killing people and causing disharmony in a town?
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, so yeah, like they only they're just causing
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: harm and they transform into an animal to do some
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, yes, cool, Yeah, I think you know,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: sort of closing this out, just that the sort of
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: final take home points groups and cultures who have an
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: oral tradition like this, we want to show them respect.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I think that they they've earned it, they deserve it.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: We certainly don't earn the rights to take that away
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: from them or those stories. And you can't just take
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a story without knowing the nuances of that story and
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: then exploit it basically, you know, right, turn into whatever
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you need it to be to serve some personal gain.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: But instead of respect that you know the groups of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: people from whom these ideas originated.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and skinwalkers are part of a specific storytelling device
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: about evil and unbalanced in the world of the Navajo.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: And also we don't know all nuances about the story
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: because it's protected. It's protected by oral tradition. It's protected
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: from outsiders who are coming in trying to exploit that story.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: So you know, what we have told is a cursory
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: overview of what this is. If you want to know
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: more about it, please read Navajo resources about it, because
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: they are the experts on it and it is their
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: story to tell.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: And we had mentioned the Skinwalker Ranch and didn't go
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: really far into it, and that's because it's mostly just
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: a name. The story of the Skinwalker Ranch just had
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to do with the fact that it was called the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Skinwalker Ranch. There really wasn't anything skinwalkery related to it
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: as far as right I know. But the UFOs now
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a UFO thing that was
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: very unlikely a magic sorcery thing.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Indeed. All right, I think that is what we have
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: to say about these Skinwalkers. Thank you so much for
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: joining us. Whenever we record an episode, when we're done,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: we tend to recommend some things there often, if not always,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: completely unrelated to our topic at hand. Not always every
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: once in a while they are, but typically it's just
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: a thing, just a thing we're recommending, sometimes an activity,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: sometimes a movie or a book or a TV show
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: or a song or an album or whatever. It's just
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: something right and I think that that's fun, so we're
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: going to do that. But first I must give credit
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: where credit is due. As I mentioned. To support the show,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you can leave us a rating and review, like and subscribe,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: tell a friend. You can also support us financially if
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: you're in the mood to do so, head over to
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash wwd WWD podcast and you will
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: be able to get access to all kinds of bonus things.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You get early episodes at free episodes, behind the scenes content,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: all of that sort of thing. And I also maybe
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: your favorite perk of all will be that I will
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: re your name for helping us do our mission. That
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: is Mike, m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: and Michelle. Thank you so much, everybody.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, we love you all so so much.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, thank you to my team of
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: people without whom I could not make this happen. A
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: writing in fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank you
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: so much for putting together the notes on this one
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and recording with me today Shane anytime.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you for letting me do that.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Oh I need you.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: It's a team effort.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: It is a team effort, that is absolutely true. Our
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the guy in
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the chair who makes the episodes happen in a way
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: that I can feel good about publishing is Justin. Who
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: is our audio engineer? Extraordinary?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Griston jeen House.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: That's right, Griston jen House. Thank you all so much
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: for listening. Is there anything that I forgot or anything
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you'd like to add before we transition to recommendations.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: All right, let's recommend some things.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Yay, recommendations. Alright. So I just finished a book and
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: it's a big book, and it's a wonderful book and
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: it is I think in line with Spooky Season a
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: little bit because it is Stephen King. True, but the
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: book is not so spooky. And that book is called
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: eleven twenty two sixty three. It is a novel written
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: in twenty twelve by Stephen King. Apparently that year he
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: published fourteen books, so he does not whoa. Yeah, he
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: is kind of an unstoppable force when it comes to writing.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm sorry, not that year that the decade.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Let me let me rephrase that the decade. Yeah, let
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: me let me go back. That's a lot of book. Yeah, yeah,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: that's a lot. I don't think he did that much,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: So let me rephrase that. So eleven twenty two sixty
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: three is the story of Jake Epping and he is
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: tasked with going back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of a really interesting play on the
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: time travel tropes that come up, right and some of
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: the different things that come up there. But I do think,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: like all Stephen King books, it is a really great
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: insight on the human experience, about having to look back
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: at the past, about having to learn to let go,
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: about ripples that occur, you know, when you do certain things,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: and how your actions have consequences. And I think it's
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: a really powerful, incredible story. It's one of his best stories,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: and it's not a horror story, and so I think
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: that it's one of those things where it's just worth
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: the read for if you even if you don't like
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Stephen King, it is worth the read.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I agree. I a very unique, very brilliantly well done story. Yes,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: I very much enjoyed that book.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: It's so good.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: At the time of this recording, I am in Hawaii.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I have been here for our work and I am
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: actually been through Lahina. If many people remember that name,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: it is because Lina suffered a major fire just recently
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and they are still in the recovery process from that fire.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So this was the twenty twenty three fire. It burned
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a historical part of the village. A lot of the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: damage is stuff that's never going to be undone, right anyway,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It's it's pretty tragic to behold, and I really feel
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for the people here who are still trying to recover
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: from that and then also run businesses, have families, have
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: schools up and running, have tourism. It's really tough. So
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I'm recommending I found a little donation charity thing called
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Lina Fire Recovery Donation. If you go to Lahina dot
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Giving Circles dot io, you can find it there. Those
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: links will be in the show. Noteshina spelled l A
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: h A I NA. And yeah, just trying to help
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: support the recovery efforts here. You know, I think coming
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: here to be a tourist all well and good in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: its own right, and just giving directly to the services
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and the people who need support is if that's your intention,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: that'll that will go further, right than just sort of
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: being in the general proximity and spending it on the
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: companies that sort of host tourism stuff. Not to say
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't that they don't find value in that
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: they do. But I think if your intention really is
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: to support them, then you can just give directly and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: look around that might there might be other donation things
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: that speak to you more, but that's just one that
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I found. So anyway, that's my little call to action.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I love that, yep, I second that one for sure.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Cool. All right. If you'd like to tell us about
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: skin walkers or donations or books by Stephen King that
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you like, you can email us directly. We love hearing
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: from people, and you can reach us on social media.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Our email is info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com and a
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: similar string of letters that wouldn't follow our social media
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: accounts where you can get a hold of us. We
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you. I think that that
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: we have otherwise done the credits. Is there anything you'd
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: like to add before we sayah goodbyes?
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it all.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Right, Thank you all for listening. This is Abraham and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: this is Shane. We're out.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: See yup, you've been listening to Why We Do What
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: We Do. You can learn more about this and other
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: episodes by going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: and we hope you have an awesome day