10 Terrifying Native American Legends
Indigenous peoples who populated the United States long before it was the United States had a deep connection to the land and its creatures. From that connection emerged their stories and rituals, and there are legends from that time that provoke a primal, shocked response from those who hear them today. Here are ten Native American legends that will scare you.
Related: 10 legendary stories about mythical creatures
10 Wechuge
Cunning, fierce and patient, the Wechuge hunts by luring its victims into the forest, away from the rest of the tribe. Only then will it reveal itself. Huge, monstrous and made of ice, the wechuge feasts on lonely travelers and careless members of the Athabaskan tribes in Canada's Pacific Northwest.
Once upon a time, humans were just like any other humans, but the wechuge perpetrated all kinds of social taboos—from allowing their photos to be taken with a flash to playing an instrument made with a stretched string, such as a guitar—inviting a of the great animal spirits to overwhelm the people. them with power. If the great spirit was not tricked into leaving the man before the transformation was complete, he would eventually eat his own lips and then become a wechuge, cursed to hunt and feed on his own people forever.[1]
9 Qalupalik
Soaking wet, with slimy green skin and long fingernails, the qalupalik or qallupilluit of Inuit legend appears to be nothing more than the reanimated corpse of a drowned woman. According to some stories, their skin is bumpy or flaky and they always smell of sulfur.
They wear amautiks, the same thing Inuit women wear to carry their children on their backs, but for a completely different reason; Qalupaliks hunt on the ground near thin and broken ice, attempting to pick up unattended children and carry them back into the amautik to drown.
A child who wanders too close to the water may hear buzzing or tapping from the ice beneath his feet. These are clear signs that a qalupalik has spotted them and is trying to lure them closer to the water's edge. Victims of these creatures are never seen again.[2]
8 Tsul Kalu
Tsul kalu, also known as the Cherokee Devil, is a gigantic creature, thin and covered in dirty white hair, similar to a traditional North American bigfoot. His legend has its origins in what is now North Carolina. To this day, impressions exist in stones that are said to be from the footprints of a tsul kalu.
As the lord of the game (or hunt) in Cherokee folklore, Tsul Kalu is said to be able to read minds and hypnotize his victims. His most famous legend is that he takes a Cherokee woman as a bride. The woman's mother had convinced her that she should take a husband who was a great hunter and could provide for their family. The tsul kalu read those thoughts and appeared to his bride with a deer as an offering.
The Cherokee defended their hunting grounds against the tsul kalu by hanging masks of his face from trees. They believed that there was more than one of the creatures and that if they saw the mask they would believe that they had walked into the hunting grounds of a larger tsul kalu and would be afraid.[3]
7 Skadegamutc
The skadegamutc, or ghost witch, is a monster whose lore originates from the Wabanaki tribes. Legend says that when an evil shaman dies, their desperate need to cling to life can create an unholy being. The shaman's body will reanimate at night, and the skadegamutc will roam the forests in search of a feast of the blood of hunters and the lost.
The skadegamutc can be fought, but only with the combined strength of an entire village. Even then, only fire can kill it. When a tribe encounters a ghost witch, they must work together to protect each other at night and spend their days searching for the corpse to burn, or it will claim one of their own as a victim after sunset.[4]
6 Ogopogo
Far beneath the surface of British Columbia's Okanagan Lake lurks a snake with the head of a horse and the antlers of a deer. However, this is not a monster; it is Ogopogo, the spirit of the lake and protector of the valley.
Both an urban legend reminiscent of the Loch Ness Monster featured Unsolved mysteries and a true, sacred faith of the indigenous Okanagan/Syilx indigenous people, Ogopogo represents a crossroads of cultures. The dark color and horse head are not what you see when you Google the creature; instead, you're more likely to encounter a cartoon dragon, a mascot used to sell tourists when they visit the region.
Indigenous peoples have historically made offerings to the spirit of the lake in the form of tobacco, sage and salmon – the latter likely leading to the Ogopogo representation that one in six adults in British Columbia today believes is truly consists. When early settlers saw the Syilx people throwing meat into the lake, stories spread about a large snake that needed meat to allow safe passage across the lake. Some armed settlers even patrolled the edge of the lake in case the creature attacked.
After years without bloodshed, the Okanagan Lake monster became toothless folklore and a way to boost tourism.[5]
5 The Flathead Lake Monster
Long ago, members of the Kutenai tribe were crossing Montana's frozen Flathead Lake when two girls came across antlers poking through the ice. Believing that an animal had fallen into the lake, the girls collected some sharp stones and set to work breaking the ice. At that moment, the ice split apart and the head of a monster appeared. The girls were able to escape the wrath, but it is said that half the tribe was lost in the icy waters of the lake that day.
Sightings of the Flathead Lake Monster have lasted for more than a century. More than a hundred sightings have been reported, starting with Captain James Kerr and the steamship the American subsidy in 1889 and into the fall of 2017. Witnesses describe seeing the water feature and a 25-foot-long, eel-like creature briefly surface during encounters.[6]
4 Piasa
Hundreds of years ago, there lived a beast unlike any other. He hunted unseen, the only warning that he was about to seize his prey came when the monster's great, leathery wings blotted out the sun.
The Piasa was a huge bird creature with a tail that wrapped around its body and through its legs. The Piasa glittered with multicolored scales and had antlers rising from a man's head. It was large enough to take a whole deer for a meal, but after a particularly bloody battle between local tribes left many dead near the nest, the Piasa developed a taste for human flesh.
The Illini were unable to kill the monster despite their best efforts. Desperate for a solution, Chief Ouatoga began a month-long fast separated from his tribe. On the last evening the Great Spirit gave him a plan to kill the beast; he ordered twenty warriors to hide near the Piasa's lair, and then Ouatoga himself stood defenseless outside to tempt the monster. When the large predator emerged, all twenty warriors attacked with a barrage of poisoned arrows and killed it.
The tribe painted the Piasa as a warning on the rocks above the valley. Those paintings were lost to time, but a new painting was commissioned in the 1990s. It now overlooks the Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois.[7]
3 Atahsaia
The demons that stalked the southwestern United States and hunted the Zuni people there knew little fear, but they all feared the great cannibal demon Atahsaia. Twice the size of any man who ever walked the earth, with sharp yellow tusks and a great flint axe, the demon was eternally starved – and had a taste for human flesh.
There is a story about a young woman who, desperate to feed her elderly parents, went into the woods to hunt. The woman was skilled and caught many rabbits, but when day turned to night, she was caught in a snowstorm and took refuge in a cave. There she lit a fire, and her fire attracted Atahsaia's attention.
Too big to enter the cave, Atahsaia stood at the entrance and shouted at the woman to throw him some meat to curb his appetite. Petrified, she threw each of her rabbits into the monster's gaping mouth and watched them disappear. Soon they were gone, and still Atahsaia hungered. The woman threw her shoes, her clothes and all her belongings into his mouth. When he had devoured all she had to offer, the demon began hammering at the cave entrance with his axe, determined to continue his feast on the hunter.
Hearing the thud of his ax and knowing at once that Atahsaia wanted to devour a poor hunter caught in the storm, the war gods Åhayúta and Mátsailéma gathered their weapons and set out to confront the demon. They arrived just as he entered the cave and killed him, then slept near the cave entrance to protect the hunter from the night. In the morning, the war gods led her back to her village and gifted her with hundreds of rabbits to replace the ones she had lost to the demon.[8]
2 Mosquito man
Long before Edward Cullen or Lestat de Lioncourt, the Mosquito Man haunted the tribes of the northwest coast. The monster looked a lot like a man, except that instead of a mouth it had a long trunk with which it sucked the brains out of a person's head. As smart as any vampire, the Mosquito Man only appeared in groups of people when they were celebrating. That way he could avoid detection before feeding.
In a Haida legend, the Mosquito Man came to a group of brothers who had just returned from a hunt. When the eldest brother's child began to cry, each man took turns trying to calm it down. When it was time for the Mosquito Man's turn, the baby went quiet, and it wasn't until he passed his body to the next brother that they realized he had feasted on his brain.
The brothers attacked the monster, which became enraged and killed everyone except the youngest. He chased that man everywhere until the brother finally led the Mosquito Man to the lake. As the creature fell into the water, the Haida tribesman began to sing, and the lake froze, holding the monster above the ice with only his head. The brother then gathered wood and lit a fire over the Mosquito Man. The ashes that then fled into the wind became the first mosquitoes.[9]
1 The Chindi
When a child is born, with the first breath, a wind enters his body; when that same person dies, the chindi is expelled. Traditionally, the Navajo do their best to ensure that their people die outside so that their chindi can disappear harmlessly; if anyone dies inside, the chindi is imprisoned, and only a ritual cleansing can free that house from the spirit's wrath.
Chindi are a serious consideration in Navajo culture. Exposure to a chindi can cause ghost sickness, which can lead to illness and even death. Witches and medicine men with nefarious intentions can also use bones or body parts to induce ghost sickness. It was once common for Navajo people to wear jewelry and perform cleansing rituals to protect themselves from death.[10]