One of the most mysterious and dark uses of beads is found the practice of witchcraft. Witchcraft has existed in all cultures from prehistoric man to the modern age, in locations from Africa, to Haiti, South America, North America and Asia. It represents the need of people try to control the uncontrollable forces of nature and gain power in a universe where man is essentially powerless. Everyone will eventually experience that moment when chance or karma steps in to alter one’s life in an inescapable way, rendering one impotent in the face of capricious fate. The witch or shaman practicing black magic is given power by the fearful and others seeking to manipulate destiny, wreak vengeance, or punish an enemy. A person strong and centered in his being with a guiding philosophy will not be affected by witchcraft. It takes a vindictive or frightened person to lend the witch power which some believe he can then use to his own convoluted ends.
Witchcraft is of fairly recent origin among the Navajos. Many informants claim it has been practiced only since the days of The Long Walk and the Navajo Interment at Fort Sumner. Undoubtedly, they assimilated these traditions from the Mexicans or Pueblo Indians since many aspects of Navajo witchcraft resemble ancient traditions of these cultures. Beads have the greatest magic, especially a bead that belonged to an intended victim. Also, ashes from a ghost hogan, bits of bone or teeth from a corpse that could be made into beads, grains of sand from a red anthill, olivella shells and fragments of rock buried for a sweat lodge.
Navajo medicine men use a variety of techniques to diagnose and cure a person’s illness, including charms and medicine pouches created from crystals, beads, herbs, feathers, stones, shells and bones. Behind the use of these elements is a powerful belief in maintaining harmony with the forces of nature. The dark side of Navajo medicine and magic is the Skinwalkers or Yea-Naa-gloo-shee, shape-shifting witches, who assume animal shapes and travel covertly to administer a curse.
Witches are primarily active at night, roaming about as ‘were-animals.’ Wolves are the most common were-animals but they also utilize bear, owl, desert fox and crow for were-animal purposes. When in their animal identity, they adorn themselves with hides of that animal and assume all the powers associated with it: i.e. the wolf or coyote would impart speed and a sharpened sense of hearing or smell, the mountain lion endows one with grace and cunning, while birds grant night vision and the ability to fly
Navajo Skinwalker Effigy Dolls
A Witches Sabbath is always convened in a cave where they meet to initiate new members, have sexual relations with dead women and kill victims at a distance by ceremonial practices. Witches are naked at these gatherings except for masks, ceremonial paint and an abundance of beads about their necks. Turquoise beads are preferred, but glass beads from the early trading days are also sought for their powerful medicine. The leader of the Skinwalkers is traditionally an old man, potent in his magic and feared by all.
'eye' beads, favored by both medicine men and witches to
give or ward off the 'evil eye.'
After a feast of roasted coyote, owl, and powdered blue lizard, they sit in a circle and howl like wolves. Then a sand painting is created of colored ash to represent the victim. The principle witch uses a bow made of human shin bone and shots a turquoise bead at some specific point in the figure represented in the sand painting. Skinwalkers will spit and urinate on the painting, desecrating the spiritual meaning of these icons of Navajo spirituality.
Another technique observed among the Navajos is that of making a doll or image of the victim out of clay, skins or cloth. Some are also carved from wood. The effigy is then tortured or killed by knifing it or shooting an object into it. This practice probably did not originate with the Navajos since it occurs only sporadically in areas that have been influenced by either the Pueblos or the Spanish, both of whom have histories in this style of sorcery. Richard Van Valkenburgh, an anthropologist among the Navajos, reports finding a small doll shape with a turquoise bead punched into its heart in a reputed witch cave near Lukachukai, on the Navajo reservation. It was the shape of a man carved of lightening-struck pine, about six inches long with black hair painted on the head.
Informants relate that to become a Skinwalker, the witch must kill a member of his own clan. They have been known to engage in grave robbing to collect the necessary components to make black magic. Supposedly, they are able to control their animal totems at night and force them to do evil deeds. People prone to superstition believe that Skinwalkers can raise the dead and make them commit atrocities.
Navajos are circumspect when talking to outsiders about Skinwalkers. At night they will never speak of them, even in veiled inference. They fear reprisal in the form of a witchcraft called Witchery Way which uses ‘corpse poison’ (powdered corpses, especially those of twins or children). Every Navajo hogan has an opening in the roof to provide ventilation. The Skinwalker can take corpse poison and sprinkle it through these holes causing serious illness or even death to those within. If this powder is thrown into a victim’s face, it makes the tongue swell up and turn black, then convulsions, paralysis and finally death
Coming soon: Pueblo Beads in Magic and Witchcraft
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