Halloween stories.

[Q3JR4]

Post them here. I'll start:

Some members of the Navajo believe (and this is what I've read so could be completely wrong) that there exists a shape-shifting spirit that acts as an avenging angle to anyone who disrespects any of Mother Earth's creatures. Chindi's (as these spirits are called) can inhabit the bodies of animals and use their control over these creatures to exact their revenge (the animal walks upright or it's eyes appear dead--no reflected light). Furthermore, if you kill the animal who's body the Chindi is inhabiting, the spirit will just find some other creature to come at you with. The following story has been attributed to a Chindi. Take it as you will....

The story involves the Navajo Long Salt family. Their ordeal began in 1825 when a certain man in the family became ill when nightmares invaded his sleep. In these dreams, he would be visited by the spirit of a man he had killed (the death was justified according to tribal law). The family decided to find a medicine man who would rid him of the tormenting spirit.

The Long Salts contacted an old, blind medicine priest from another country. The priest conducted a ritual of purification for three days over the poor man. At the end of those days, the spirit had departed and the man's nightmares ceased.

The priest asked for 5 butchered sheep as payment. This task was given to two lazy men who decided it would be better to butcher 5 antelope (the sheep were far away, the two men did not wish to go to them).

The priest received the carcasses and the rest of the Long Salt clan was unaware of the deceit that had been perpetrated.

A few weeks later, an older member of the clan died seemingly without cause. Members of the family, one by one, began to die all without a cause. To some of the members of the clan, it was obvious that a Chindi had been sent against them.

Eventually the two men confessed their subterfuge and the clan sent delegates to the medicine priest looking for a way to rectify the situation. The medicine man told them that he had in fact sent the spirit after their family with instruction to eliminate the whole Long Salt family one by one. The delegates asked him to call of the spirit, explaining that they had also been taken in by the two members assigned the task. The medicine man told them to come back in 10 days in which time he would give name a new price.

10 days later the delegates again returned to find the medicine man's family in mourning. Not knowing if the man had lifted the curse, the delegates, their question answered, returned to their clan to find many members ill and dying.

About 100 years later a journalist would write about the family, how anyone who even married into the clan died.

An old Navajo man adopted the last Long Salt and swore that he would protect her. To do this he moved around from place to place trying to keep one step ahead of the Chindi. A blizzard forced them to stop and he thought they would be safe under the snow. The next morning he found the young girl dead. The Chindi had been at it's task for 100 years. The death of the girl marked the end of the spirit's wrath.