If you want to be a skinwalker I will tell you where to start. First you must be a practicing shaman. Then you must get your black magic on, after all this you must kill someone you love. In the end it is not worth doing and still might not work. Go to the reservation and talk to someone there. Just know this is a bad idea......
If you mean an actual skinwalker according to the lore of any specific Native people in North America, you would have to be more specific. In some nations, the term is used for a medicine man who takes on the traits while wearing the skins of an animal, in an ecstatic trance. In one, it is a spiritual creature.
In the case of the former, a person cannot just become one. The person must be called, must be found at least trustworthy to be accepted (if not born) into that First People's nation, and mentored into their spiritual path.
As for the latter, you are a human being, and you always will be. You cannot transform into anything else.
I'm from the reservation. The skinwalker lore. Of the Navajo nation. Is very far from myths and legends. The one who goes into such a ceremony. Does kill the one he or she is close too. In the exchange for inhuman and shape shifting abilities. But they are very evil and deadly. The appearance of one is not what most people can comprehend
Centar, generally you cannot simply go to a "reservation" and ask about things which are considered tribal lore or "medicine". For one thing it is considered impolite for someone not of the particular tribe to be demanding to know things that are part of their sacred lore. We white people have stolen so much from our First Nation peoples that they are highly protective of what they have left.
When it comes to the skin walker, as a creature the lore has always caught my interest. My own knowledge is as that of an 'outsider' so I welcome any genuine perspective I can.
My understanding based on the few storiesI have heard, is that it isn't necessarily a deliberate choice for a person to become one, but more of a curse received through desperate or heinous acts. Sort of a result of corruption of the soul through corruption of morals. The story I hear most often is that they are typically 'born' in times of famine, as a result of a person committing cannibalism on others out of a desire to survive. A most deplorable and selfish act of actively taking the lives of others and elevating your own.
I have heard of a couple different end results, one being that the skinwalker's belly grows larger the more it eats, essentially cursed to be always hungry and never able to be 'full'. Or similarly that the ski walker's whole body grows to the same end. And of course versions where they take on pallid and death/zombie-like or supernatural qualities. Inevitably, even if the person wasn't before, they become gluttonous cannibalistic creatures and a danger to anyone they encounter.
Wraithpex, I am wondering how accurate my understanding is. Are there any stories or lore points you are willing/able to share or correct? My personal ideal is to understand the history correctly. That way I can also respect it correctly
