The Coyote, Werewolves, and Skin Walkers in Navajo Culture

Witchcraft and werewolves have appeared in folklore across world history. This wooden statue by the Navajo/Diné artist Robin Willeto (born 1962) is called “Skin Walker,” and refers to evil witches thought to be able to shapeshift into coyotes. The place of coyotes in Navajo culture is unique — often sinister, they are classic trickster figures. But they also play a main role in their creation myths where they are powerful and not menacing.

The Navajo word for coyote (which can also refer to wolves or foxes) is “ma’ii,” and can be translated as “wanderer.” Coyotes have been trickster figures, ubiquitous types of mythical beings who often possess hidden knowledge and cross over social boundaries. In creation myths, coyote causes a great flood and even originates death. But in the Navajo Blessingway tradition, coyote is also a wise philosopher. In other origin myths, he works for a monster called Big Ye’i, a sort of boss being whom Hero Twins must destroy.

Coyote appears in a lot of folktales as a more humorous creature, whose antics are used to illustrate morality to children or as “just so” stories. In one example, coyote looses his eyes during a gamble and replaces them with pitch pine. This shows why coyotes have yellow eyes and why they are afraid of fire. But it also acts as a cultural talking point for eye disease and blindness. Indeed, in the virtually moribund “Coyoteway Ceremonial,” the Navajo perform a curing ritual dealing with diseases thought to be under the domain of coyotes (Navajo would go out of their way to avoid offending Coyote), which included blindness, mania, and memory loss.

Coyote has been an important figure in the culture of neighboring Apache and Pueblo Indians, but has a much more positive role among the former. This makes sense because the Apache economy was more based around hunting, and individual prowess in warfare, whereas the Pueblo economy was more reliant upon agriculture: the coyote huts prey, and probably causes problems for sedentary cultures. After the 17th century, the Navajo had much more contact with the Pueblo, and the negative image of the coyote rubbed off.