They asked:
"Native Americans of Reddit, what are your or your tribes ghost stories, legends, or supernatural occurrences?"
Here are some of the interesting legends and superstitions of North America's First Nations and Indigenous tribes.
Uktena
Brice Cooper on Unsplash
"Uktena. It's a legend about a horned snake in Tsalagi [Cherokee] legend. Uktena is said to be very large and round like a tree trunk, with horns on his head."
"The only way to wound him is to shoot at a singular spot on his forehead that emits bright light. It's similar to a diamond. If you defeat Uktena, you become a miracle worker—a great warrior."
"Yet, once you see the light on his forehead, you run toward it instead of trying to escape."
"Even to see Uktena sleeping is death. Not to the hunter, but to his family."
~ Faith-Hope-TacoBell
Dog Tails or Why They Sniff Each Other
gotdaflow on Unsplash
"Lenni Lenape story about why dogs sniff each other's butts."
"When the humans slept, dogs would get together and party, but not before taking their tails off. They'd dance the entire night, put their tails back on and return home."
"But one time a wolf found them and all the dogs had to scramble away to their homes for safety, but a lot of them grabbed the wrong tail."
"They never danced again at night because they were afraid of the wolf, so they were stuck with weird mismatched tails for the rest of their lives."
"This is the reason that dogs sniff each other's butts; to see if the other dog has their tail."
~ ChurroChick
Haida Raven Brings Light to the Earth
Cristina Glebova on Unsplash
"In the beginning there was no light in the world, because an old magician kept it hidden in a box inside his house. Raven, who was always hungry, didn't like the darkness because it was difficult to find food."
"One day he was looking for food near the old magician's house. He heard a voice saying, 'I have a box, and inside this box is another box, and inside this there is another box, and inside the smallest box is all the light in the world'."
"Raven decided to steal the light."
"Raven waited until the old man's daughter went down to the river to collect water. Just as she was dipping her basket into the river, he changed himself into a hemlock needle."
"The needle floated into her basket. When the girl drank some water, she swallowed Raven too."
"Inside the girl's belly Raven took the form of a human baby. He grew and grew, and in time she gave birth to a funny looking child with black eyes and a big nose."
"The old man loved his grandson so much that he gave in to the child's every wish. Raven became spoilt and greedy. He was bored with all his toys, and wanted to play with the box that held the light."
"Finally the grandfather opened the box and tossed the glowing ball of light to Raven."
"As soon as Raven caught the light, he immediately changed into his bird form. Holding the light in his beak, he flew up the chimney hole into the dark world."
"The magician was angry. He wanted to get the light back into his box."
"He flew after Raven."
"The light was heavy in Raven's beak, and he was getting tired. The magician was coming closer."
"Raven broke off some pieces of the light and threw them into the sky. They became the stars."
"The magician was still coming closer, so Raven broke off another piece of the light and threw it into the sky. It became the moon."
"Finally Raven became so tired that he tossed the last and biggest piece of the light into the sky. It became the sun; and that is how daylight came to the world."
~ deviety
Nakani
Oliver Roos on Unsplash
"Dené from northern British Columbia here, my mom used to always tell me stories of the Nehgunni [Nakani], or bushmen/wild-men when I was young."
"They were people who lived in the forest and took away people who wandered too far out, specifically children."
"I always figured these stories were created by my people to serve two purposes, first to teach young children to not wander far off, and second to give explanations to kidnappings or missing people."
~ spanishLION
See-at-coh
green trees near lake under blue sky during daytimePhoto by Jasper Gronewold on Unsplash"See-at-coh (don't know the translation in English) is a Cowlitz legend. Lived at this lake and it was his spot."
"We DO NOT go there or he will kill you. Used to have nightmares about him based on what I was taught as a kid."
"Like how you could stand at the edge of the water and be looking in and he would come out of it and just grab you. No whistling at night and keep windows covered."
"But then the mountain blew up [Mt. Saint Helen] and filled in the lake so don't know if he's still around or not."
~ kalimah1
Nahual of Mexico
Joshua Wilking on Unsplash
"I live in rural Mexico. There are many, many different Indigenous peoples in what's now Mexico."
"The ones who settled here speak Nahuatl—the language of the Aztecs. This legend took place in the early 1900's."
"One of my favourite Nahuatl myths is the Nahual."
"Some people were thought to be able to turn into an animal. Most of them could only turn into one, but the most powerful Nahual could turn into different animals."
"There was a man who owned a hacienda where my town is, and he had a sort of overseer that everyone was afraid of."
"Said overseer could take a message all the way to the next state (think hundreds of miles) and bring back a sealed response in a single day."
"He also seemed to know everything everyone did, all the time. He was rumoured to be a Nahual that could turn into a coyote and an eagle."
"His quarters were heavily warded in his absence, which only added fuel to the rumor. You can only kill a Nahual if you find the human skin he sheds to transform and burn said skin."
~ CTalina78
Yamǫ́rıa & Yamǫǫ̀zha
Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
"Yamǫ́rıa & Yamǫǫ̀zha—the giant twins [of the Dené]."
"There are landmarks all around the territory I live in that is exhibited as 'proof' they were alive."
"In the middle of the Mackenzie river( biggest river in the NorthWest Territories) there is a large stone sticking out of the river which looks like the petrified guts of a beaver, there is a giant branchless, leafless tree sticking out of the top of this stone."
"It is said that Yamǫǫ̀zha had hunted a giant beaver and gutted him there in the river. He used his spear to anchor down the cuts so fish may feed on them. They are still there to this day."
"Yamǫ́rıa's body can be seen laying down, it is essentially a mountain range that looks like a giant human laying on his back, completely with face and feet. This can be seen from the peak of the hill as you enter a town called Ft. Liard, the southwestern most town in the NWT."
Walking Sam of the Pine Ridge Reservation
Boston Public Library on Unsplash
"'Walking Sam' skulks in the shadows of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and convinces people to take their own lives, especially young people."
"He's 7 feet tall, very thin and has no mouth. When he stretches out his long arms, nooses hang down with Lakota children hanging from them."
"Walking Sam finds you when you're alone and puts thoughts in your head until you feel worthless and kill yourself.
"Sometimes Walking Sam is depicted looking like Abraham Lincoln, complete with the stovepipe hat. 'Walking Sam', 'Uncle Sam', I don't know if that's where the name came from."
"But Walking Sam is an evil infected upon the people when the Oceti Sakowin were forced onto the reservations; he isn't a legend of the people before Pine Ridge Reservation existed."
"Lincoln was President when the Lakota were being forced onto reservations. Lincoln also ordered the execution of 38 Lakota men the day after Christmas in 1862. It's the largest mass execution in U.S. history."
"I always thought Walking Sam was Lincoln. They carved his face onto Ŝa´kpe Tuŋkaŋŝi (Mount Rushmore was called Six Grandfathers) in the Paha Sa´pa (Black Hills)
"My Father attended Holy Rosary boarding school at Pine Ridge in the 1940s & 1950s, but our people didn't live on the reservation. My Grandmother said evil stalked the people there."
"My Father never wanted us to ever even visit any of our cousins or his Uncles there."
~ LakotaGrl
Este Lopocke or Este Lubutke
Morgane Perraud on Unsplash
"Miccosukee [Seminole] tribal member here (South Florida) and for us it's the little people."
"Essentially really small people (like barbie doll sized and smaller) that live in the trees. They play jokes and stuff mainly, unless you piss them off."
"Had family members get tricks played on them that couldn't be explained."
"And then we have our fair share of stories that circulate our reservation like a tribal member being taken by the little people."
"All on the reservation in the Everglades (like 40 mins west of Miami)."
~ SSBMBabyCakes
Haudenosaunee Rules
Chris Chow on Unsplash
"I know the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois Confederacy] rules."
"1. If you hear someone you know calling your name, but you also know they are not supposed to be there, DON'T respond. Especially if they are out of sight and insisting you come to them."
"2. Always play group games in counter-clockwise order, otherwise your playing with the dead."
"3. Also don't eat in the dark, this is considered inviting the dead to eat with you. If you can extend your hand all the way out and still see it clearly then your fine."
"4. Don't play card games past midnight. If you do, and someone knocks at the door, don't answer it."
"5. Try not to drop your cards, if you do then don't bend down to pick them up, or you will see hooves under the table. That's bad."
"6. Say thank you after meals, even if you're the one that made it. Even better if you say it in native tongue."
"7. If someone finishes their meal and says thank you, you say 'you're welcome', even if you didn't give it to them. Even better in native tongue."
"8. After someone dies, you should gather family as quickly as possible to have feasts for 10 days. The first dinner is large, then every meal after that is a smaller feast meant for portions of the family to come at different times to help.
"The last feast on the 10th day is the closing dinner, which is the largest, with the entire family expected to show up and help. For every meal of these 10 days, put out a plate of the deceased's favorite foods first."
"Contrary to rule 6, you do not say thank you at any time during these 10 days. This is because it is believed that it takes the dead 10 days to relive their lives before they pass on, so this is your last chance to eat with them."
"Saying 'Thank you' during this time will make them stop before they're done because you're saying you're done. This will have bad consequences."
"9. Don't try to contact spirits, especially with board games. This is not a tribe custom, it's more of an unspoken common sense among the Rez people."
"10. If a bird flies into your house, someone's going to die."
"11. Pregnant woman should not hold any child that isn't theirs."
"12. It's accepted that if you actually try to curse someone, literally going through all of the steps with the intention of harm, not accidentally wishing them bad luck, then your family will also be cursed horribly."
"13. If you play with fire you'll wet the bed."
~ kinda-always-hungry
To learn more general information about Indigenous mythology of the United States, visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian website.
For Canada, visit the First Nations in Canada website.
For information about specific tribes, visit their tribal government website for recommended resources.
"What's a conspiracy theory you believe is 100% true?"
Anything Found On Reddit
"I would believe any conspiracy theory that explains why I see a version of this question in my feed 3 times per day."- Longjumping_Ad_6988
Hold On To Your Butts
"Several years back, Samuel L Jackson did an AMA."
"He announced it a few days before and said he would read, up to 300 words, any statement that was the highest voted."
"The initial comment that was in the lead was a series of words for a gps system."
"Left, right, turn, 1,2,3,4,5 etc and of course motherf*cker."
"Halfway through though, another comment took the lead and ended up winning."
"It was a rather bland announcement that he was retiring from acting and taking up a life of crime fighting."
'Till the end of time, I will believe that his team said there was no way he was going to read a script that would immediately be posted to create a product that he would not get paid for."
'I am sure Reddit admins put their thumb on the scale to get the other comment to win."- frodosbitch
Samuel L Jackson Wink GIF by LionsgateGiphyMystery DNA Collection...
"When I was in middle school some group came and had every kid in the grade fingerprinted and mouth swabbed as a 'If My Child Goes Missing' packet for the children and parents."
"We got a copy of our fingerprints with our name on a form."
"And the sticker from that form was put on the tubes the mouth swabs would go back into."
"They set up in our gymnasium and the whole school of about 500 kids did it."
"I believe that was just a super easy way to get biometrics on the population before cellphones became popular."
"This was early mid 2000s."
"I’ve always wondered exactly who got that dna."- Equivalent_Seat6470
"I’m still convinced all these DNA test kits will be used/sold as a means to do things like deny medical coverage, plant evidence at crime scenes, population surveillance on a biometric level, etc."
"Got one as a gift once, handed it right back."
"NOPE."- nomadiceater
"The Candy Man..."
"The Ms on M&Ms have always been Ws."
"Willy & Wonka."- NorthernGamer71
Willy Wonka Smile GIFGiphy"Cost Cutting" My A**...
"All the recent tech layoffs (except Metas) weren't about cutting costs but about making workers afraid again and trying to claw back some of the leverage workers had been gaining."- boones_farmer
Maps Be Damned
"Bielefeld, Germany, does not exist."- Mikeavelli
They're Not Fooling Anyone
"Area 51 is where the US develop and test Intelligence, Surveillance, Tracking and Reconnaissance equipment, and the UFOs people are are actually new forms of surveillance equipment."- dazedan_confused
Area 51 GIF by MOODMANGiphyWhy They Didn't Release The Snyder Cut...
"DC makes sh*tty movies to give people comic book fatigue to spite marvel."- Season8isGreat
All In The Eye of The Beholder...
"That Contemporary art is used to launder money."
"Look it up. It makes sense."
"Rich person buys an art piece for $1,000, turns around and values it at $1,000,000, then sells it to a private buyer for 1.5x it's value."
"The buyer pays with a form of legal tender (cash) that cash has now been cleaned and is in the rich persons pocket, then he goes and commissions more art and repeats the cycle."
"After 5 years he has cleaned more money than offshore accounts, shell corporations, and high cash flow businesses could in 50 years."- Weird-Replacement-61
Bored Modern Art GIF by unimpressionismGiphySeriously though, who actually uses change?
"The 'coin shortage' is just a way to have us all move to using our debt/credit cards and digital currency 100% of the time."
"When that finally happens, the government will have full access to viewing our funds and income and can freeze it whenever they want, which would give them full power over the economy."- Tomb5t0ne
Who Actually Bought Baseball?
"Michael Jordan’s first 'retirement' was because he was suspended for gambling."- trojan_man16
What Else Would "Central Intelligence" Mean...
"CIA drugging US citizens without their knowledge to learn how to manipulate people's minds."- Xtrepiphany
cia GIFGiphySome people will believe literally anything they're told.
But just about everyone believes at least one sensational fact with zero evidence to back it up.
"What's the dumbest myth people today believe?"
With A Few Deep Breaths, You Can Get Away With Anything
"'Lie detectors' as a literal thing."
"There's a reason they aren't admissible as evidence in court in most places."- bitew41489
test homer GIFGiphyHow Would That Even Work?...
"My dad had this guy helping him out, think Big Box store DIY curb ready helper, who told him 'If you sleep with your hair wet, you will bleed out of your mouth'."
"And he was 110% sure that was fact."
"We were both just confused and bewildered at this statement."
"What the hell had this guy witnessed?!"- bitew41489
Purely For Dramatic Effect
"There are dumber ones out there, but the one I, as an estate lawyer, deal with constantly is the idea that there needs to be a 'reading' of the will, where the family all gather and the lawyer reads it aloud to them for the first time."
"We don't do that, we just mail everyone their own copy if they want it."
"It's a really stubbornly persistent one because people continue to see scenes of it in movies and TV shows, where it's used for some big dramatic reveal."
"I've even had irate beneficiaries insist that the administration of the estate can't be 'official' until there's a reading."
"Way, way back, like 150 years ago or so, I believe we used to do something like that at times because you couldn't exactly presume literacy on the part of the beneficiaries, but now we feel it's a pretty safe bet that you can either read it or find someone who can."- PigHaggerty
Shouldn't They Also Have To Register Their Legs?
"Black belts have to register their fists as weapons."
"I can't believe I was dumb enough to fall for that."- gorox47927
...Still Best Not To Try It...
"If you drop a penny off a skyscraper, it will eventually fall fast enough to puncture someone’s skull."
"By that logic, raindrops would hurt or straight up kill you."
"Not to mention hail."- UnvwevweOsas
Tyler Labine Penny GIF by HULUGiphyA Balanced Diet Is All It Takes...
"Detox drinks."- Ok-Relief-723
Though We Should Believe This One...
"Tear here to open."- TheDarkSide2187
You Never Know What Your Good Luck Is...
"It is believed in Indian culture that keeping your unibrow means 'good luck'."
"I kept my unibrow for 20 years thinking it is my 'good luck' until I got stage 5th of kidney failure and I did my eyebrows after that because who gives a f*ck about luck anymore."
"Now my eyebrows look cute af."- Full_Sector_1606
miranda sings eyes GIFGiphyThe Reason Everyone Sleeps With Their Mouths Closed
"That you eat spiders in your sleep."
"Spiders will not knowingly walk into a preditor's mouth."
"They can sense both the heartbeat, heat and noise from humans."
"All things that would alert them not to go into our mouth."- messeboy
If Anything, It Might Actually Come Out Faster...
"I remember the myth that gum takes 7 YEARS to fully pass through your digestive system."- QuandiliusDinglebop
You Shouldn't Wait 48 Seconds!
"You have to wait 48 hours to report someone missing."- loxisi5751
No Two Bodies Are The Same
"When I had cancer a few years back and was doing chemotherapy I had people who constantly questioned that I actually 'had cancer' due to the fact that my hair didn't fall out until I was actually in remission."
"Had been off chemo for about 2-3 weeks when my hair started gradually thinning and falling out."
"It's a complete myth that every single person's hair will have the same reaction to chemo."
"Some people lose hair right away, some don't."
"Everybody is different."- DorothyGMilne
Once A Genius, Always a Genius
"That Einstein failed his grade school math class."
"It was the subject of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not column in 1935 and Einstein himself refuted the article."
"In primary school, he had been at the top of the class and by 15 he had mastered differential and integral calculus."- rolis20544
albert einstein GIFGiphyAlways Make Sure That Lid Is On Tightly
"Not sure if this fits here exactly, but the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit being a frivolous case filed by a money hungry customer."
"That poor lady was a real victim who suffered legitimate injuries who only wanted her medical costs covered."- deneto1043
Always Check With Your Doctor First...
"That magnetic jewelry / healing will cure just about anything."
"A dude named Mesmer the 1780 came up with the idea, and it has been debunked many times."
"Yet it’s still a billion dollar industry."
"Fun fact - the word 'mesmerized' is related to him."- rolis20544
Be it watching too much TV will make your eyes fall out or Windex can clear up any ailment, some people will truly believe anything.
And no amount of convincing will ever change their mind.
Redditor UnbentJohnson2 was curious to learn of the many things people have no doubt in their mind are true, with nothing to back them up, leading. them to ask:
"What do you KNOW is true without evidence? What are you certain of, right down to your bones, without proof?"
Think Twice Before Throwing Out School Projects...
"Back when I was 10 there was a competition for school kids to write a treatment for an episode of 'Doctor Who', with the best one being developed into a full episode in the next series and the winner receiving a writing credit."
"I was a huge fan of DW at the time and the competition was actually run through schools, so my teacher made the entire class do it, but I was very excited."
"I began writing a story about the Doctor landing on a planet full of defective cybermen, who's programming had gone awry and had been left on this asylum planet to rot."
"The Doctor lands there in response to a mysterious distress call from a woman and attempts to find and save her while avoiding the dangerous dysfunctional cybermen and the looming threat of planetary destruction at the hands of the normal cybermen."
"I finished my short treatment and gave it to my teacher to submit."
"Unfortunately it turned out the competition was very strict about the formatting of submissions and mine was returned because I had used the wrong formatting in some way, it seemed like a weird reason."
"I was a bit disappointed and that was the end of that."
"But then, a year or two later, there was an episode of DW called 'Asylum of the Daleks', which seemed incredibly similar to my story except with Daleks."
"So incredibly, eerily, similar in fact, that to this day I am absolutely convinced that Steven Moffat saw my script and came up with a formatting excuse so that he could remove me from the competition, steal my story, change the bad guys and claim it as his own."
"I have zero evidence, I don't even still have the treatment I wrote, or any letter from the BBC about my submission, and yet I know in my bones that Steven Moffat stole his script from 10 yr old me."- vanhet
Trendsetter
"Back when I was 18 I got my first tattoo, the Squaresoft logo on my upper arm."
"It was 2001 and I was also on my own in a new state."
"I was and still am a huge rpg fan and it’s the height of my geekdom."
"Well, I sent in a picture of me and my tattoo with a short letter about me and my favorite games to Official PlayStation Magazine."
"They published my letter and photo along with the caption 'We don’t know whether to be impressed or frightened'."
"The very next month they started a 'Tattoo of the Month' section and I am absolutely sure 100% that I either started that or was the story that proved the concept, the test."
"Unless someone can come from that team’s time and tell me I’m not, I’ll always believe I was the start of that."- ThatSquareChick
Happy Ice Cream GIF by DrumstickGiphyGotta Catch Em' All
"That my cousin stole my holographic 1st edition Charizard Pokemon card back in the early 2000's."- axxonn13
A Cute Face Can Help You Get Away With A Lot...
"My brother deleted my game save on purpose."
"He was old enough to read, he knew what he was doing."- Raichu7
Law Of Physics
"For every sock that goes missing a Tupperware lid appears."- countryroads8484
Animation 3D GIF by eyedesynGiphyAt Least He Kept Up Office Morale...
"That my last boss secretly hated me even though we had, on the surface, a very positive relationship."- mejok
...Unlike This Guy
"My ex-boss used Covid as an excuse to make me redundant because I was the only member of his team to be hired by someone else and not him."
'F*ck that guy forever."- box_frenzy
They'll Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse
"There’s a travel agency that’s been around in my town for as long as I can remember."
"I wholeheartedly believe it’s a front for the mob."-NeighborhoodNerd0·
godfather GIFGiphySome Would Say There's Plenty Of Evidence Here...
"We’re all too in over our heads."-doinkxx
Talent Is Heredetary... Most Of The Time...
"That a LOT more famous actors than we realize are secretly the children of other famous actors from the previous generation."
"I call it the Hollywood Bastard Theory."- DarthToothbrush
Coincidence? Or Karma...
"If I'm stuck in traffic and switch lanes because the other lane looks like it will move faster, the lane I just switched from will automatically go faster."- mlime18
driving changing lanes GIF by South Park GiphyThe Risks Of Putting Something In Writing
"Getting a name tattooed on your body is a curse both on you and the person whose name is on you for as long as you wear it."- h00paj00ped
Constant Self Doubt...
"My cat is in a constant superposition of having recently eaten and being starved to death. "
"At least, that’s how she acts."
"Also, any of my feelings about myself."
"Can’t contradict or disprove those no matter how hard you try."- ColourfulFunctor
Something To Be Said For Building Up Immunity...
"That being sick with a bacterial infection as an infant and almost dying is the reason why I am never sick despite being a super unhealthy person."- A__SPIDER
Tired I Feel Sick GIF by Muffin & NutsGiphyIt can be hard not to raise an eyebrow at people who believe in something with no evidence to back it up.
However, we can supposedly all agree that that's not quite as troublesome as people who continue to believe in something in spite of AMPLE evidence to the contrary.