When the same witness was in his twenties, he was hunting with some buddies about two miles from the former site. Again they encountered an altered animal, one whose actions were incomprehensible. It danced, it pranced, it frolicked. Its gestures made no sense along any patterns of animal behavior, and something about the encounter spooked the hunters. Afraid even to shoot at it, they withdrew in a hurry, leaving the animal to its distempered celebration.
The Big Dog Changeling
These days, the Iroquois do most of their infighting over “gas and gambling,” in the words of a Seneca friend. On one of the reservations north of Buffalo, a woman got uppity in council. While hanging laundry later that week, she noticed a big dog in her yard. Its profile was strange, and when it turned to look at her, it had partlyhuman features. Its face was that of a Native American man, with long droopy ears.
She ran in the house, locked the doors, and pulled the shades. She thought it might be a changeling, a shape-shifter who had chosen to come in this form. One thing was sure: It was a dangerous situation. These things had been known to haunt people until they died.
She stayed inside all night. She waited till afternoon before looking out. The monstrosity was gone. She almost doubted herself, but the neighbors reported hearing a godless howling all that night, like that of a soul so tortured that it turned angry. The sound had no parallel in anyone’s memory, though the elders didn’t seem to be saying all they thought. Maybe this was one of their changelings, sent on another mission.
The Horse on the Roof
On the night before they moved out of their trailer on the Tuscarora Reservation, a family of women—two sisters and their daughters—heard some terrible banging on the roof. It sounded like a heavy being crashing and rolling from one end of the metal surface to the other. The mother leaped up, grabbed her .22, and came out shooting. Nothing was found, but the next day some neighbor boys who had heard about the ruckus came over and inspected the roof. On it were the prints of horses’ hooves. No one let the little girls look up there.
The Strange Old Man
(Early Twentieth Century)
When they were boys on the Allegany Reservation, Duce Bowen’s uncles were always getting into trouble. Their neighbor was a solitary old man many suspected of being a power person. The boys set out to goad him into a display.
They played pranks on him all summer. They were peeping toms, hoping to catch him in some magical practice. They threw rocks at his house at night, hoping to make him steam out after them in an altered form.
One night, they looked in the old man’s windows and saw him asleep in a chair, the paper folded across his lap and his lower body in shadow. One of the boys swore his legs were hairy, the feet hoofed like those of a goat. They left him alone for a few weeks.
One night shortly after they’d started back at it, they heard a big racket behind their house. They ran out expecting anything, but found only a little black-and-white dog poking around the back porch. They shooed it off and thought little more of it.
A few nights later, they heard their neighbor’s screen door open and figured it might be something too good to miss. They snuck through the trees and saw the old fellow come out, stretching as if he’d got up from a nap, and head toward the outhouse. It seemed a golden opportunity to throw rocks at the roof or lock him in with a stick across the latch. They watched him pass by the structure as if he were going in. They crept to it.
They were just by the door when the black-and-white dog they’d seen the night before tore around the little building. It was tiny, but its fury was terrifying. It had the eyes of a devil! Before they could think, they were scampering home in a fright, the little demon snapping at their ankles. They were out of breath when they got inside.
“Come to the window,” their mother said. They saw the form of their aged neighbor strolling back up the path toward his house, smoking his pipe. In a minute, his lights came on.
The boys learned a lesson. They started to look at people with new respect, even outcasts who seemed powerless. They were also good friends to their old neighbor in the coming years, showing as much energy to help him as they had formerly spent teasing him. Duce Bowen always wondered if this scare was what straightened them out.
DuWayne Bowen heard this tale from the grandmother of the girl who would become his wife.
A Walk Home
(Mid-Twentieth Century)
A Seneca soldier came home after World War II. He’d seen some of the hottest action of the Pacific. Friends had fallen all around him, and he hadn’t been scratched. His first night in Salamanca started a party that wasn’t done till every one of his relatives had him over for dinner. The first week was for brothers, sisters, and grandparents. By the second week, he was visiting cousins. He was a hero to thekids and couldn’t leave without playing with them. After that, he told the elders all about the war and the Pacific. It was almost midnight when
