May 4, 2016 - Shape shifters by Damon Corrie

‘Shape shifters’ are a well known (or at least ‘believed’) phenomenon in MOST indigenous communities….very easy – coming from any western modern education system – to laugh such matters off as being ‘superstitious nonsense’…….but i’ve noted a lot of ‘co-incidences’ over the years so I don’t arrogantly dismiss what I don’t understand.

There is one Lokono guy close to me who says things like “the deer will be at such & such a place at this time of year, because when I was a deer we used to gather there”…we all laugh….but when you DO go to where he says certain animals he ‘changes into’ will be….and dammit to hell EVERY TIME you find them exactly there just as he said…and he is no hunter so it is not like he ‘knows the bush from hunting for a living’.

Another Makushi man I know will leave camp in the dead of night bare-handed & barefooted, alone, at night, with no lights, just a short pants or brief on….and before sunrise he is back with meat from some freshly killed animal, or with a string of fish he caught.

When I trace his footsteps they always abruptly end where Jaguar paw prints begin.

Once when he and I were going to camp in the Kanuku mountains alone, he kept falling behind (then again I am tall and walk fast – and he is short and can’t match my pace) and hiding into bushes…..until I told him ‘If I look behind me and see a Jaguar – I’ll know it’s you – so don’t bother’…..he laughed heartedly and stopped doing it.

I know a Lakota man who was out hunting and shot a deer and he heard a man holler out in pain when the deer fell, but he was the only man out there hunting on the plains; he left immediately.

There are even a few cases of animals being shot and a freshly dead human corpse being found where the animal fell, no-one reports these to the Police for fear of being charged with murder, so it remains a secret in the tribes among those who experienced it.

I know a Trio/Drio shaman who will tell you before you sleep that a Jaguar will visit you tonight – but don’t be afraid because it will be him, and just as he said, in the night a Jaguar WILL come into the building you are sleeping WHILE YOU ARE STILL AWAKE that night and look at you for a few minutes before going away……..once is a fluke…but EVERY time you visit him this happens….what are the odds of that being a ‘coincidence’….and no-one has a pet Jaguar in that village.

I think the wise thing to do, is NOT to automatically dismiss anything that ‘sounds impossible’ to our ears, and instead remain open-minded enough to admit that we cannot possibly know everything, so anything is within the realm of theoretical possibility.

In literally EVERY tribe I have befriended I have heard about people with this ability, it is as ‘normal’ to them as talking about a child with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is to an educated western urban dweller these days….nothing ‘fantastical’ about it whatsoever to them.

Some families or entire Clans are known for this bloodline trait…in Guyana they are called ‘Turning Tigers’ and they live in small family homesteads far away from the rest of the village.

Mass indigenous hysteria? Or something that indigenous peoples deeply in tuned with nature know – that urban non-indigenous peoples who are deeply OUT of tune with nature do not? Whether you believe or not is irrelevant, these ‘strange coincidences’ will continue until the end of time regardless of what you or I personally think or believe to be ‘possible’ in this great illusion we call a 5 senses perception of reality.

Romanians (a white European people) are generally strong believers that Vampires are real, likewise most Icelanders (a white European people) – as modern and educated as they are today – believe in the ‘hidden people’ of indigenous Viking Lore….who are we to say they are ‘foolish’…do we live in their country or have we inherited the inter-generational cultural history that they have? So who are WE to judge THEM?

All I know for SURE is that I do NOT know everything, so therefore I do not automatically dismiss anything either. The Hypocrisy comes mainly from ‘religious’ people who believe in a long list of impossible sounding tales in their own holy books…but yet laugh at or dismiss other similarly scientifically unprovable fantastical sounding tales told by others.