Book excerpt: The Skinwalker is deeply embedded in the Native American lore of the peoples indigenous to the Four Corners of the American Southwest. Though contemporary archaeologists and anthropologists have uncovered significant evidence of its presence in the art of the ancient peoples which inhabited the Great Basin and surrounding lands prior to the tribes which were to follow, there is no explanation for its origin-beyond an alternate plane or spirit world-or its eventual, and temporary, disappearance. Regardless, history documents that the Skinwalker was again drawn forth by the Shaman of the Navajo to avenge the cruelty of their enemy, the Ute. To this day, the Skinwalker remains among us, haunting a corridor among the hills and canyons known as the Path of the Skinwalker. Here in these pages is a collection of actual modern Skinwalker encounters told by those who came face to face with this frightening and supernatural being.