In season 6's "All Dogs Go To Heaven" the Supernatural universe added another creature to it's encyclopedia of weird entities that Sam and Dean have to deal with: Skinwalkers. At first the brothers are convinced they are dealing with a werewolf, but after following around the guy they are sure is turning at night and ripping people negatively associated with a particular family, they realize that all he does is drink heavily from dusk till dawn. When he is found brutally killed, they have to rethink who or what was picking all these bad people off. It seems so much more of a noble, loyal--though bloody--attachment to the widow and her young child.
In digging deeper into the matter, they uncover a pack of being that they are calling skinwalkers, people who change from human form, directly into animal form: most often that of a dog. They quickly find out that most skinwalkers, while not evil at heart, like turned creatures tend to be, are at least extremely selfish and concerned only with the group to which they belong. All except, one. One of the skinwalker's is protecting the young mother and child in the form of an Alsatian (aka German Shepard).
The concept for this creature comes from a composit of Native American sources. What this creature actually is in Native American vernacular is a "shapeshifter;" but since the series already created such a being, almost completely devoid of it's native roots, Skinwalker was pressed into service, despite that most closely associated with the Navajo Dineh yee naaldlooshii. "As far as stopping or killing a shapeshifter, like most creatures in the Supernatural universe, they can be easily taken out with silver--most conveniently in the form of silver bullets.
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| Traditional Dineh (Navajo) artist with Skinwalker Sculpture--wouldn't want to meet this thing on a dark night!! |
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