Welcome to the end of the month! Every (somewhat rare) fifth Friday of the month, we’ll spend a post focusing on tales from folklore or its more contemporary cousin, the urban legend. This fifth Friday, we’re going to take a look at the legend of Walking Sam, a supposed spirit – or something darker – that terrorizes indigenous peoples in South Dakota, driving them to Suicide. Who – or what – is Walking Sam? Let’s explore.
The Legend
According to many, Walking Sam is a stick-thin or skeletal humanoid figure that stands around 7 feet tall. It can move through the trees like a shadow or wisps of smoke. It has eyes but no mouth. When it raises its arms, silhouettes of hanging people (presumably its previous victims) can be seen beneath them. He calls out to people and tries to encourage them to take their own lives. It is often said that he targets teenagers specifically, as they are more vulnerable and emotionally unstable.
Some believe that Walking Sam is a spirit of someone who completed suicide and now walks the earth to lure people to the same fate. Others believe that it is some sort of demon. Others yet believe that it is a manifestation of the trauma and bloody history of the indigenous peoples – especially because it is most often seen on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which houses people from the Oglala Lakota Tribe. Pine Ridge in specific has been host to many a tragedy over the centuries – most notably: the massacre at Wounded Knee, during which nearly 300 Lakota people were murdered by the US Government, multiple high-profile murders, hundreds of suicide attempts and dozens of completed suicides, and devestating poverty.
Analysis
This one seems pretty straightforward to me. A lot of writing on the Walking Sam legend pose the question as a chicken-or-egg conundrum – do people complete suicide because of the influence of Walking Sam, or is Walking Sam present in these places because it is drawn to the suffering? According to what I have found in my reading, the advent of Walking Sam seems to have been around the time of Slenderman – meaning it is not an ancient tradition or mythological creature. Some indigenous tribes do, however, have tales of shadow people and spirits, though these spirits seem to be the spirits of those who have completed suicide and then come back to urge vulnerable people to follow in their footsteps.
So we have an epidemic of suicides – especially among indigenous youth – the rising popularity of an easily-identifiable boogeyman, and already-existing lore rolling into one entity here. Walking Sam has the motivations of the previously mentioned suicide spirits, the looks of Slenderman, and exists to explain the incredible spike of suicides on reservations, which are the result of devastating socioeconomic factors. Having something to blame that is external and based in your culture, I would imagine, eases some of the collective guilt as a society. Especially when that guilt stems from things you can do nothing about.
The biggest takeaway from this urban legend is that there are multiple crippling epidemics on our “Indian” Reservations. They are struck with immense poverty, forced to face racism and hate crimes, and are faced with suicide rates 2.5 times higher among their youth than the national average. They need assistance. They need action.
Sources
- https://www.theodysseyonline.com/sioux-natives-fear-walking-sam
- https://puzzleboxhorror.com/walking-sam-urban-legend/
- https://www.dailydot.com/irl/walking-sam-myth-lakota-pine-ridge-suicides/
- https://hot1047.com/creepiest-urban-legend-in-south-dakota/
- https://www.businessinsider.com/urban-legends-us-2018-1
- https://www.rd.com/list/scary-urban-legends/
- https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/sioux-suicides
- https://www.diverseeducation.com/demographics/native-americans/article/15090109/native-americans-combat-the-suicide-spirit
