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In an upstate area of South Carolina, which was named after the Tolkeena Band

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of Cherokee, there exists a piece
of land with a macabre history and a

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giant guardian. I was born and
raised in this same county, but hadn't

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heard the story until my aunt and
uncle began building a home there. The

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area was surrounded by pasture land,
but these small patches of wooded areas had

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remained mostly undisturbed for decades. Native
American blood runs in my family on my

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mother's side. Looking at the faces
of my mother and aunts, the facial

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structure of the indigenous people as obvious. There were delays in construction, but

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these were not the usual delays you
would expect. A septic tank had to

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be installed. The contractor they hired
left ab uly before the job was complete,

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abandoning his equipment and tools. Days
passed and the owners finally contacted the

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man to see why he had left
the contract unfinished. His response was only

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slightly apologetic. He left for a
reason, and it was not that he

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was a shoddy contractor. Human bones
had been unearthed while digging, at least

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that was his claim. The property
owners hadn't noticed any bones around the dig

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site, and they were perplexed.
He then went on to say that strange

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things had been happening there on his
last day, and he left. He

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refused to elaborate. Later that day, he returned to load's equipment and left

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in a hurry while my aunt was
trying to talk to him. This was

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strange behavior for the hospitable nature of
the people who lived in the community.

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My aunt and uncle never saw an
invoice from this contractor. A second contractor

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was hired, and he too,
unearthed human bones. The police were called,

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and apparently everything was quickly settled.
The septic tank was installed in that

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location and that was the end of
it. I moved back to the area

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after a divorce and got to spend
more time with my aunt's uncles and cousins

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there. I had been away for
years. My aunt began telling me about

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strange things that would go on around
there, one small piece at a time.

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At first, I didn't think a
lot about it. I figured it

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was probably a shadow mistaken for a
spirit, or a noisy appliance mistaken for

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the sound of something more imaginative.
It was a bit spooky in that area

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at night, especially on the backside
of the house. Coyotes howling were a

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routine sound to hear on most any
night when the weather was good. I

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could see how someone could develop creepy
feelings, and our imaginations do run a

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way sometimes. Yet my family were
down to earth people. There was no

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tendency in any of them to tell
tall tales. It was around that time

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that I learned about the incidents with
the contractors and the bones. When I

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finally heard that story, I became
interested. One of my cousins lived on

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the property. He was a mechanic
and he moonlighted from a shop located there.

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Vehicles waiting to be repaired lying the
lower end of the property, he

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worked on them in his spare time. My cousin was a quiet man,

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not prone to draw attention to himself
with outrageous stories, which made what he

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was about to tell me even more
believable. He was under the hood of

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a vehicle and out of nowhere.
He said, I'm kind of glad you're

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here. I don't feel right when
I'm alone on this property. I asked

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him to please tell me more.
He came out from under the hood and

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he said, things go on here. Last Sunday, I was standing in

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front of the TV, flipping through
the channels watching car shows, and I

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saw something out of the corner of
my eye and my bedroom. I looked

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and it was a giant bird looking
thing that moved in a jerking mechanical motion.

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It looked like it was surrounded by
fog. I saw it walk from

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my closet to my bed, and
then it was gone. I got in

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my car and I left. I
knew something was going on for him to

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tell me something like that. After
questioning him about the thing, the best

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I could gather is that it resembled
an emu or an ostrich, considering his

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description. Later that month, my
cousins and I were on their front porch

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having a smoke. The porch faced
a field which was fenced with barbed wire.

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I noticed something moving in the field, and when it was close enough

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for me to see it clearly,
at the fence stood an adult mu.

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I had to see this thing,
so I walked out to the fence with

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one of my other co He explained
that the farmer next door kept these birds

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as well as goats. It was
a magnificent bird and it was quite tame.

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We walked back to the porch,
and my cousin, who had told

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the bird story, sat in silence
and watched the bird. The whole scene

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was odd, and I silently pondered
the whole situation. Unless he brought up

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the subject, I was going to
stay quiet. I didn't know who he

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had told. Weeks later, I
learned that my aunt had begun investigating the

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history of the property they now owned. Most of the resources she used were

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in the library and archives recorded in
the county courthouse. She discovered there had

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been once a Tolkeena or Cherokee village
located exactly where they lived. She told

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me the history that she had discovered. In the early days of the South

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Carolina Colony, British Colonel Archibald of
Montgomery was given the task of forcing the

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Touqina people from the area. The
Tokena were peaceful and were not part of

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the Cherokee Uprising during the seventeen fifties. The village leaders had been informed that

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they needed to leave the area.
The Tokena refused they would not leave their

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home. Their refusal was conveyed to
Colonel Montgomery and Anderson. That night,

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the colonel marched an entire regiment of
infantry twenty miles to the outskirts of the

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village. The soldiers took up positions
around the village, and they waited for

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daylight. At first light, they
attacked That morning, every tokena man,

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woman, and child were massacred,
some in their sleep. The colonial regiment

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took no casualties. It had all
happened on the ground my family had purchased

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that year. My aunt went on
to tell me they had seen the spirits

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of native people walking through the house
and around the property. The nearest neighbors

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would ask why so many people would
walk around out there at night. Were

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my aunt and uncle having parties until
the early morning? Had something happened?

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Was everything all right? Then she
described something even more strange. After meals,

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she would scrape the scraps off into
a bucket on the back porch to

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give to the animals the next day. She called it her slop bucket.

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The food went missing for several nights, and once she saw that the whole

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bucket had been taken, she stood
at the door and screamed into the woods

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that whoever took her bucket better bring
it back. The next morning, the

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bucket sat in its usual place,
and it was clean as if it had

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been washed or licked clean. I
suggested there was a homeless person living in

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the woods, and she agreed that
that could be the case, but I

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think she knew that it wasn't.
At other times, my aunt and other

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women would be run out of the
kitchen at night. One of the women

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would be standing at the sink and
a person would slowly move across their field

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of view outside the window. It
was the shadow of a human, they

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said. We could hear them scream
something as out there. The men would

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check on it, and they would
never find anything. Prowling outside. My

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aunt was becoming a nervous wreck.
I did not live with the family,

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but I would stay with them,
sometimes for a week or more. On

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one of these occasions, I was
in the living area with my daughter watching

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television. It was late and everyone
had gone to bed. My daughter and

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I were having a fun late night
TV marathon, watching cartoons. She loved

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them. I reached for the remote
to change the channel when a translucent figure

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of a female in ancient native clothing
glided across the room, passing in front

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of the TV and exiting right beside
my daughter. I should have been terrified,

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but Strangely, it was a peaceful
experience for me. I felt no

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alarm at all. Rubbing my eyes
to make sure I wasn't catching a glare

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through a sleepy film on my eyes, I opened them and everything looked exactly

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the same. But I knew that
wasn't what I saw. No glare moves

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like that. I had now experienced
my first paranormal event since returning to the

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area. I may have questioned their
experiences before, but I didn't now they

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had been telling the truth the whole
time. The next evening, I was

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in the same spot, watching a
ballgame. The kitchen window was in my

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direct line of sight from where I
sat. My attention was drawn to the

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kitchen I don't know why, and
I saw a shadow cross outside the window.

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Then the back door opened and slowly
shut on its cylinder. It wasn't

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loud, but loud enough to wake
my aunt. She was in the kitchen

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in a second, and we both
looked out on the porch. The scrap

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bucket had vanished. I told you, I told you something was happening.

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Do you still think it's a homeless
person stealing my bucket? She said.

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I went on to tell her about
the image that floated through the living room

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the night before. She had seen
that figure several times in the house.

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She had a hunch that the spirit
that we saw was a good entity,

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and that she kept the angry spirits
calm. My daughter and I left the

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next day, and we didn't return
for about a month. I'd been busy

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at work and with life, but
I was happy to be back around my

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family. They filled me in on
the strangeness that was still happening. I

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could not believe all the craziness in
that house. A perfectly normal family,

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not distinguishable from any other family,
had been haunted since the day they moved

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in. I think they were fortunate
that nothing bad had actually happened, only

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events that were not normal, and
those are always scary anyway. On my

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first night back, all the guys
were in the living area watching TV again.

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One of my younger cousins was on
the back porch talking to his girlfriend.

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Everything up until this point had been
normal, almost as if nothing had

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been happening there. This was one
of the nights and none of us felt

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like anything would happened. We all
got to feel normal for a day,

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but the normal was broken later by
a cry from the kitchen. There it

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is again. One of the girls
screamed, it's back. That shadow is

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back. Before any of us could
get up to make it to the kitchen,

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my cousin, who had been sitting
on the back porch, burst through

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the door and stumbled into the kitchen
floor. Cigarette embers showered him. He

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had crashed through the door with a
cigarette still in his mouth. He ran

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from the kitchen to the living room
and flopped into a recliner. He sat

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there silently with his hands over his
face, and then he began to shake.

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His brother had left the room when
he came in the house, and

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now returned with a shotgun. Running
through the kitchen, he yelled at me

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to come with him hysterically. His
younger brother yelled at us, saying,

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it's out there. I saw it. Stay inside and do not go out

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there. That thing is huge.
I was confused, and I waited to

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see what everyone was going to do. As I waited, I looked at

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the kitchen window, and I saw
the big shadow walk past again. There

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it is, I screamed, and
with that my cousin burst outside with his

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gun. He had had enough.
We were all now out on the porch,

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looking into the blackness of the night. My cousin was furious and paced

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back and forth in front of the
porch. Does anyone see anything, I

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said, I'm fed up with whoever
this is harassing us. I'm going to

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end it tonight, said my gun
toe cousin. He was ready for a

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fight. My thoughts went back to
my idea that possibly a homeless person was

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coming to the porch to get those
scraps. Ghosts don't do that. I

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don't think they need food. I
began to worry my cousin would find this

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person and shoot them, so I
spoke up, Look, we don't know

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what this is. Obviously something or
someone is walking around out here and taking

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this food. You all have seen
it walk past several times. If it's

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a man, you don't want to
shoot them. You'll bring all kinds of

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trouble into your life. You could
even be charged with murder. My cousin

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was listening and appeared to be calming
down and listening to a rational explanation,

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but that last bit of anger bowled
over and he raised the shotgun into the

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air and fired off three quick blasts
into the night. If anyone was still

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around, I'm sure they got the
message. We all went back inside,

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and the rest of the night was
uneventful. The next day I spoke with

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my young cousin and I asked him
about what he had seen. He told

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me he had been sitting there,
not paying attention to anything, just talking

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to his girlfriend, when he caught
movement to his left. When he looked

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up, a giant creature stood just
off the porch. I asked him to

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describe it. He said the thing
looked like a man, a giant man.

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Its face appeared to have a powdery
look to it, like it was

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covered in white flower There were notable
Native American features to the man's face.

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The hair was long and white and
hung around his face and past his shoulders,

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but that the shoulders and arms were
covered in thick, dark hair that

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contrasted with the white hair on its
head. I asked him to show me

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exactly where the figure was standing.
He wouldn't get off the porch, but

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he pointed to the ground just left
of where we stood. I went to

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the end of the porch and I
exited the steps and then walked to the

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spot he had pointed to. I
could not see over the floor. I'm

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six feet tall, and the floor
of the porch was several inches above my

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head. They all looked over the
rail at me, and I asked him,

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where was this head? You obviously
saw everything. How tall was this

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thing? While standing on the porch. He raised his hand a foot above

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his own head. That meant what
he saw had to have been ten to

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eleven feet tall unless it was hovering. But it wasn't hovering. I looked

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down and I saw two enormous,
human looking, barefooted tracks, perfectly pressed

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into the soil, just a foot
or so to my right. I later

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measured the tracks and they were nineteen
inches long and eight inches wide, And

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then I told everyone, I think
this is a sisquatch. I left with

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my daughter the next day and didn't
return for two weeks. When I arrived,

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immediately I asked them about the activity
while I had been gone. I

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was a bit sad when I learned
nothing had transpired since that night. They

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even mentioned that it was nice to
be living without all these events. They

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felt normal for the first time since
they had moved in. I had done

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some reading in the interim, and
my research revealed some possibilities. First,

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I thought the creature my cousin saw
was a sasquatch, But how did that

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tie in with the paranormal events.
I don't really know. The spirits even

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the neighbors saw from a distance walking
around the house were strange enough. My

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only conclusion was that Bigfoot has always
been connected in some way throughout Native folklore.

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I felt it while I was there. I don't know if it's the

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native blood in my family or if
it's just a hunch, but it seems

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to fit. I went on to
tell my family family that I didn't think

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any of the events were evil in
nature. No one had been hurt,

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and the spirits that they saw never
paid much attention to the new people living

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on the property. The sasquatch had
been seen, but had not made an

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aggressive move towards anyone. He was
taking the food bucket, and he was

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also returning the bucket to the porch. I was sure that none of these

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events were intended to harm anyone.
I don't claim to be a shaman or

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a medicine man by any means,
but someone needed to try to give this

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peace of land some respectful acknowledgment,
and even some love. I have begun

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doing just that. Someone had to
do it. I had to do it,