Navajo Ghosts (Yéʼiitsoh-related spirits)

The provided sources do not supply a single mythic lineage or origin tale for these ghosts. Ethnographic and reference material treat 'ghost sickness' primarily as a cultural syndrome—a pattern of symptoms and attributions arising when people are preoccupied with the deceased or consumed by pathological grief—rather than as a narrative of the dead's genesis. Folktale collections in the sources include ghost narratives (for example, a tale titled 'Ghost of the Ancient One') that place ghosts in story contexts, but the excerpts do not record a canonical Navajo origin story for Yéʼiitsoh-related spirits. Thus, within the limits of these materials, the phenomenon is presented as an experiential and explanatory category (ghosts causing illness or distress) rather than a single cosmogonic origin account (Wikipedia; Stories from Native North America; archive descriptions).

The available sources do not provide consistent traditional physical descriptions of these Navajo ghosts. Academic/encyclopedic discussion (summarized under the English label 'ghost sickness') emphasizes the lived experiences and symptoms of those affected—weakness, loss of appetite, suffocation feelings, nightmares, pervasive terror—rather than detailing visual traits of the spirits themselves. Anthologized tales mentioned in the sources (e.g., 'Ghost of the Ancient One') indicate that ghost characters appear in storytelling, but the provided excerpts do not include descriptive passages about their outward appearance. Therefore, descriptions of visual form are not documented in these materials (Wikipedia; Stories from Native North America; archive item listings).

Sources attribute to these ghosts the capacity to affect the living's physical and psychological state. In the ethnographic summary used here, the syndrome called 'ghost sickness' is reported to produce general weakness, loss of appetite, feelings of suffocation, recurring nightmares, and pervasive terror; these symptoms are attributed to ghosts or occasionally to witches or witchcraft. Folktale materials imply interactive behaviors between ghosts and people in narrative contexts, but concrete behavioral catalogs or additional supernatural abilities are not provided in the excerpts. Contemporary popular discussions that appear in the source set also colocate ghost phenomena with other dangerous supernatural agents (e.g., skinwalkers, witches), indicating overlapping concerns about unseen agents causing harm (Wikipedia; archive items).