Reservation Dogs: What Is the Tall Man Legend?Reservation Dogs: What to Know About the Ominous Tall Man LegendSeptember 7, 2021by
takes on the legend of Tall Man in its latest episode. Following a few subtle references to the Bigfoot-like creature throughout the series, we get the first look at Tall Man in a flash-forward scene. At the beginning of the episode, which is set a year prior, Willie Jack's (Paulina Alexis) father, Leon (Jon Proudstar), comes face to face with the creature as he puts out deer feed. Similar to the Bigfoot legend, the creature is shown to be hairy and tall with bright red eyes that stare at Leon.
So, ? The legend is said to have originated from Dakota and Lakota people in what's now the state of South Dakota. According to legend, the creature is between 12 and 15 feet tall, is covered in hair, and has red eyes, much like the creature shown on the show. Just as the creature looms in the shadows of the forest in the episode, Tall Man has been described as a local protector of the forest. Although, there are some other dark interpretations of the legend.
Some believe that Tall Man is a dark spirit that is often tied to death. In 2014, a high number of suicide attempts on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota was attributed to a variation of the Tall Man legend. Seeing as most of the episode centers on Willie Jack and Leon grappling with Daniel's (Dalton Cramer) death, the creature seems to symbolize both versions of the legend. At one point, Leon tells Willie Jack he couldn't "help [Daniel] in the way he needed to be helped," insinuating that Daniel's death has a much darker backstory. The poignant episode about grief ends with Willie Jack saying a final farewell to Daniel as she visits his grave.
He has haunted us in various fictional forms for centuries, but now the spectral figure of traditional folklore and modern urban legends may be having a very real impact on teens' lives. An increasing number of suicides are occurring on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in , and they're being attributed to Walking Sam.
Since December, a staggering 103 suicide attempts on the reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota sub-tribe of Sioux . Out of these attempts, nine people between the ages of 12 and 24 have died. alleges that the number of attempted suicides was as high as 241 over a three-month period.
Oglala Sioux tribe Vice President Thomas Poor Bear that he recently discovered a slew of recent posts of an ominous display of nooses hung from trees:
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In February, Poor Bear said, a parent came to him with an alarming Facebook post: Nooses hanging in trees near Porcupine, a community of about 1,000 people. Tribal police later took down four nooses, apparently left there as an invitation, but could not determine who was responsible.
The New York Times on this incident, noting that local pastor John Two Bulls was "tipped off to a group suicide planned in a wooded area outside the town of Pine Ridge." After racing to the location, he and other adults found and removed the nooses and counseled teenagers who had assembled at the spot before anyone could make an attempt.
The Associated Press also reported that teachers recently "foiled a plan by several high school girls to take their lives simultaneously."
Multiple reports on the rash of suicide attempts have cited folkloric elements as contributing factors in these incidents. One reservation minister, Chris Carey, described the presence of a "Tall Man spirit" to the Times who is "appearing to these kids and telling them to kill themselves." Oglala Sioux tribe president John Yellow Bird Steele stated that many Sioux believed in entities like a "suicide spirit similar to the Slender Man."
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Another minister, Rev. Ron Hutchcraft, who is based out of Arkansas, described the phenomenon to the as "the shadow people" or "the dark people:"
"There are spirit beings–demonic beings–that are stalking the reservation and convincing young people that they are worth nothing...and [that have] started this 'cloud of death' over the reservation."
Walking Sam isn't a new phenomenon. Last year, redditor u/rembim9 to the subreddit requesting an image of what they described as "Walking Sam," a Slender Man counterpart who loomed over their stay at Pine Ridge:
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On my latest trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, I kept hearing stories of this man who would roam the streets at night. Some locals claimed to see him, but I can not find anything anywhere on this man. Here are some of the details on this guy. Kind of scary.
"People believe he is sent on this earth as punishment and is just looking for company."
U/rembim9 also listed many of Walking Sam's purported physical attributes. According to his description, the specter is "7 feet tall," has a lean figure, has no mouth, and carries the bodies of Lakota men and women off his arms ("weird I know"). "People believe he is sent on this earth as punishment and is just looking for company," he wrote.
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Of course, the descriptions of Walking Sam are rooted in centuries-old mythology and folklore. The ring of nooses in the forest, for instance, hearken back to scenes from found-footage films like the , while the anonymous encouragement to follow through on the attempts bears an eerie inverse resemblance to Japan's notorious "suicide forest," , which is littered with signs and messages begging those who go there not to complete the attempt. The "shadow people" are also part of a .
The most obvious source for the "tall man" is the bogeyman, who is often described as a spectral, lanky figure in black who steals bad children away. The bogeyman has found a popular recent revitalization in Slender Man, a creature so compelling that last year several teens , reportedly due to the influence of the Slender Man .
When Slender Man, or Slendy, was created in 2008, his popularity immediately gave rise to a number of spin-off mythical figures, including the fabricated legend of the german "Der Großman" and variations of the "Tall Man," who was first introduced in 1979's Phantasm.
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But long before any of this, the people of the Dakota and Lakota have exchanged stories about Walking Sam. In these tales, he goes by multiple names, including "Stovepipe Hat Bigfoot" and simply "Big Man." Here's of him by Oglala Lakota Medicine Man Pete Catches, taken from Peter Mathiessen's 1983 book about Pine Ridge, :
There is your Big man standing there, ever waiting, ever present, like the coming of a new day... He is both spirit and real being, but he can also glide through the forest, like a moose with big antlers, as though the trees weren't there... I know him as my brother... I want him to touch me, just a touch, a blessing, something I could bring home to my sons and grandchildren, that I was there, that I approached him, and he touched me.
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Many in the community have linked reported appearances of Walking Sam to teens taking their own lives. In 2009, Walking Sam was alleged to have been spotted in the Pine Ridge community, which coincided with an occurrence of multiple teenage suicides. Blogger Mike Crowley attending a meeting of the tribal council at the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, where a tribeswoman asked government officials for help dealing with Walking Sam:
[O]ne local woman, who left before I could talk with her personally, asked Washington for help dealing with Walking Sam. The woman, who was elderly but otherwise quite lucid, described Walking Sam as a big man in a tall hat who has appeared around the reservation and caused young people to commit suicides. She said that Walking Sam has been picked up on the police scanners, but that the police have not been able to protect the community from him. She described him as a bad spirit. She wanted help from Washington with foot patrols for the tribal communities to protect them from Walking Sam.