Alaska’s Hairy Man (The Urayuli) Pt 1

(Personal Log – Doctor Zoe Monroe)

During our time off I had a very odd dream. In the dream I was visiting a blues club that I once visited in New Orleans. On stage I was watching the famous blues singer, Muddy Waters singing one of his trademark songs: I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man. As the song goes,…

The gypsy woman told my mother
Before I was born
I got a boy child’s comin’
He’s gonna be a son of a gun
He gonna make pretty women’s
Jump and shout
Then the world wanna know
What this all about
But you know I’m him
Everybody knows I’m him
Well you know I’m the hoochie coochie man
Everybody knows I’m him

I got a black cat bone
I got a mojo too
I got the Johnny Concheroo
I’m gonna mess with you
I’m gonna make you girls
Lead me by my hand
Then the world will know
The hoochie coochie man
But you know I’m him
Everybody knows I’m him
Oh you know I’m the hoochie coochie man
Everybody knows I’m him

On the seventh hours
On the seventh day
On the seventh month
The seven doctors say
He was born for good luck
And that you’ll see
I got seven hundred dollars
Don’t you mess with me
But you know I’m him
Everybody knows I’m him
Well you know I’m the hoochie coochie man
Everybody knows I’m him

Suddenly before me was a man that I’d never seen before. A tall black man with a white-painted face walks over to my table. He reminded me of the character Baron Samedi played by Geoffrey Holder from the 1973 James Bond film: “Live and Let Die” he is the henchman who has ties to the Voodoo Orisha death cult. He leaned over my table and said: “You need a mojo, baby,” he says. “You got a black cat bone, now.” As he smiles, his body fades away but the painted face stays. Then his painted face fades but his smile remained….

And then I woke up.

In my right hand was a small, red flannel bag also called a ‘mojo bag’ containing a small bone. I did some reach on folklore and the African American magical tradition of hoodoo regarding a black cat’s bone. In which I found the following.

* Having a black cat bone gives the person the supernatural ability to become invisible. So if you want to go somewhere without being seen, place the bone in your mouth beneath the tongue. While an assistant stands by to notify the practitioner that they have become invisible.
* This allows the bone holder to control, scare and to obtain information from people. Mojo is a magical charm bag used in hoodoo, which has been altered into a slang word for self-confidence, self-esteem or sex appeal.
* A black cat bone is a type of lucky charm used thought to ensure a variety of positive effects, such as good luck, protection from malevolent magic, rebirth after death, romantic success and as a bringer of money luck (Great for gamblers like cards or playing the lottery).

It turned out that all of us had odd dreams, Virgil wouldn’t tell us anything about if he had any dreams like the rest of us, but all of us noticed his was wearing an iron ring we had never seen on him before. However, Marisa had a tattoo of runic divinations to the Æsir Týr. I told her everything I knew about them and gave her a rough idea how to use them. I tried a few tests out with my own new magic talisman and the only one which seemed to work was the bringer of money. I won twenty-five dollars with a one dollar scratch off and then two hundred and fifty dollars with a five dollar ticket. We got our winter gear ready and special tools for Virgil.

We had Eliza contact Ariel Tweto, the Eskimo firecracker from Unalakleet, Alaska, she is pilot who stars in ‘Flying Wild Alaska’ a documentary television series that aired on Discovery Channel. To fly us into Bethel this is the largest community in western Alaska west of Anchorage. Accessible only by air and river, Bethel is the main port on the Kuskokwim River and is an administrative and transportation hub for the 56 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. We did some cross series filming asking Ariel about her assisting in her family-run business, Era Alaska Airlines. While Ariel got the chance to ask us questions about working on our own television series.

Once we landed we interviewed Ariel Tweto about the local legends of the Urayuli, Alaska’s Hairy Man, a folklorish creature who is said to inhabit the vast tundra of southwest Alaska. She didn’t believe in the Urayuli which she explained to us as an Eskimo name meaning “creature who makes a bellowing cry”. She said that only crazy people thought that these things were real. So from here we went to the hotel that we would be staying at. We tried interviewing the hotel staff about the Urayuli, neither believed in it, but the clerk said that sometimes it provided good for tourism.

We talked to Nick the person who wrote the article in the local newspaper on the Urayuli who was willing to visit us at our hotel (weather permitting) tomorrow. However, the following morning we were snowed in and ended up watching VHS tapes in the lobby, first we watched Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which I’ve always loved and thought Bell was better off with the Beast. So it didn’t take long for us to realize that our second day in Bethel turn out to be experiencing bad cases of cabin fever.

Eliza’s Journal:
I had a really weird dream last night… it leaves me curious. I am simply waiting to see what happens next…
On a plateau of red soil, under strange stars, you lie on your back. You cannot move.

A nude, black man with dread-locked hair kneels next to you. “You have seen much magic. You will be a good karadji.”

He makes a small cut into your belly and painlessly removes your intestines. They evaporate.

“You do not need these. I will give you maban, instead.”

He pulls stars from the sky and places them into your belly. Then picks up a rainbow-colored lizard and puts that into the cut, as well.

“You cannot use these powers for a year. A full year, understand? It is taboo. Forbidden. You will break the magic.”

He picks one more star from the sky and places it on the cut in your abdomen. It heals without a scar.

“But, the spirits will watch you until you are grown.”

And you wake up.

Looking and feeling no different.
My dream was bizarre but left me oddly hopeful of what would happen in a year…

Virgil’s Itemized Expense List

S03E05 (Part 1):

1. Online Therapy Session (Free Initial Session)
Needed to address the conflicted feelings and trauma Virgil’s has been dealing with following a dream he had stress of work. Specifically, he wanted help with the weird feeling that he had recently been suffering through 16 years of torture he has been overworked by a low-budget cable TV show. After one session, Virgil was embarrassed enough made enough progress that he cancelled all his future sessions more therapy was unneeded.

2. Assorted Self-Defense Bootcamp Costs ($450)
During our extended vacation to recover from our second encounter with a dangerous monster hectic schedule, Marisa ran a survival bootcamp for the crew to train everyone in gun use, stealth, and self-defense. A necessary expense given the dangers of hunting monsters shooting in such isolated locations.

3. Gear Shipping via Air Cargo ($325)
Again we are going to a vaguely exotic location for a crossover episode, this time with Flying Wild Alaska instead of Navajo Cops. While Marisa was able to get a permit to bring her guns along in a sealed case gear in a carry-on, the rest of us put everything together and shipped it as cargo to arrive in Bethel, Alaska on the same day as our arrival.

4. Alaska Airlines and Era Airline Tickets($805 per person)
The town of Bethel, while being a hub for local villages, is apparently rather removed from the rest of Alaska. Only being reachable by boat or plane, we needed to take an Alaska Airline flight to Anchorage and a second, much smaller propeller plane Era Airlines fight to Bethel. Zoe was excited to interview Flying Wild Alaska star Ariel Tweto but this was cut short by extreme winter turbulence.

5. Car Rental and Hotel Rates (Ongoing)
Once in Alaska, we picked up our cargo, got a rental Jeep, and made our way to the minimally staffed hotel. The snow storm that caused our second flight turbulence was severe enough that the staff was surprised we took the risk driving the distance from the airport to the hotel. With nothing to do we wasted time by interviewing the staff, taking a few establishing shots, and recording ourselves going stir crazy. Zoe watched Beauty and the Beast on VHS. I recorded it. It was awkward.