Flesh Eater of the Forests
The wendigo (also spelled windigo) is a mythological creature or evil spirit from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes based in the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the East Coast of Canada, and Great Lakes Region of Canada and in Wisconsin, United States. Known by several names —Witigo, Witiko, and Wee-Tee-Go — each of them roughly translates to “the evil spirit that devours mankind”. The wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of a number of Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu.
The wendigo is described as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, insatiable greed, cannibalism and the cultural taboos against such behaviors. Although descriptions can vary somewhat, common to all these cultures is the view that the wendigo is a malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being. They were strongly associated with winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation. The wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess: never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victims.
Various Indigenous traditions consider wendigos dangerous because of their thirst for blood and their ability to infect otherwise healthy people or communities with evil. One usually becomes a wendigo as punishment for dishonorable or taboo activities, such as engaging in cannibalism due to starvation. According to Shawn Smallman, author of Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History, “it was a means of defining moral social behavior, which could serve as a warning against greed and selfishness.”
In some traditions, humans overpowered by greed could turn into wendigos; the myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. Humans could turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long and one could also become a wendigo if a shaman cursed them or if they dreamed of the wendigo. Wendigo legends are essentially cautionary tales about isolation and selfishness, and the importance of community. The myth was also used to explain mental illness and other serious afflictions.
According to the legend, a Wendigo is created whenever a human resorts to cannibalism to survive. In the past, this occurred more often when Indians and settlers found themselves stranded in the bitter snows and ice of the north woods. Sometimes stranded for days, any survivors might have felt compelled to cannibalize the dead in order to survive. Other versions of the legend cite that humans who displayed extreme greed, gluttony, and excess might also be possessed by a wendigo, thus the myth served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation.
Native American versions of the creature spoke of a gigantic spirit, over fifteen feet tall, that had once been human but had been transformed into a creature by the use of magic. Though all of the descriptions of the creature vary slightly, the wendigo is generally said to have glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs, terrible claws, and overly long tongues. Sometimes they are described as having sallow, yellowish skin and other times, depicted to be covered with matted hair. The creature is said to have a number of skills and powers including stealth, is a near-perfect hunter, knows and uses every inch of its territory, and can control the weather through the use of dark magic. They are also portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and emaciated from starvation. Wendigos are said to be cursed to wander the land, eternally seeking to fulfill their voracious appetite for human flesh and if there is nothing left to eat, it starves to death.
Different versions of the wendigo legend say different things about his speed and agility. Some claim he is unusually fast and can endure walking for long periods of time, even in harsh winter conditions. Others say he walks in a more haggard manner, as if he is falling apart. But speed wouldn’t be a necessary skill for a monster of this nature. Unlike other terrifying carnivores, the wendigo doesn’t rely on pursuing his prey in order to capture and eat it. Rather, one of his said traits is his ability to mimic human voices. He uses this skill to lure people in and draw them away from civilization. Once they’re isolated in the desolate depths of the wilderness, he feasts on them.
The Algonquian people say that during the turn of the 20th century, a large number of their people went missing mysteriously. The tribes attributed many of the disappearances to the wendigo, thus calling him the “spirit of lonely places.” Another rough translation of wendigo is “the evil spirit that devours mankind.” This translation is related to yet another version of the wendigo that claims he has the power to curse humans by possessing them. Once he has infiltrated their minds, he can turn them into wendigos as well, instilling upon them the same lust for human flesh that he himself has.
However, Wendigo creature sightings are still reported, especially in northern Ontario, near the Cave of the Wendigo, and around the town of Kenora, where it has allegedly been spotted by traders, trackers, and trappers for decades. There are many who still believe that the Wendigo roams the woods and the prairies of northern Minnesota and Canada. Kenora, Ontario, Canada, has been given the title of Wendigo Capital of the World by many. Sightings of the creature in this area have continued well into the new millennium.
Among the Assiniboine, the Cree and the Ojibwe, a satirical ceremonial dance is sometimes performed during times of famine to reinforce the seriousness of the wendigo taboo. The ceremony, known as wiindigookaanzhimowin, was performed during times of famine, and involved wearing masks and dancing backwards around a drum.
Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a description of a wendigo: “The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody … Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”
The Algonquian legend describes the creature as: “a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be entirely made of ice. Its body is skeletal and deformed, with missing lips and toes.”
The Ojibwa describe it as: “It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes, the Wendigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Wendigo himself, hunting down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh.”
In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings, a characteristic absent from myths in other Algonquian cultures. Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.
According to ethno-historian Nathan Carlson, it’s also been said that the wendigo has large, sharp claws and massive eyes like an owl. However, some other people simply describe the wendigo as a skeleton-like figure with ash-toned skin.
The first European-written account of a wendigo was by Paul Le Jeune, a Jesuit missionary who lived among the Algonquin people in the early-17th century in what is now Quebec. In a report to his superiors in Paris in 1636, Le Jeune wrote:
This devilish woman…added that [the windigo] had eaten some Attikamegoukin — these are the tribes that live north of the River that is called Three Rivers — and that he would eat a great many more of them if he were not called elsewhere. But that Atchen (sort of a werewolf) would come in his place to devour them… even up to the French Fort; that he would slaughter the French themselves.
Father Le Jeune’s report demonstrates that 17th-century Europeans believed in evil supernatural spirits just as strongly as their First Nations contemporaries. In fact, Father Le Jeune’s report predates the Salem Witch Trials by nearly 60 years. Missionaries in what became Canada continued to report legends of the wendigo until well into the 20th century.
The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo Psychosis, which is considered by some psychiatrists to be a syndrome that creates an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal. In some Indigenous communities, environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of Wendigo Psychosis. Ironically, this psychosis is said to occur within people living around the Great Lakes of Canada and the United States. Wendigo Psychosis usually develops in the winter in individuals who are isolated by heavy snow for long periods. The initial symptoms are poor appetite, nausea, and vomiting. Subsequently, the individual develops a delusion of being transformed into a wendigo monster. People who have Wendigo Psychosis increasingly see others around them a being edible. At the same time, they have an exaggerated fear of becoming cannibals.
The most common response when a person showed signs of Wendigo Psychosis was a curing attempt by traditional native healers. In cases of the past, if these attempts failed and if the possessed person began either to threaten those around them or to act violently or anti-socially; they were executed. There have been reports regarding this psychosis dating back hundreds of years.
In historical accounts of Wendigo Psychosis, it has been reported that humans became possessed by the wendigo spirit, after being in a situation of needing food and having no other choice besides cannibalism.
One of the more famous cases of Wendigo Psychosis reported involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named Swift Runner. During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson’s Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children. Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner’s was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather of a man with Wendigo Psychosis. He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at Fort Saskatchewan. He was hanged for his crime.
Frighteningly enough, there were quite a few other stories about these spirits supposedly possessing people in communities stretching from northern Quebec to the Rockies. Many of these reports were shockingly similar to the Swift Runner case.
Another well-known case involving Wendigo Psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and medicine man known for his powers at defeating wendigos. In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo Psychosis. As a result, in 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities for homicide. Jack committed suicide, but Joseph was tried and sentenced to life in prison. He ultimately was granted a pardon, but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon.
Fascination with Wendigo Psychosis among Western ethnographers, psychologists, and anthropologists led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980s over the historicity of this phenomenon. Some researchers argued that essentially, Wendigo Psychosis was a fabrication, the result of naive anthropologists taking stories related to them at face value without observation. Others have pointed to a number of credible eyewitness accounts, both by Algonquians and others, as evidence that Wendigo Psychosis was a factual historical phenomenon.
Much like other legendary beasts, the wendigo remains a fixture in pop culture in modern times. The creature has been referenced and sometimes even depicted in a variety of hit television shows, including Supernatural, Grimm, and Charmed.
From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,
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