Wendigo is a mythological creature or evil spirit originating from the folklore of Plains and Great Lakes Natives as well as some First Nations. It is based in and around the East Coast forests of Canada, the Great Plains region of the United States, and the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, grouped in modern ethnology as speakers of Algonquian-family languages. The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics, which possesses human beings. The wendigo is said to invoke feelings of insatiable greed/hunger, the desire to cannibalize other humans, and the propensity to commit murder in those that fall under its influence. In some representations the wendigo is described as a giant humanoid with a heart of ice; a foul stench or sudden, unseasonable chill might precede its approach. 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. 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. In modern psychiatry the wendigo lends its name to a form of psychosis known as “Wendigo psychosis”, which is characterized by symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and an intense fear of becoming a cannibal. Wendigo psychosis is described as a culture-bound syndrome. In some First Nations communities other symptoms such as insatiable greed and destruction of the environment are also thought to be symptoms of Wendigo psychosis.
Appearance List Literature and Article: The Jesuit Relations (1661), “The Jesuit Relations: Travels and Expectations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610—1791” by Reuben Gold Thwaites (1899), “Ojibwa Myths and Tales” by Lottie Chicogquawin Marsden and George Edward in Archӕological Report of the Canadian Institute (1918), Algernon Blackwood’s 1910 novella The Wendigo, August Derleth’s “The Thing that Walked on the Wind” (1933) and “Ithaqua” (1941), “The Wiitiko Psychosis in the Context of Ojibwa Personality and Culture” by Seymour Parker in American Anthropologist 62 (1960), “Windigo Psychosis: A Study of Relationship between Belief and Behaviour among the Indians of Northeastern Canada” in Proceedings of the 1960 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society (1961), “Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief Among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians” in Anthropologica (1967), “Owls and Cannibals: Two Algonquian Etymologies” presented at the Second Algonquian Conference, St. John’s, Newfoundland (1969). TV: Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend | Monstrum
Sample Read Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend | Monstrum [YT]
Description Wendigo is a mythological creature or evil spirit originating from the folklore of Plains and Great Lakes Natives as well as some First Nations. It is based in and around the East Coast forests of Canada, the Great Plains region of the United States, and the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, grouped in modern ethnology as speakers of Algonquian-family languages. The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics, which possesses human beings. The wendigo is said to invoke feelings of insatiable greed/hunger, the desire to cannibalize other humans, and the propensity to commit murder in those that fall under its influence. In some representations the wendigo is described as a giant humanoid with a heart of ice; a foul stench or sudden, unseasonable chill might precede its approach. 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. 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. In modern psychiatry the wendigo lends its name to a form of psychosis known as “Wendigo psychosis”, which is characterized by symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and an intense fear of becoming a cannibal. Wendigo psychosis is described as a culture-bound syndrome. In some First Nations communities other symptoms such as insatiable greed and destruction of the environment are also thought to be symptoms of Wendigo psychosis.
