Wendigo: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Mythical being in Native American folklore}}

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The '''Wendigo''' (also '''Windigo''', '''Wiindigoo''', '''Windago''', '''Windiga''', and numerous other variants) is a spirit in [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]] [[Native American mythology|mythology]]. It has also become a stock horror character much like the [[vampire]] or [[werewolf]], although these fictional depictions often do not bear much resemblance to the original mythology. "Windigo Psychosis" is a [[Culture-bound syndrome|culture-bound disorder]] which involves an intense craving for human flesh and fear that one will turn into a [[cannibal]], occurring among [[Algonquian|Algonquian Indian]] cultures.

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{{Infobox mythical creature

| name = Wendigo

| Region = [[Canada]]<br />[[United States]]

| Grouping = [[Legendary creature]]

| Sub_Grouping = [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]]

|image=|caption=}}

'''Wendigo''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|w|ɛ|n|d|ɪ|ɡ|oʊ}}) is a mythological creature or [[evil spirit]] originating from [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] folklore. The concept of the wendigo has been widely used in literature and other works of art, such as [[social commentary]] and [[horror fiction]].

==In Native American mythology==

To [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-speaking tribes of [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], the Wendigo is a malevolent [[legendary creature|supernatural creature]]. It is usually described as a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be entirely made of ice. Its body is [[skeleton|skeletal]] and deformed, with missing lips and toes.

The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics, who may [[Spiritual possession|possess]] human beings. It is said to cause its victims a feeling of [[Gluttony|insatiable hunger]], the desire to [[Human cannibalism|eat other humans]], and the propensity to commit murder.<ref name="B337etal">{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=337, 339, 343, 364}}</ref> In some representations, the wendigo is described as a [[Giant#Native American|giant humanoid]] with a heart of ice, whose approach is signaled by a foul stench or sudden unseasonable chill.<ref name="monstrum">{{Cite episode|title=Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guiuXIMZ2vE |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/guiuXIMZ2vE| archive-date=December 12, 2021 |url-status=live|access-date=March 20, 2021|series=Monstrum|series-link=Monstrum (Digital series)|surname=Zarka|given=Emily|subject-link=IMDbName:11828932|publisher=[[PBS Digital Studios]]|date=October 17, 2019|season=1|number=13}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The first accounts of the Wendigo myth by explorers and missionaries date back to the 17th century. They describe it rather generically as a [[werewolf]], [[devil]], or cannibal.

In modern [[psychiatry]], the disorder known as "Wendigo [[psychosis]]" is characterized by symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and fear of becoming a cannibal.<ref name="MNN">{{cite web|first=Kahntineta |last=Horn |url=http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/tag/windigo-psychosis/|title=Boogie Men|website=mohawknationnews.com|publisher=Mohawk Nation News|___location=[[Kahnawake]]|date=March 14, 2013|access-date=August 24, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Brightman 1988:337-8, 374">{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=337–8, 374}}</ref> Wendigo psychosis is described as a [[culture-bound syndrome]]. In some [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] communities, symptoms such as insatiable greed and destruction of the environment are also thought to be symptoms of wendigo psychosis.<ref name="MNN" />

The Wendigo was usually presumed to have once been human. Different origins of the Wendigo are described in variations of the myth. A hunter may become the Wendigo when encountering it in the forest at night, or when becoming [[demonic possession|possessed]] by its spirit in a dream. When the cannibalistic element of the myth is stressed, it is assumed that anyone who eats corpses in a [[famine]] becomes a Wendigo as a result. The only way to destroy a Wendigo is to melt its heart of ice. In recent times, it has been identified with [[Sasquatch]] or [[Bigfoot]] by [[cryptozoology|cryptozoologists]],{{Fact|date=February 2007}} but there is little evidence in the indigenous folklore for it being a similar creature.

The [[wechuge]] is a similar being that appears in the legends of the [[Athabaskan languages|Athabaskan people]] of the Northwest [[Pacific Coast]]. It too is cannibalistic; however, it is characterized as enlightened with ancestral insights.<ref name="ridington">{{cite journal |last=Ridington |first=Robin |date=1967 |title=Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief Among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians |journal=Anthropologica |___location=Toronto, Ontario, Canada |publisher=University of Toronto Press |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=107–129 |doi=10.2307/25604963 |jstor=25604963}}</ref>

Perhaps this myth was used as a deterrent and cautionary tale among northern tribes whose winters were long and bitter and whose hunting parties often were trapped in storms with no recourse but to consume members of their own party. Its physical deformities are suggestive of starvation and [[frostbite]], so the Wendigo may be a myth based on a personification of the hardships of winter and the [[taboo]] of cannibalism.

==Etymology==

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The contemporary English word ''wendigo'' is a [[loanword]] from multiple origins: It is partially a borrowing from [[Cree_language|Cree]] ({{Lang|cre|wīhtikōw}}) and partially a [[Borrowing (linguistics)|borrowing]] from [[Ojibwe language|Ojibwe]] (''{{Lang|oji|wiindigoo}}''), both [[Algonquian languages]]. Comparable forms are found in English as early as 1714 (''Whitego''). The form ''wendigo'' was popularized in the English language by [[Algernon Blackwood]], who in 1910 published a [[The Wendigo (novella)|novella with this name]].<ref name="OED">"Windigo, N." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6960189623.</ref>

== 'Windigo Psychosis' as a culture-bound disorder ==

The word has been reconstructed in [[Proto-Algonquian language|Proto-Algonquian]] as {{lang|alg-x-proto|*wi·nteko·wa}}, with the potential meaning '[[owl]]'.<ref name="PROTO-ALGON">{{harvcoltxt|Goddard|1969}}, cited in {{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|p=340}}</ref>

There exist numerous historic accounts by Canadian and European fur traders, explorers and missionaries that attest to a [[mental illness]] affecting North American Indians of the Algonquian culture family. According to the accounts, the condition was known as 'Windigo' or 'Witiko', and was characterized by uncontrollable [[mania]], and a compulsive desire to consume human flesh. Many of the affected victims of the illness were subject to curing attempts by traditional native healers, or western doctors. Typically the victim was either temporarily or permanently cured of the condition, or otherwise was ostracized from the community, and in less frequent cases, executed. In the late ninteenth century, numerous cases of windigo murders were reported in court trial transcripts and newspapers, often depicting gruesome details of the killings, either by the so-called 'windigos' themselves, or by those who executed the windigos in order to preserve the safety of the community. Perhaps the most famous of these cases was the 'Swift Runner' trial, documenting a Cree trapper who, in the winter of 1878, butchered and ate his wife and five children, quite possibly making him the first [[serial killer]] in Canadian history. The windigo cases are reminiscent of the [[Salem Witch Trials]] and have been occasionally referred to as the 'Windigo' Trials.

==Folklore==

In the 20th century, the so-called 'windigo psychosis' became the fascination of numerous [[ethnography|ethnographers]], [[psychology|psychologists]], and [[anthropology|anthropologists]], who characterized this condition as a rare form of "culture-bound" disorder, and attempted to explain its [[etiology]], course of progression, and treatment. The fascination with this condition led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980's over the historicity of this phenomenon. One line of reasoning suggested that, due to a lack of credible eyewitness accounts, the windigo was only a legend and the windigo psychosis a fabrication of the academic researchers who subscribed to a belief in the reality of this purportedly culture-bound condition. However, other research demonstrated the existence of numerous credible eyewitness reports substantiating the claim that windigo was a real condition. Recently, evidence has been uncovered that suggests that while the windigo condition likely did exist, it cannot be characterized as a clinically attested mental disorder, due to both the wide variance in cases, and also accounts where two or more persons were simultaneously affected with the condition. In other words, it remains to be accounted for how a purported mental illness could have become 'contagious'.

The wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of a number of [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian-speaking]] peoples, including the [[Ojibwe]], the [[Saulteaux]], the [[Cree]], the [[Naskapi]], and the [[Innu]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=359, 362}}; {{harvcoltxt|Parker|1960|p=603}}</ref> Although descriptions can vary somewhat, common to all these cultures is the view that the wendigo is a [[evil|malevolent]], [[human cannibalism|cannibalistic]], [[supernatural]] being.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=337, 339}}</ref> They were strongly associated with the north, winter, cold, [[famine]], and starvation.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|p=362}}</ref>

[[Basil H. Johnston]], an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from [[Ontario]], describes a wendigo:

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Johnston|2001|p=221}}</ref>}}

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.<ref name="SSW">Graham, John Russell; John Coates; Barbara Swartzentruber; Brian Ouellette; "[https://books.google.com/books?id=IQ5TfaJYSJ4C&q=260 The Windigo]" in ''Spirituality and Social Work: Select Canadian Readings''; Canadian Scholars' Press, 2007. p.260</ref> Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Johnston|2001|pp=222, 226}}; {{harvcoltxt|Johnston|1990|p=166}}; {{harvcoltxt|Schwarz|1969|p=11}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|first=Marlene|last=Goldman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JJN3sY6TI0gC&q=wendigo+gluttony&pg=PA89|title=Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction|publisher=[[McGill-Queen's Press]]|___location=Montreal, Quebec, Canada|date=2005|isbn=978-0773572942|page=89}}</ref>

A wendigo need not lose the human's powers of cognition or speech and in some depictions may clearly communicate with its prospective victims or even threaten or taunt them. A specimen of folk story collected in the early 20th century by Lottie Chicogquaw Marsden, an ethnographer of the [[Chippewas of Rama First Nation]], in which a wendigo also exhibits [[Tool use by animals|tool use]], an ability to survive partial dismemberment, and [[autocannibalism]],{{original research inline|date=April 2025}} reads:<ref name="archaeo">{{cite journal|surname=Marsden|given=Lottie Chicogquaw|surname2=Laidlaw|given2=George Edward|author2-link=openlibrary:authors/OL2531934A|year=1918|editor1-surname=Orr|editor1-given=Roland B.|title=Ojibwa Myths and Tales|journal=Archaeological Report of the Canadian Institute|series=Archaeological Report Being Part of Appendix to the Report of the Minister of Education, Ontario|volume=30|___location=[[Toronto]]|publisher=A.T. Wilgress|pages=104−105|oclc=270884230|hdl=2027/njp.32101072319583?urlappend=%3Bseq=118|id=Story No. 104}}</ref>

{{blockquote|One time long ago a big Windigo stole an Indian boy, but the boy was too thin, so the Windigo didn't eat him up right away, but he {{sic|travelled|nolink=y|hide=y|expected=traveled}} with the Indian boy waiting for him till he'd get fat. The Windigo had a knife and he'd cut the boy on the hand to see if he was fat enough to eat, but the boy didn't get fat. They {{sic|travelled|nolink=y|hide=y|expected=traveled}} too much. One day they came to an Indian village and the Windigo sent the boy to the Indian village to get some things for him to eat. He just gave the boy so much time to go there and back. The boy told the Indians that the Windigo was near them, and showed them his hand where the Windigo cut him to see if he was fat enough to eat. They heard the Windigo calling the boy. He said to the boy "Hurry up. Don't tell lies to those Indians." All of these Indians went to where the Windigo was and cut off his legs. They went back again to see if he was dead. He wasn't dead. He was eating the juice ([[Marrow adipose tissue|marrow]]) from the inside of the [[Leg bone|bones of his legs]] that were cut off. The Indians asked the Windigo if there was any fat on them. He said, "You bet there is, I have eaten lots of Indians, no wonder they are fat." The Indians then killed him and cut him to pieces. This was the end of this Giant Windigo.}}

===Human cannibalism===

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 also turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Johnston|2001|pp=222–225}}; {{harvcoltxt|Johnston|1990|p=167}}</ref>

===Taboo reinforcement ceremony===

Among the [[Assiniboine]], the [[Cree]], and the [[Ojibwe]], a [[Satire|satirical]] ceremonial dance is sometimes performed during times of famine to reinforce the seriousness of the wendigo [[taboo]].{{Clarify|date=March 2022|reason=What taboo? What is being reinforced?}} The ceremony, known as ''wiindigookaanzhimowin'', was performed during times of famine, and involved wearing masks and dancing backward around a drum.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Myth of the Wendigo |url=http://sites.psu.edu/tetirclblog/2015/02/24/the-myth-of-the-wendigo/ |website=Sites.psu.edu | date=February 24, 2015 |access-date=April 25, 2024}}</ref> The last known wendigo ceremony conducted in the United States was at [[Lake Windigo]] of Star Island of [[Cass Lake, Minnesota|Cass Lake]], within the [[Leech Lake Indian Reservation]] in northern [[Minnesota]].{{when|date=July 2013}}<ref>{{cite book |first=William W. |last=Warren |title=History of the Ojibway People |publisher=Borealis Books |___location=St. Paul, Minnesota |date=1984 |edition=2 |isbn=978-0873516433}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=August 2020}}

==Psychosis==

In historical accounts of retroactively diagnosed 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. In 1661, ''[[The Jesuit Relations]]'' reported:

{{Verse translation|Ce qui nous mit plus en peine, fut la nouvelle que nous apprismes dés l'entrée du Lac, à sçauoir : que les deputez par nostre Conducteur, qui deuoient conuoquer les Nations à la Mer du Nord, et leur donner le rendez-vous pour nous y attendre, auoient esté tuez l'Hiuer passé, d'une façon estonnante. Ces pauures gens furent saisis, à ce qu'on nous a dit, d'vn mal qui nous est inconnu, mais qui n'est pas bien extraordinaire parmy les peuples que nous cherchons : ils ne sont ny lunatiques, ny hypocondriaques, ny phrenetiques; mais ils ont vn mélange de toutes ces sortes de maladies, qui, leur blessant l'imagination, leur cause vne faim plus que canine, et les rend si affamez de chair humaine, qu'ils se iettent sur les femmes, sur les enfans, mesme sur les hommes, comme de vrais loups-garous, et les deuorent à belles dents, sans se pouuoir rassasier ny saouler, cherchans tousiours nouuelle proye, et plus auidement que plus ils en ont mangé. C'est la maladie dont ces députez furent atteints; et comme la mort est l'vnique remede parmy ces bonnes gens, pour arrester ces meurtres, ils ont esté massacrez pour arrester le cours de leur manie.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/relationsdesjs03jesu|title=Relations des Jésuites contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans les missions des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus dans la Nouvelle-France|date=July 13, 1858 |___location=Québec |publisher=Augustin Coté|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

|What caused us greater concern was the news that met us upon entering the Lake, namely, that the men deputed by our Conductor for the purpose of summoning the Nations to the North Sea, and assigning them a rendezvous, where they were to await our coming, had met their death the previous Winter in a very strange manner. Those poor men (according to the report given us) were seized with an ailment unknown to us, but not very unusual among the people we were seeking. They are afflicted with neither lunacy, hypochondria, nor frenzy; but have a combination of all these species of disease, which affects their imaginations and causes them a more than canine hunger. This makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men, like veritable [[werewolves]], and devour them voraciously, without being able to appease or glut their appetite—ever seeking fresh prey, and the more greedily the more they eat. This ailment attacked our deputies; and, as death is the sole remedy among those simple people for checking such acts of murder, they were slain in order to stay the course of their madness.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://moses.creighton.edu/kripke/jesuitrelations/relations_46.html|title=The Jesuit Relations: Travels and Expectations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610—1791|volume=XLVI|editor-first=Reuben Gold|editor-last=Thwaites|translator=Tomasz Mentrak|publisher=The Burrows Brothers Company|___location=Cleveland, Ohio|date=1899}}</ref>}}

Although in many recorded cases of wendigo psychosis the individual has been killed to prevent cannibalism from resulting, some Cree folklore recommends treatment by ingestion of fatty animal meats or drinking animal grease; those treated may sometimes vomit ice as part of the curing process.<ref name="AAFeb1970">{{cite journal|surname=Rohrl|given=Vivian J.|author-link=openlibrary:authors/OL1652628A|date=February 1970|title=A Nutritional Factor in Windigo Psychosis|department=Brief Communications|journal=[[American Anthropologist]]|publisher=[[American Anthropological Association]]|volume=72|issue=1|series=New Series|pages=97−101|doi=10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00120|oclc=4636246728|issn=0002-7294|jstor=670759}}</ref>

One of the more famous cases of wendigo psychosis reported involved a [[Plains Cree people|Plains Cree]] trapper from [[Alberta]], named Swift Runner.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=352–3}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2008/07/20/6213011-sun.html|title=Evil spirit made man eat family|last=Hanon|first=Andrew|date=July 20, 2008|publisher=Cnews|access-date=August 16, 2008|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709051255/http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2008/07/20/6213011-sun.html|archive-date=July 9, 2012|url-status=usurped}}</ref> 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.<ref name="brtwo">{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|pp=353, 373}}</ref> 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.<ref name="brtwo" /> He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at [[Fort Saskatchewan]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|p=352}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Thomas|last1=Fiddler|first2=James R.|last2=Stevens|title=Killing the Shamen|publisher=Penumbra Press|___location=Manotick, Ontario|date=1985|isbn=978-0920806814}}</ref>

Fascination with wendigo psychosis among Western [[ethnography|ethnographers]], [[psychologist]]s, and [[anthropology|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 naïve anthropologists taking stories related to them at face value without observation.<ref name="marano">{{cite journal |first=Lou|last=Marano |title=Windigo Psychosis: The Anatomy of an Emic-Etic Confusion |journal=Current Anthropology |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|___location=Chicago, Illinois|volume=23 |date=1982| pages=385–412 |doi=10.1086/202868|s2cid=147398948|ref=Reference-marano}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|p=355}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Brightman|1988|p=361}}</ref>

The frequency of wendigo psychosis cases decreased sharply in the 20th century as [[Boreal forest of Canada|Boreal]] Algonquian people came into greater and greater contact with European ideologies and more sedentary, less rural, lifestyles.<ref name=" Brightman 1988:337-8, 374" />

In his 2004 treatise ''Revenge of the Windigo'' on disorders and treatments of the behavioral health industry in the United States and Canada [[Mental health inequality#Ethnic and racial disparities|that are peculiar to indigenous people]], [[James B. Waldram]] wrote,<ref name="RevengeoftheWindigo">{{cite book|title=Revenge of the Windigo: The Construction of the Mind and Mental Health of North American Aboriginal Peoples|surname=Waldram|given=James Burgess|author-link=openlibrary:authors/OL182702A|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=2004|isbn=0802086004|lccn=2004301995|doi=10.3138/9781442683815|oclc=53396855|page=200}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|...no actual cases of windigo psychosis have ever been studied, and [[openlibrary:authors/OL6872177A|Lou Marano]]'s {{citeref|scathing critique in 1985|id=marano|style=plain}} should have killed off the cannibal monster within the psychiatric annals. The windigo, however, continues to seek revenge for this attempted scholarly execution by periodically duping unsuspecting passers-by, like psychiatrists, into believing that windigo psychosis not only exists but that a psychiatrist could conceivably encounter a patient suffering from this disorder in his or her practice today! Windigo psychosis may well be the most perfect example of the construction of an Aboriginal mental disorder by the scholarly professions, and its persistence dramatically underscores how constructions of the Aboriginal by these professions have, like [[Frankenstein's monster]], taken on a life of their own.}}

The 10th revision of the [[International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems]] (ICD) classifies "Windigo" as a [[culture-specific disorder]], describing it as "Rare, historic accounts of cannibalistic obsession... Symptoms included depression, homicidal or suicidal thoughts, and a delusional, compulsive wish to eat human flesh... Some controversial new studies question the syndrome's legitimacy, claiming cases were actually a product of hostile accusations invented to justify the victim's ostracism or execution."<ref name="ICD10">{{cite book |title=ICD-10: Diagnostic criteria for research |publisher=[[World Health Organization]] |___location=Geneva |date=1993 |pages=213–225 |url=https://www.who.int/entity/classifications/icd/en/GRNBOOK.pdf |access-date=July 22, 2020}}</ref>

Some metal, vitamin, and oligoelements deficiencies are linked to psychosis-like conditions, Wendigo could be a folk elaboration of some near-starvation mental disorders.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024|reason=Could be original research.}}

==As a concept or metaphor==

In addition to denoting a cannibalistic monster from certain traditional folklore, some Native Americans also understand the wendigo conceptually. As a concept, the wendigo can apply to any person, idea, or movement infected by a corrosive drive toward self-aggrandizing greed and excessive consumption, traits that sow disharmony and destruction if left unchecked. [[Ojibwe]] scholar Brady DeSanti asserts that the wendigo "can be understood as a marker indicating... a person... imbalanced both internally and toward the larger community of human and spiritual beings around them."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=DeSanti|first1=Brady|title=The Cannibal Talking Head: Portrayals of the Wendigo 'Monster' in Popular Culture and Ojibwe Traditions|journal=Journal of Religion and Popular Culture|date=2015|volume=27|issue=3|page=197|doi=10.3138/jrpc.27.3.2938|s2cid=148238264}}</ref> Out of equilibrium and estranged by their communities, individuals thought to be afflicted by the wendigo spirit unravel and destroy the ecological balance around them. Chippewa author [[Louise Erdrich]]'s novel ''[[The Round House (novel)|The Round House]]'', winner of the [[National Book Award]], depicts a situation where an individual person becomes a wendigo. The novel describes its primary antagonist, a rapist whose violent crimes desecrate a sacred site, as a wendigo who must be killed because he threatens the reservation's safety.

In addition to characterizing individual people who exhibit destructive tendencies, the wendigo can also describe movements and events with similarly negative effects. According to Professor Chris Schedler, the figure of the wendigo represents "consuming forms of exclusion and assimilation" through which groups dominate other groups."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Schleder|first1=Christoper|title=Wiindigoo Sovereignty and Native Transmotion in Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart|journal=Studies in American Indian Literatures|date=2011|volume=23|issue=3|page=32}}</ref> This application allows Native Americans to describe colonialism and its agents as wendigos since the process of colonialism ejected natives from their land and threw the natural world out of balance. DeSanti points to the 1999 horror film ''[[Ravenous (1999 film)|Ravenous]]'' as an illustration of this argument equating "the cannibal monster" to "American colonialism and manifest destiny". This movie features a character who articulates that expansion brings displacement and destruction as side effects, explaining that "manifest destiny" and "western expansion" will bring "thousands of gold-hungry Americans... over the mountains in search of new lives... This country is seeking to be whole... Stretching out its arms... and consuming all it can. And we merely follow".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=DeSanti|first1=Brady|title=The Cannibal Talking Head: Portrayals of the Wendigo 'Monster' in Popular Culture and Ojibwe Traditions|journal=Journal of Religion and Popular Culture|date=2015|volume=27|issue=3|page=195|doi=10.3138/jrpc.27.3.2938|s2cid=148238264}}</ref>

As a concept, wendigo can apply to situations other than some Native American-European relations. It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Joe Lockhard, English professor at Arizona State University, argues that wendigos are agents of "social cannibalism" who know "no provincial or national borders; all human cultures have been visited by shape-shifting wendigos. Their visitations speak to the inseparability of human experience... National identity is irrelevant to this borderless horror."<ref>{{cite book|first1=Joe|last1=Lockhard|editor1-first=Gerald|editor1-last=Vizenor|title=Facing the Windigoo: Gerald Vizenor and Primo Levi |date=2008|publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |___location=Lincoln, Nebraska|pages=209–219}}</ref> Lockhard's ideas explain that wendigos are an expression of a dark aspect of human nature: the drive toward greed, consumption, and disregard for other life in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.

[[Romantic literature in English|Romantic]] scholar and documentarian [[Emily Zarka]], also a professor at Arizona State University, observes that two commonalities among the indigenous cultures of [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian language family]] speakers are that they are situated in climes where harsh winters are frequent and may be accompanied by starvation. She states that the wendigo symbolically represents three major concepts: it is the incarnation of winter, the embodiment of hunger, and the personification of selfishness.<ref name="monstrum"/>

==In popular culture==

<!-- Please do not add additional pop culture examples to this list, unless they are well-sourced and add some kind of significant content to what is already in the article. -->

[[File:Fan Expo 2015 - Wendigo (21580330698).jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|A person dressed as the wendigo character from the television series ''[[Hannibal (TV series)|Hannibal]]'' at [[Fan Expo]] 2015]]

[[File:Wendigo Wintery Forest.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|An artist's rendering of a wendigo as frequently depicted in contemporary pop culture]]

Although distinct from how it appears in the traditional lore, one of the first appearances of a character inspired by, or named after, a wendigo in non-Indigenous literature is [[Algernon Blackwood]]'s 1910 novella ''[[The Wendigo (novella)|The Wendigo]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blackwood |first1=Algernon|editor1-last=Kellermeyer|editor1-first=M. Grant|title=The Willows, The Wendigo, & Other Horrors |date=2014 |publisher=Oldstyle Tales Press|isbn=9781507564011 |pages=215–263}}</ref><ref name="Smallman 68">{{harvcoltxt |Smallman |2014|p=68}}</ref> [[openlibrary:authors/OL7624854A|Joe Nazare]] wrote that Blackwood's "subtly-demonizing rhetoric transforms the Wendigo from a native myth into a [[Stereotypes of indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States|descriptive template for the Indian savage]]."<ref name="nazare2000">{{cite journal|title=The Horror! The Horror? The Appropriation, and Reclamation, of Native American Mythology|surname=Nazare|given=Joe|author-link=openlibrary:authors/OL7624854A|journal=Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts|volume=11|issue=1 (41)|year=2000|pages=24–51|___location=[[Armonk, New York]]|publisher=[[International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts]]|oclc=7786132167|issn=0897-0521|jstor=43308417}}</ref>

Blackwood's work has influenced many of the subsequent portrayals in mainstream horror fiction,<ref name="nazare2000"/><ref name=heller/> such as [[August Derleth]]'s "The Thing that Walked on the Wind" and "Ithaqua" (1933 and 1941),<ref name=" Smallman 68" /> which in turn inspired the character in [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[Pet Sematary]]'',<ref name="nazare2000"/> where it is a personification of evil, an ugly grinning creature with yellow-grey eyes, ears replaced by ram's horns, white vapor coming from its nostrils, and a pointed, decaying yellow tongue.<ref name=heller>{{cite web |url=http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/essays/petsem.htm |title=Love, and Death in Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary' |author=Heller, Terry |access-date=March 29, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070816191441/http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/essays/petsem.htm |archive-date=August 16, 2007}}</ref> These works set the template for later portrayals in popular culture, at times even replacing the Native American lore.<ref name="nazare2000"/> In an early short story by [[Thomas Pynchon]], "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (first published in 1959), the plot centers around a character developing Wendigo syndrome and going on a killing spree.

In 1973 [[Wendigo (comics)|a character inspired by the wendigo]] appeared in [[American comic book]]s published by [[Marvel Comics]]. Created by the writer [[Steve Englehart]] and artist [[Herb Trimpe]], the monster is the result of a curse that afflicts those who commit acts of cannibalism. The Marvel Comics version does not resemble a traditional wendigo as portrayed by popular culture, but rather a silver-haired [[Bigfoot|Bigfoot-like]] being. It first appeared in ''The Incredible Hulk'' #162 (April 1973), and again in the October 1974 issue.<ref>''Hulk'' #181</ref>

Contemporary Indigenous works that explore the legend include the 1995 novel [[openlibrary:works/OL2423169W|''Solar Storms'']], by author and poet [[Linda Hogan (writer)|Linda K. Hogan]] ([[Chickasaw]]), which explores the stories of the wendigo and incorporates the creatures as a device to interrogate issues of independence, spirituality, politics, an individual's relationship to the family, and as a metaphor for [[Corporate capitalism|corporate voracity, exploitation, and power]] - all viewed as a form of cannibalism.<ref name="NDQ070-3">{{cite journal|surname=Hans|given=Birgit|title=Water and Ice: Restoring Balance to the World in Linda Hogan's ''Solar Storms''|journal=[[North Dakota Quarterly]]|publisher=[[University of North Dakota]]|place=[[Grand Forks, North Dakota]]|date=Summer 2003 |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=93–104 |issn=0029-277X |hdl=2027/mdp.39015057941141?urlappend=%3Bseq=99 |oclc=109179839}}</ref> ''Wrist'', the 2016 debut novel by [[First Nations (Canada)|First Nations]] horror fiction writer [[Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler]] ([[Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation|Lac Des Milles Lacs]] [[Anishinaabe]]),<ref>{{cite web |last=O'Connell |first=Grace |url=http://open-book.ca/News/The-In-Character-Interview-with-Nathan-Niigan-Noodin-Adler |title=The In Character Interview with Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler |website=Open Book |date=August 9, 2016 |access-date=October 4, 2022}}</ref> combines the traditional [[Ojibwe]] legend with the author's ideas inspired by non-Indigenous writers like [[Anne Rice]] and [[Tim Powers]].<ref>Jane van Koeverden, [https://www.cbc.ca/books/nathan-niigan-noodin-adler-on-writing-an-indigenous-horror-story-1.4057281 "Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler on writing an Indigenous horror story"]. [[CBC Books]], April 5, 2017.</ref>

Other creatures based on the legend, or named for it, appear in various films and television shows, including ''[[Ravenous (1999 film)|Ravenous]]'' (1999), ''[[Dark Was the Night (2014 film)|Dark Was the Night]]'' (2014),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=DiMarco |first1=Danette |title=Going Wendigo: The Emergence of the Iconic Monster in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Antonia Bird's Ravenous |journal=College Literature |date=2011 |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=134–155 |doi=10.1353/lit.2011.0038 |s2cid=170153331 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lealos |first=Shawn S. |last2=Thapa |first2=Shaurya |date=2021-10-08 |title=8 Scariest Movies Featuring The Wendigo, Ranked |url=https://screenrant.com/scariest-movies-featuring-wendigo-ranked/ |access-date=2025-08-02 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref> [[Hannibal (TV series)|Hannibal]] (2013-2015), and the 2021 film ''[[Antlers (2021 film)|Antlers]]'' by [[Scott Cooper (director)|Scott Cooper]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ramella |first=Brynne |date=2020-07-28 |title=Why Antlers Is Adapting Wendigo Mythology (& How It's Different) |url=https://screenrant.com/antlers-movie-wendigo-mythology-differences-explained/ |access-date=2025-08-02 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref> where the wendigo is portrayed as a deer-like creature with a glowing heart that moves from person to person with a never ending hunger. [[Guillermo del Toro]], producer of the film, developed the wendigo on the basis that the more the creature eats, the more it gets hungry and the more it gets hungry, the weaker it becomes.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Song |first1=Katie |title='Antlers' Director Scott Cooper on the Wendigo Within: 'You Can't Escape It' |url=https://variety.com/2021/film/news/antlers-scott-cooper-guillermo-del-toro-wendigo-1235099049/ |website=Variety |date=October 28, 2021 |access-date=November 1, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pagan |first1=Beatrice |title=Antlers: Guillermo del Toro e Scott Cooper svelano il significato del Wendigo |url=https://movieplayer.it/news/antlers-guillermo-del-toro-scott-cooper-significato-wendigo_84325/ |website=movieplayer.it |access-date=November 1, 2021}}</ref> In the 2021 film ''[[The Inhuman]] (L'Inhumain)'' the arrival of a wendigo symbolizes inner turmoil after a character turns his back on his Indigenous heritage in the pursuit of material success.<ref>François Lévesque, [https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/cinema/704976/critique-cinema-l-inhumain-devore-de-l-interieur "«L'inhumain»: dévoré de l'intérieur"]. ''[[Le Devoir]]'', April 29, 2022.</ref>

Various characters inspired by the legend, or named for it, appear in [[role-playing video game|role-playing video games.]] The interactive horror video game ''[[Until Dawn]]'' (2015) features multiple Wendigos as central antagonists, as the game is set primarily in a former Native American territory.<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Brien |first=Lucy |date=2015-08-24 |title=Until Dawn Review |url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/24/until-dawn-review |access-date=2025-02-25 |website=IGN |language=en}}</ref> In 2018's ''[[Fallout 76]]'' by [[Bethesda Game Studios]], wendigos are featured as one of the cryptid enemies found in the area of Appalachia, mutated from people who consumed human flesh in isolation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vgr.com/fallout-76-creatures-tales-wendigo/|title=Fallout 76 Creatures: Bethesda Tells Tales of the Wendigo|website=www.vgr.com/|date=November 4, 2018}}</ref> In the 2018 first-person shooter video game ''[[Dusk (video game)|Dusk]]'', wendigos are enemies that remain invisible until they receive damage.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thegamer.com/dusk-scariest-enemies/|title=The Scariest Enemies In Dusk|website=www.thegamer.com|date=October 30, 2021}}</ref> Several of these creatures also appear in the game's cover art.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=50829&s=reviews|title=DUSK (2018)|website=How Long to Beat|date=December 10, 2018}}</ref>

=== Criticism ===

Scholar Francesca Amee Johnson criticized the use of the Wendigo as an antagonist horror character in popular culture in ''Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research''. She noted that many popular depictions, like [[Until Dawn|''Until Dawn'']] (2015), [[The Retreat (2020 film)|''The Retreat'']] (2020), and [[Supernatural (American TV series)|''Supernatural'']] (2005–2020) are created by mostly non-native writers. The use of the Wendigo as an antagonist has become a common trope, "as it easily creates a villain for white protagonists to defeat repeatedly." Johnson writes, <blockquote>This construction is problematic in the horror genre as it presents an Indigenous antagonist that poses a threat to white culture for its otherness and indigeneity – while at the same time, misappropriating, discarding and demonising the Indigenous culture the myth comes from, at whim.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=F.A. |date=2022 |title=A Creature Without a Cave: Abstraction and (Mis)Appropriation of the Wendigo Myth in Contemporary North American Horror |url=https://reinventionjournal.org/article/view/906 |journal=Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research |volume=15 |issue=S1|doi=10.31273/reinvention.v15iS1.906 |doi-access=free }}</ref></blockquote><!--

PLEASE do not add more popular-culture references to this section unless they are RELIABLY SOURCED and their mention of wendigos is NOTABLE and reasonably related to the actual legend. Just a mention of the word, or something close to the word, is not enough.

The frequency of windigo cases decreased sharply in the twentieth century, and today windigo reports are unsubstantiated by any medical documentation. There is substantive evidence to suggest the windigo disorder did exist, but a number of questions concerning the condition remain unanswered.

-->

==References in popular culture==

* [[Algernon Blackwood]]'s 1910 [[Horror fiction|horror]] story ''The Wendigo'' introduced the legend to [[horror fiction]]. Blackwood's story eschews the aspect of cannibalism in favour of a more subtle psychological horror; a central theme is that whoever sees the Wendigo '''becomes''' the Wendigo.

* [[Ogden Nash]] wrote a humorous poem about the Wendigo

* Windigo Psychosis features prominently in [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s short story "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna"[http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_mortality.html]

* In the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and his contemporaries, the Wendigo is another title for [[Ithaqua]] the Windwalker, one of the [[Great Old One]]s who seems to be restricted to those parts of the earth that are predominantly cold, favouring Alaska and North America. This is derived, via [[August Derleth]], from Blackwood.

* In [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' the eponymous graveyard marks the path to another, older burial ground, which in centuries past had been cursed by the Wendigo.

* In [[Marvel Comics]], the [[Wendigo (comics)|Wendigo]] is created by a curse that may have derived from the Arctic Gods or "Elder Gods".

* A creature called Wendigo also appears in episode twelve of the [[supernatural]] [[dramedy]] television series ''[[Charmed]]'' under the guise of [[FBI]] agent Ashley Fallon. Piper Halliwell also turns into a Wendigo when Fallon (as a Wendigo) scratches her.

* In the [[role-playing game]] ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the Fiend Folio has a Wendigo template.

* Wendigos are also featured as monsters in various [[computer and video game]]s, including ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' and the [[Warcraft Universe]].

* The cannibalistic aspect of the Wendigo myth plays a key role in the movie [[Ravenous]], starring [[Guy Pearce]]

==References==

=== Citations ===

*Colombo, J.R. ed. Wendigo. Western Producer Prairie Books, Saskatoon: 1982.

{{reflist}}

*Teicher, M. Windigo Psychosis: A study of Relationship between Belief and Behaviour among the Indians of Northestarn Canada. American Ethnological Society: 1960.

=== General and cited sources ===

* {{Cite journal |last=Brightman |first=Robert A. |year=1988 |title=The Windigo in the Material World |url= https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/windigo2.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190408171132/https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/windigo2.pdf |archive-date= April 8, 2019 |jstor=482140 |journal=Ethnohistory |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=337–379 |doi=10.2307/482140 }}

* Colombo, J.R. ed. ''Wendigo''. Western Producer Prairie Books, Saskatoon: 1982.

* {{Cite journal |last=Goddard |first=Ives |year=1969 |title=Owls and Cannibals: Two Algonquian Etymologies |journal=Paper Presented at the Second Algonquian Conference, St. John's, Newfoundland }}

* {{Cite book |last=Johnston |first=Basil |date=1990 |orig-year=1976 |title=Ojibway Heritage |place=Lincoln |publisher=University of Nebraska Press }}

* {{Cite book |last=Johnston |first=Basil |date=2001 |orig-year=1995 |title=The Manitous |place=St. Paul |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press }}

* {{Cite journal |author=Marano, Lou |year=1982 |title=Windigo Psychosis: The Anatomy of an Emic-Etic Confusion |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=23 | pages=385–412 |doi=10.1086/202868|s2cid=147398948 }}

* {{Cite journal |last=Parker |first=Seymour |year=1960 |title=The Wiitiko Psychosis in the Context of Ojibwa Personality and Culture |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=603–623 |doi=10.1525/aa.1960.62.4.02a00050 |doi-access=free }}

* {{cite book |last=Schwarz |first=Herbert T. |date=1969 |title= Windigo and other tales of the Ojibways |___location=Toronto |publisher=McClelland and Stewart}}

* {{Cite book| last = Smallman |first = Shawn| date = 2014| title = Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History | publisher =Heritage House Publishing Company| ___location = Victoria, BC | isbn = 9781772030334 }}

* Teicher, Morton I. (1961). "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'', ed. Verne P. Ray. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

==External links==

{{Commonscat}}

*[http://wendigokaan.tripod.com/ Cannibals, Clowns, Wendigo and Other crazy stuff]

{{Wiktionary}}

*[http://www.timboucher.com/old/2004/08/30/the-windigo-windigo-psychosis/ The Windigo & Windigo Psychosis]

{{Wikisource|The Wendigo|'' The Wendigo''}}

*[http://dinojoe.8m.com/crypto/windigo.html The Windigo]

* [https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/ Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition]

*[http://www.newanimal.org/windigo.htm The Cryptid Zoo: Windigo]

* [https://www.pbs.org/video/windigo-the-flesh-eating-monster-of-native-american-legend-temrse/ "Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend"], [[Monstrum (Digital series)|''Monstrum'']] [[documentary short]] series from [[PBS Digital Studios]]

*[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10897 "The Wendigo" By Algernon Blackwood]

*[http://www.antidotefilms.com/films/wendigo/wendigo.html Wendigo (film)]

{{Anishinaabe}}

[[Category:Native American legendary creatures]]

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[[Category:Cannibalism in North America]]

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