It stalks the woods during the coldest and
harshest months of the year, plagued with
an insatiable hunger.
Of immense size and speed, the Windigo monster
of Native American lore has become one of
the most notorious flesh-eaters of all time.
The Windigo legend teaches us about Native
American spiritual beliefs and social values,
and has three major symbolic interpretations:
the incarnation of winter, the embodiment
of hunger, and the personification of selfishness,
both spiritual and physical.
And thennnn there’s cannibalism.
The Windigo has clawed its way into popular
culture, appearing in TV shows like Supernatural
and Charmed, and Marvel comics.
It’s terrorized audiences 
in movies and video games
, and even a My Little Pony
episode.
I feel confidant saying that this creature’s
gone mainstream.
But almost all of these portrayals fail to
capture the complete history or even the original
traits, of the Windigo.
The Windigo legend originates with indigenous
people who belong to the Algonquian
language family.
They say it’s a giant humanoid cannibal
who can move at an incredibly fast speed.
The Windigo is astonishingly tall, with razor-sharp
teeth and claws, and lips that are often chewed
ragged, or gone completely.
They have a heart made of ice—--and despite
their unending hunger for human flesh, they
remain emaciated.
It shrieks, and can run across tree tops and
its presence may be preceded by a foul odor,
or a sudden snow storm.
Almost all Windigos begin as humans, and once
transformed it has no gender.
But how does one become a Windigo?
The most common way is by eating human flesh,
but there are others, including dreaming of
the Windigo.
It is also believed that you can become a
Windigo without physically transforming.
Someone who is in a state of inner turmoil
might be at risk of becoming one.
Some communities believe it can be caused
by a spiritual imbalance, or by choosing to
prioritize the self over the community.
Since the lore of the Algonquian peoples is largely shared through oral tradition,
there are several variations of the Windigo.
But the origins of the legend undoubtedly
began with the indigenous tribes that lived
in the northern woodlands, Atlantic Coast,
and Great Lakes regions . The Algonquian language
family is one of the largest native linguistic
groups in North America and includes these
groups among others.
Because of this widespread distribution, the
Windigo has many names, spellings, and pronunciations.
There are more than 37 names for it that begin
with “w”.
Here we use the spelling that more accurately
reflects the Cree and Ojibwe
pronunciations, and the one that appears more
commonly in indigenous-authored texts.
Regardless of how it’s spelled, there is
something that can help explain the Windigo
legend---climate and geography.
All of the communities that share the Windigo
myth experience long, harsh winters.
With heavy snowfall, freezing temperatures,
and a lack of resources, the fear of starvation
was a very real thing.
This encourages people to stick together—both
a practical and necessary means of survival.
The Windigo, on the other hand, thrives in
the winter and can travel in blizzards.
It hunts for those who are separated from
the group or who leave the safety of their
homes.
The threat of cannibalism is embodied by the
Windigo.
Fear is a powerful motivator, and this story
spooked people into sharing food resources
during the winter, and preparing adequate
food storages during the rest of the year.
So, ya know, you wouldn’t have to venture
out into that blizzard and get eaten by a
shrieking Windigo.
The first written mention of the Windigo occurred
in 17th-century Jesuit records which coincides
with Europeans entering into the fur trade.
The North American fur trade boom in the 18th
and 19th centuries meant even more trappers
were traveling to present-day Canada.
The claws and vicious appetite of the Windigo,
along with the idea that a human could transform
into one, reminded the Europeans of a similar
legend of their own—the werewolf.
Through trade, community, and marriage, a
cross-cultural exchange of ideas, including
monsters, occurred.
In 1928, a Jesuit priest compared the European
monster to the windigo’s similar canine
hunger saying it, “ makes them so ravenous
for human flesh that they pounce upon women,
children, and even men, like veritable werewolves,
and devour them voraciously.”
With associations like that, it makes sense
how these two legendary creatures overlap
today.
And why most modern depictions of the Windigo
vary wildly from the original.
You might have seen the Windigo depicted as
a stag-human hybrid, a human with antlers,
or even with ram horns for ears.
There is no evidence of this in all the Algonquian
[AL-gon-ki-en] peoples versions.
The only animal the Windigo is associated
with in some stories is the owl.
In fact, “windigo” can translate as “owl”
or “cannibal” depending on the dialect.
Which kind of makes sense given that owls
do eat flesh and are often seen as omens of
death.
The image of the antlered-windigo seen in
Hannibal and Pet Sematary actually originates
in the film Wendigo.
The director Larry Fessenden merged a story
he was told as a child with the Scary Stories
to Tell in the Dark version of the Windigo,
itself adapted from another author’s interpretation.
Fessenden admits that he didn’t even do
research on the Windigo until after he made
the movie.
But the image is so foreign and striking it
continues to appear in movies, art, and other
pop culture texts.
The Windigo has also appeared in another venue—the
courtroom.
In 1897, a “windigo killing” trial became
a landmark case for early Canadian law when
an Ojibwe man was found guilty of manslaughter
for shooting someone he believed to be a Windigo.
In his culture, killing a Windigo was acceptable.
But his court conviction confirmed that Canadian
common law applied to indigenous communities,
even if they had no knowledge of its existence.
In the late 19th and early 20thcenturies,
a handful of other indigenous people were
similarly convicted of murder for killing
people they deemed windigos.
Windigos showed up in another unlikely place—psychiatry.
In the 1920s and 30s, “windigo psychosis,”
a “cultural-bound mental illness” was
said to be a disorder that drove people to
cannibalism or cannibalistic thoughts.
But in the 1970s this diagnosis was brought
into question and no subject with the supposed
condition has ever been studied.
Today most scholars reject it completely.
Like all monsters, we need to recognize the
origins of the creature even as it continues
to change and grow in other traditions.
Whether it’s the Hulk battling a Yeti-esque
Windigo in the woods, or finding the cure
to tuberculosis in human flesh greater significance, and arguably
enjoyment, can be found by recognizing the
creature’s original purpose.
The Windigo is largely popular today because
it represents a violation of a human code—don’t
kill one another, and certainly don’t eat
them if you do.
But it’s more than that.
The Windigo is a warning about what could
happen when an individual forgoes the collective
for their own survival.
The Windigo is above all a lesson in excess
and a manifestation of the anxieties that
emerge in the harsh realities of winter—and
how to survive it.
Hint, don’t eat other people.
Do you have a favorite monster?
Let me know in the comments!
And don’t forget to subscribe!
