Wendigo
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The Wendigo in Native American mythology
In the mythology of the Algonquin tribe of Native Americans, the Wendigo (or Windigo) is a malevolent supernatural creature. It is usually described as a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be entirely made of ice. It is noted for its fearsome cruelty and diet of human flesh. Many times is thought to look like a beast or werewolf. Also, any human who partook of human flesh (as a means of combating starvation) was believed to become such a creature himself. He would forever be tortured by an unyielding hunger for more human flesh.
This myth was used as a deterent 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. The only way to destroy a Wendigo is to melt its heart of ice. By doing this, the Wendigo will be destroyed and those who were changed by the Wendigo will return to their original form.
Actual Wendigo murder trials took place in Canada around the beginning of the 20th century. The alleged clinical condition of believing oneself to be a Wendigo has been described as Windigo (note the spelling: not Wendigo) Psychosis.
A legend tells about a gentleman who was in love with his girlfriend/wife, when he had found that his girlfriend/wife had cheated on him. He soon became depressed, his heart became cold and emotionless. The anger that was still cultivating in his heart caused him to become vengeful. Thus the beginning of the transformation, he went after his girlfriend/wife killed her and took her heart. He ate her heart as a token of recompensation for her misdeed.
The Wendigo in fiction
Algernon Blackwood's 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. The reader never sees the Wendigo, though we witness the progressive dehumanization of a character who has seen it. Blackwood based his story, he claims, on an actual incident of Wendigo panic in a lonely valley while he lived in Canada. He worked many details of the Native American legend into the story: the Wendigo stalks hunters in the forest, eats moss, can be heard crashing through the trees, has a terrifying voice, and is associated with insanity.
Robert Colombo has collected a whole book of stories and poems on the Wendigo, many inspired by Blackwood.
Ogden Nash wrote the following poem about the Wendigo:
- The Wendigo,
- The Wendigo!
- Its eyes are ice and indigo!
- Its blood is rank and yellowish!
- Its voice is hoarse and bellowish!
- Its tentacles are slithery,
- And scummy,
- Slimy,
- Leathery!
- Its lips are hungry blubbery,
- And smacky,
- sucky,
- rubbery!
- The Wendigo,
- The Wendigo!
- I saw it just a friend ago!
- Last night it lurked in Canada;
- Tonight, on your veranada!
- As you are lolling hammockwise,
- It contemplates you stomachwise.
- You loll,
- It contemplates,
- It lollops.
- The rest is merely gulps and gollops.
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. Any corpse buried there would be re-animated within the day, but as a cannibal. At one point in the novel the protagonist believes that the Wendigo has passed in front of him in the woods; but it is a foggy night, and he is fortunately unable to see it.
The 1944 mystery novel Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot features a windigo as a possible explanation for a murderer who appears to be able to fly.
Despite the title, the movie Wendigo (http://www.thewendigo.com) does not bear much resemblance to the legend. The movie Ravenous is arguably closer; the term windigo is mentioned by a Native American scout. In that film, a crazed cannibal preys on the staff of a military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas.
The werewolf curse in the Ginger Snaps movies originates from the Wendigo.
In Marvel Comics, the Wendigo is created by a curse of unknown origin: Anyone who eats human flesh while in the Canadian woods becomes one. This Wendigo is a huge, apelike being of white fur, without human intelligence. Its strength is great enough to battle Marvel heroes like The Incredible Hulk or Wolverine. The curse CAN be lifted off a person, by a shaman who knows the appropriate spell; yet the curse itself still exists in Canada. The victim will not remember what he did as a Wendigo.
It is also referenced in the TV series Charmed, when Piper Halliwell turns into a wendigo in the episode "The Wendigo".
The RPGs Diablo II and Diablo II Expansion feature the Wendigo as a large and weak yeti-like creature, commonly found in grasslands and deserts.
In the games Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, a Wendigo is a large and powerful Yeti-like creature found in snowy areas such as Northrend and Northern Lorderon.
In the game Final Fantasy 8, a Wendigo is a random encounter enemy located just putside of Deling City
In the roleplaying game Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wendigo is the name of an clan of werewolves with almost exclusively Amerindian kinfolk who claim the northern US states and Canada as their homeland and who are locked in the almost hopeless struggle against the encroachment of Wasichu society and it's effects. This same tribe follows the spirit of "The Great Wendigo" a might spirit of the winter and the wind who takes the form of a great white wolf and aids his people in their times of need. The spirit is known to be a cannibal spirit and like wise many garou (werewolves) of the wendigo tribe have a temptation to eat of human flesh.
In the RPG Call of Cthulhu, based on the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft, the Wendigo is another title for Ithaqua the Windwalker, one of the Great Old Ones who seems to be restricted to those parts of the earth that are always (or at least mostly) cold, favouring Alaska and North America.
In the RPG Shadowrun, the Wendigo is a troll infected by the HMHVV (Human Meta Human Vampiric Virus). He feed on human flesh and look like a white Sasquatch.
References
- Colombo, J.R. ed. Wendigo. Western Producer Prairie Books, Saskatoon: 1982.
- Teicher, M. Windigo Psychosis: A study of Relationship between Belief and Behaviour among the Indians of Northestarn Canada. American Ethnological Society: 1960.
External links
- Cannibals, Clowns, Wendigo and Other crazy stuff (http://wendigokaan.tripod.com/cannibalsclownswendigoandothercrazystuff/index.html)
- The Wendigo By Algernon Blackwood (http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0228.pdf)
- The Windigo & Windigo Psychosis (http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2004/08/windigo-windigo-psychosis.html)de:Wendigo