Native American Folklore: The Wendigo
The wendigo is a supernatural creature found within Native-American folklore. Ranging from something similar to bigfoot, to a demonic being capable of possessing humans; the wendigo legend has led to many deaths and murders which have been claimed on the creature. Tribes would blame mysterious disappearances on the wendigo, and the murders are akin to the witch trials. The wendigo also lends its name to a number of geographical locations and a mental illness known as 'wendigo psychosis'; an illness which is under much debate in the medical community.
History
What the wendigo actually is varies greatly from tribe to tribe and story to story. Tales of the wendigo have mostly been told by the Algonquian people along the Atlantic coast of America and Canada, but has been told by many other tribes. These are the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, the Innu, the Abenaki, the Siksika, the Iroquois, and the Mi'kmaq tribes. As the wendigo exists across so many tribes, it also goes by many different names. These alternative names are the windigo, weendigo, windago, waindigo, windiga, witiko, wihtikow, manaha, wheetigo, windikouk, wi'ntsigo, wi'tigo, wittikka, atchen, chenoo, and kewok. Some people also think of the wendigo as being a creature similar to skinwalkers, bigfoot, or the werewolf. A creature known by the Iroquois tribe as 'the stonecoat' also has similarities to the wendigo.
The wendigo has been said to be a demon, or a demonic half-beast, that is malevolent and cannibalistic. They're also thought to be of great spiritual power and are strongly associated with the winter, the North, coldness, famine, and starvation. A quote from the Ojibwe teacher and scholar Basil Johnston, in his work 'The Manitous', describes the wendigo as follows: 'The wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, it's desiccated skin pulled taunted over it's bones. With it's bones pushing out against it's skin, it's complexion the ash grey of death, it's 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.'
A legend about the wendigo from the Ojibwa tribe describes the creature as follows: 'It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. It's breath was a strange hiss, it's footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman, or child who ventured into it's 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.' An Algonquial legend describes the wendigo as follows: '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 wendigo can be portrayed as ten feet tall demons with enormous heads, giant teeth, deformed mouths, and beady eyes. They've also been described as giants reaching heights of fifteen feet tall. Some people say the wendigo has no fur, but others say it has snow white fur which can often be blood stained or matted. The wendigo has also been described to have sharp yellow fangs, hands and feet which end in sharp talons, and tongues which are a dark blue. They've also been described as mostly humanoid, but with a head similar to a stags, with antlers, and a corpse-like appearance. Details which are generally agreed upon are glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs, and long tongues. Most people also say they have sallow and yellowish skin. Some people also say their skin is decaying.
The ethno-historian Nathan Carlson describes the wendigo as having long sharp claws and massive eyes like an owl. Some people also say they are skeleton-like and have ash-toned skin. The wendigo's physical abilities are also up for debate amongst stories. Some people say it's fast and can walk for long periods of time, even in harsh winter conditions; but others say it walks in a haggard manner as if it's falling apart. The stories which portray the wendigo as being slow highlight that speed is not necessary for the wendigo as it can infiltrate human minds. Upon doing this, a wendigo can convert a human by giving them the same lust for human flesh. It's believed that if the human enduldges in cannibalism, then they will transform into a wendigo.
It's also believed that a human can transform into a wendigo if their spirit is corrupted by greed or weakened by extreme conditions such as hunger or cold. As described earlier, a human can also transform if their spirit is possessed by the spirit of a wendigo in a moment of weakness. One case of someone 'turning wendigo' occured in 1879 when a Native-American man called Swift Runner murdered and ate his whole family during the winter. His eldest son had died of starvation, although it's unclear if he died of natural causes or was also murdered, and this led to Swift killing his wife and five other children. Swift confessed to his crimes and claimed to have been possessed by a 'wendigo spirit' at the time of the murders. He was then hanged for his crimes.
There are legends about the first wendigo to have existed. One of these tales says the wendigo was a hunter who became lost during a brutally cold winter, and the hunger drove him to cannibalism. The hunter is said to have transformed into a crazed man-beast after eating another man's flesh, and then roamed the forest in search of more people to eat. Another story says the first wendigo was a warrior who made a deal with the devil. This deal was done to save the warriors tribe, and so the warrior gave up his soul and transformed into a wendigo. Once peace for the tribe was ensured, they had no reason to keep such a fearsome creature and banished the now wendigo warrior, forcing him to live as an outcast.
It's also said the wendigo possesses the ability to mimic human voices, and that it uses this ability to lure people into the wilderness where the wendigo attacks and eats them. Another ability described in some legends is that the wendigo can control the weather with dark magic. The wendigo also has superhuman strength, great eyesight, great hearing, and a great sense of smell. These attributes all make the wendigo a near perfect hunter. Plus, people say that the wendigo moves with the speed of the wind and can walk across deep snow or over open water without sinking. Other details about the wendigo include an endless hunger. They are always hungry for human flesh, and no matter how much they eat the hunger persists. People have said that it grows larger the more it eats, and that if there is nothing left to eat then it will starve to death.
It is believed that a wendigo can be killed, and different stories make it more difficult to kill one. Some say a firearm or club will do it, but others require more elaborate methods. Some people believe that the human personality which existed before the wendigo transformation still exists within the wendigo. This belief suggests the human is located where the heart of the wendigo should be, and that the human is frozen. It's believed that the only way to kill a wendigo is to kill the person within, but there are people who believe the person can still be saved. However, most cases do say death is the only freedom for the person trapped within the wendigo.
A silver bullet to the heart kills the wendigo, fire causes it to flee, and sacred objects such as holy water and symbols can ward off a wendigo. Hunting rituals including incantations and chants can destroy a wendigo. One such ritual involves placing the wendigos heart into a silver box which is then buried in consecrated ground. The wendigos body is then dismembered with a silver weapon, slated, and cremated. The ashes are then scattered to the four winds. If this ritual isn't done, then it is believed the wendigo can resurrect itself. It is also believed that he wendigo can be killed by cutting out and melting its icy heart in a roaring fire. Some legends say knowledgeable first nations shaman can dispatch a wendigo with a specific spell or ceremony.
Most wendigo sightings have occured during the 1800s, and up until the 1920s, although there was discourse about the wendigo during 2019 after unfamiliar howls were heard in the Canadian wilderness. People who heard these noises questioned if it was a wendigo, with one hiker saying 'I've heard many different animals in the wild but nothing like this'. Most sightings tend to be in Canada, or along the eastern coast of America, but the creature is also said to exist in Europe, Asia, and Mexico. Locations have even been named after the wendigo, such as Lake Wendigo in Minnesota and Wendigo Lake in Wisconsin.
The name 'wendigo' has a few meanings to it. One rough translation is 'the evil spirit that devours mankind'. This translation relates to the wendigo having the ability to curse humans through possessing them. Around the time of 1860, a German explorer translated the name to mean 'cannibal'; relating to the creature's cannibalistic nature. It is possible that the name 'wendigo' has been misinterpreted while a dictionary was being compiled. The theory is that the correct description used by Native Americans was 'fool', but this was wrongly substituted for the word 'ghoul'; an act which led to a potential misinterpretation of the wendigo that compares it to a demonic entity.
It is thought that the true origin of the wendigo comes from the fear of starvation, and the fear of what may occur if the starvation became too much. The stress caused by dwindling resources for the Native Americans, along with the extermination of their food supply, could have created a necessity through the wendigo story in order to remind the tribes not to resort to cannibalism. The stories were once thought of as an illustration to the violence and primitive nature of those telling the stories, but in fact they likely did represent the violence against the native tribes which was caused by the non-native people. Many anthropologists believe the wendigo concept was developed after native people had contact with the Europeans.
The wendigo stories accusing people of 'turning wendigo' likely connect to the stress and fear of losing resources, and this is likely why greed is often associated with the wendigo. This fear, and the murders which could follow, is comparable to the witch trials which occured in a number of countries. Basil Johnston has also written that 'turning wendigo' could be a reference to an individuals self destruction rather than literally transforming into a monster in the forest.
The term 'wendigo psychosis' was used by early psychiatrists in reference to a condition where patients felt possessed by cannibalistic desires. The Oblate missionary, J. E. Saindon, was the first to use the term in the 1920s while working in a Cree community in the Western James Bay area. While there, he met a woman who claimed she saw strangers who wanted to kill and eat her. Swindon referred to her condition as a 'psychoneurosis', meaning a mental of behavioural disorder characterised by depression or anxiety. Over time, this condition shifted to become known as 'wendigo psychosis' and it's highly disputed in the medical community as to whether or not it is a real affliction. Swift Runner would be one of many examples of an individual who has demonstrated the effects of wendigo psychosis.
The wendigo legend hasn't just led to murders through cannibalism, but also through fear of loved ones 'turning wendigo'. During 1907, Jack Fiddler, an 87 year old man, was arrested and tried for the murder of a woman. Jack pleaded guilty and said the woman was on the verge of transforming into a wendigo as she was being possessed by an evil spirit. He also said he had to kill her before she killed other members of the tribe, and he confessed to killing at least thirteen other 'wendigo' in his lifetime. It's this kind of act which makes the wendigo story incredibly comparable to the witch trials which have occured through history. It's around the same time, the early 1900s, that Algonquian tribes blamed many unsolved disappearances on wendigo attacks; giving the creature the name 'the spirit of lonely places'.
Unsurprisingly, the wendigo has been featured in modern horror media, such as in the 2021 film 'Antlers' and the tv series 'supernatural'. The legend was also featured in the 2013 film 'The Lone Ranger'. Within that film, a more realistic portrayal of the wendigo was featured with the legend being retold as follows: 'Many moons ago, a boy found two white men in the desert. He brought them to his village to be healed. When they found silver in the river, they asked the boy where it came from. In exchange for a cheap pocket watch from Seurs Roebuck, the boy showed them where the river begins, where they found more silver than any white man had ever seen. They took what they could carry, but they wanted to keep the place a secret, so they could one day return. The boy could not live with what he had done, so he decided the men were possessed by evil spirits in the silver. He called it 'windigo' like the ghost stories we tell our children.' It's very important to say 'The Lone Ranger' is a work of fiction, but it does take from real history and legends as can be seen by the accuracy in the wendigo story told.
The legend has mostly died down in belief, but occasionally there are tales which surface of potential wendigo encounters. One such modern day encounter is described on this website in the article titled 'OVERNIGHT's Haunted Homies E3: Blake's Wendigo Hunt and Hellhound Encounter'. During this article, it is described how Blake thinks he saw a wendigo and went hunting for it with his dad; both not knowing what the creature was. Regardless, the wendigo is definitely a creature which has caused much debate amongst people as to how real it is, and if the psychological impact of the story is what makes it real.
My Thoughts
I think the wendigo does not exist as a literal monster as is often described. I think it started as one thing and over time the legend has been twisted and shaped to discuss this horrific creature that has captured the imaginations of many. I think the story would have originated as a reflection of the world at the time as seen through the eyes of the Native Americans. A good example of this would be the retelling of the wendigo story in 'The Lone Ranger'. In that telling, white settlers kill a native tribe out of greed for the silver they found, and the survivor of the attack couldn't rationalise such an act of greed and so credited the attack to the wendigo. Through the film, that survivor persists in calling the greedy white men 'windigo', and so I think this is likely an accurate depiction of how the story originated within real native tribes.
There was great conflict between white settlers and the native tribes to the point where the buffalo, the animal the natives relied upon for food and resources, was hunted to near extinction by the white settlers in order to take land from the natives. In these times, combined with incredibly cold and hard winters, it's very clear to see where the wendigo story came from. As a result I really don't believe the wendigo exists as a literal creature, but rather as a representation of the greed and hunger that can possess a human in times of hardship or temptation.
I think over the years this cautionary tale, this way of making sense of the world around us, became warped by superstition and fear of the unknown. The accounts of strange noises in the woods is a good example of this. The human mind wants to create and imagine, and it wants there to be more in the world than what there is, and so when faced with something it doesn't understand it creates something it can understand; even if that thing is a ghastly demonic creature that devours as much as it can. Humans tend to want to see the best in other humans, especially when it's someone they know, and so it is far easier to say someone is possessed by demons than face the reality that they may actually just be ill instead.
I feel it's incredibly important to look into folklore, such as I have done with the wendigo and banshee, as it's in the origins of these tales that we can determine how much truth really lies within the paranormal. The same thing goes with angels and demons, and perhaps they too have more rational origins which have been spun out of proportion over time. After all, the wendigo was said to be a demonic being.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading to the end of this post! The wendigo is a creature I've known a little bit about for a while thanks to the programme 'Supernatural', but I've never known how truthful it's depiction in that programme was. It was quite sad to discover the murders which have happened around what I believe to just be a story, but you can see the impact it's had on so many through these acts. I hope you've enjoyed the article. I do intend on writing about more paranormal creatures at some point to help establish the truth behind these legends. I will be strictly sticking to the creatures relating to a possible afterlife though, so don't be expecting anything about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or aliens on here.
A special thank you goes to Damain, Nicolette, Kerry, GD, The Cornish Ghost Whisperers, Beardo Gets Scared, Starlight Phoenix Paranormal, Paranormal Penny Pinchers, the Australian Paranormal Society, Codegas Codex of Curiousity, Phantom Detectives LLC, and Shadow Walkers Paranormal Investigators for your continued support of The True Paranormal. If you want to follow The True Paranormal you can do so on Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Tumblr. You can also subscribe to The True Paranormal on YouTube, or directly to this website through the bar on the left which will give you email notifications. That bar also lists all of the links which will take you to The True Paranormal's various social media platforms. If you want to contact me about your own experiences, or about anything at all paranormal, you can email thetrueparanormal1@gmail.com
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Sources I Have Used
1. Fandom
7. Backstory
8. Medium
9. TV Tropes
10. Owlcation
11. How Stuff Works
14. Fandom: Wendigo
16. Mythology
17. Medium: Wendigo
19. Brave New World
20. Tumblr
21. Sleepopolis
22. Ancient Origins
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