Wendigo - The Beast with hunger for Human Flesh

Wendigo is a wild beast, but he is not like any animal. He is like a spirit, but made of flesh. His skin is stretched over the bones, like a pale gray blanket. His deep eyes glittered in the darkness, gleaming with a supernatural red. He looks like a skeleton that was dug up from his grave. He has no lips and his teeth are always bloody. His body is dirty and his flesh covered with wounds that stinks with rot, corruption and death.

Wendigo

In the far reaches of the North America, the forests that surround the Great Lakes seem to have no end. The trees are tall and old, with thick woods and perpetual snow. It is a place of unspeakable beauty, but strange and terrible legends. In Central Canada there is such a legend. It speaks of an evil creature that casts fear into the hearts of all who hear about it. The natives know it through old traditions and oral histories, told by the parents of their parents, and by their parents. They call this being Wendigo, the beast with hunger for human flesh.

This creature of nightmares is a monster, but it has some characteristics common to men. Many believe that he was a man whose body was possessed and then turned into something monstrous by the action of an evil spirit. The legends tend to vary for each tribe, however there is common points: historically the Wendigo is associated with cannibalism, murder, cruelty, and the breaking of cultural taboos. Few things are more offensive to the tribes that inhabit the Far North than to break with the traditions and consciously defy the taboos of their ancestors. Wendigo may be a myth created to teach young people about the danger of acting against traditions. However, many believe that it is not a mere legend, but a creature that actually exists, dwelling in the depths of the forest where civilization never entered.

Known by many names - Windigo, Witigo, Witiko and Wee-Tee-Go - each of them can be translated in a similar way, as "The impure spirit that devours the man". The name says a lot about the legend and defines exactly what it is: a spirit that perverts the flesh, from the inside out.

The Myth is especially widespread among the Algonquian, Ojibwe tribes, between the Cree of the North and Cree of the Swamp, the Saulteaux, Naskapi, and Innu. All these people describe the Wendigo as giants, much larger than the tallest of men. Although the general description may vary, it is common to all peoples to see the Wendigo as perverse, cannibalistic creatures, born unnaturally and strongly associated with winter, northern, cold, and hunger.

The Algonquin describe the monster in the following terms:

"A giant with the heart of ice, sometimes some describe him as a monster totally made of ice, his body is skeletal and deformed, without lips or fingers, parts that the cold took. Sometimes it has antlers on the top of their heads, horns like the great moose. "

The Ojibwa add:

"It is a large creature, as tall as a pine tree in the heart of the forest. His mouth has no lips and can't hide his teeth, sharp as knives. His footprints leaves a bloody trail, as blood always accompanies him wherever he roams. If the monster encounters a man, a woman or a child, he will devour them. Wendigo has his own territory and does not admit invaders. Be killed by a Wendigo is not so bad. The worst happens when the Wendigo chooses a person to possess, and the latter becomes a Wendigo herself. It then lives only for the hunt, and to devour the flesh of other men. "

According to legends, a Wendigo is created when a man consciously resorts to cannibalism to survive. It is a curse, a punishment that manifests itself when one of the greatest taboos of the tribes - the consumption of human flesh, is broken. In the past, this horrible transgression occurred more often, for natives ended up lost in the frozen immensity, with snow everywhere and no sustenance. In extreme despair, they would give in and end by quenching their hunger in the flesh of other people. When a man in these mystical forests resorts to such an atrocity, the evil spirits that inhabit the place are attracted and tend to enter his body. Gradually he changes into an atrocious beast - the Wendigo.

There are other versions of the legend. They talk about men who are especially greedy, jealously or who indulge in excess. They are individuals who kill their companions for profit, who consume extra portions of supplies even though they know it will impact others, or people who force others to their whims. Those who commit perverse acts, torture or murder, also tend to attract evil spirits and become prone to be possessed by them. It is clear that the myth acts as an alert to avoid certain behaviors. Cooperation and moderation are virtues that practically all tribes incentive.

The transformation is described as something terrible. The first change, however, occurs in the mind of the individual. He loses control and the ability to restrain his animal instincts. An especially disturbing legend among the Cree describes a hungry man who murder his own brother and then consume his flesh. The act ends up inviting the forest spirits to take his body and when they do, the subject lose his mind. He sinks his teeth into his brother's flesh, rips it voraciously, biting whole pieces and swallowing with hideous pleasure. In another example, a hunter kills his mate to get valuable pelts that have been collected in the forest for months. The act of betrayal attracts the spirits and condemns hid existence forever. Under the influence of the evil spirits he rip off the skin of his former companion, as if he were one of the animals they had both hunted.

There is just a moment of sanity that follows the madness that affects the individual taken by the  evil spirit. After a episode of savagery and madness, the individual wakes up the next morning able to understand what happened. This is the time when he can find redemption, choosing to break the curse that has taken hold on him. To do so, he must take his own life. If the cursed individual does not take advantage of this opportunity to redeem himself, he will be doomed forever and when the sun sets he will be once more seized by the spirits, this time forever.

Curiously the legend refers to anyone as a candidate to become a Wendigo. There are no racial barriers for a person to become the monster: natives and settlers were subject to the curse. Ironically, after the arrival of white settlers, the natives believed that the number of Wendigos in their territory had increased, no doubt due to the presence of outsiders who did not understand the mysteries of those lands.

The legends describe the Wendigo appearance in gruesome details. He is treated as a large creature, two meters high, but that can be bigger as a oak tree. The body looks strangely emaciated, as if it had somehow dried up and then stretched out. The limbs become very long and thin, with long arms and legs that give it a skeletal appearance. The skin becomes pale and the hair turns white and continue to grow in furred patches. In many representations he appears with a large antler or a moose skull mask, which enhances his feral appearance. The eyes glow reddish in the darkness, as if they were two incandescent stones. The fangs stretch and appear between cracked lips that also rescind until disappearing completely. The appearance is utterly bestial!

Even so, the monster is endowed with a sharp intelligence that betrays its beastly appearance. The monster is a skilled hunter and know the limits of its territory. The Wendigo is a predator in the fullest sense of the word, he lives to hunt and delights in the pleasure of slaughter and the frenzy of killing. The smell of fresh blood makes him uncontrollable. According to the legends, although large, the Wendigo is able to sneak without making a sound, grab his victims and take them with him, without being noticed. Sometimes he captures his victims, but on other occasions he is content to simply attack without warning, killing all invaders who had had the bad luck to enter his territory.

Some tribes believe that the Wendigo are able to control the weather, cause sudden blizzards and use black magic to their advantage. They are portrayed as despicable beings who end up accepting the curse caused by the spirits and who somehow extract from it pleasure. The Wendigo, however, are never satisfied and their existence is marked by a perpetual quest for satiating their wills, be they hunger, wrath or greed.

There is no cure for the curse of Wendigo, condemnation is for eternity since the spirits are immortal. A possessed individual is doomed to wander forever across the land trying to fill his voracious appetites.

The legend lent its name to a medical term: Psychosys of the Wendigo, which is considered by some psychiatrists as a mental disturbance occasioned by isolation and which causes cannibalism. Ironically, this strange psychosis was quite common among people living on the outskirts of the Great Lakes in Canada and the United States, just where the legend of Wendigo came about. Wendigo's psychosis tends to develop in the winter in  individuals isolated for long periods and under certain conditions of restriction. The initial symptoms are lack of appetite, nausea and antisocial behavior. Subsequently, the individual begins to experience hallucinations and believes to be transforming into something nonhuman, usually something bestial and primitive. People with this psychosis tend to develop cravings for consuming raw meat, sometimes human flesh. At the same time they become paranoid, believing that others are trying to devour them.

There are cases of Wendigo's Psychosis in which the victims present physical changes, assuming an undeniably animalistic face. There are documented cases with a disturbing details that fit perfectly into the curse described by the northern tribes. There are cases of Wendigo's psychosis reported for centuries. In 1661, a Jesuit missionary described the following case in the vicinity of the Province of Manitoba:

"What caused us great concern while we were among the native peoples was their strange superstitions. One of them referred to men being transformed into monsters after cannibalizing their fellows. In the tribal nations we hear such stories of respected chiefs. We were told that a man had been captured and was waiting to be executed by the tribe: The poor devil was accused of having killed and devoured a neighbor in the height of winter when he had nothing to eat. They believed if he was set free he would become a wild monster determined to kill and eat other people. The disease had no cure and that the only way to avoid further misfortune was to kill him before its hunger became unmanageable.When we returned of our journey through the interior and passed through the same tribe again we learned that the man had been executed as planned and that the tribe was relieved. To them, to have a cannibal among theirs was the ultimate transgression. Killing him would be the only way to restore normalcy to the tribe. "

Another widely documented case occurred in 1878 when an Alberta Cree hunter named Swift Runner suffered from a case of chronic madness. Runner used to trade with the Hudson Bay Company who worked in the region employing natives and buying wild animal pelts. The man was married, had six children and was respected by both his people and the men with whom he traded. He even served as a guide for the Canadian Mounted Police on official missions in Alberta and was awarded for the services rendered.

During the winter of 1878-1879, Swift Runner and his family became isolated on their property. His eldest son was the first to starve and at some point in the confinement in the house, Swift Runner had an episode of Wendigo's Psychosis. He killed the other members of his family stabbing them, consumed their flesh and waited for almost two months. In the late winter, the Canadian police officers, search the place and  found a terrifying scene. There were semi-devoured corpses all over the hut. Swift Runner then appeared: he was naked, covered in blood and growling like a wild animal. At great cost, the police were able to capture him. Eventually he confessed to his heinous crimes and was executed in Fort Saskatchewan.

A Wendigo allegedly also appeared in a small town called Rosesu in northern Minnesota in the late 19th century. He left a trail of corpses that terrorizes the local authorities, until disappear as mysteriously as emerged.

Another well-known case about Wendigo's Psychosis involves a guy named Jack Fiddler, a tribal chief and healer of the Oji-Cree tribe known to have once faced a Wendigo himself. Fiddler claimed to have killed the creature on a hunt. He said he was constantly pursued by other Wendigo who wished vengeance.

In 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities on charges of committing a horrible murder. The victim had been dismembered and parts of her body disappeared, allegedly having been thrown into a river. Jack committed suicide in jail. Before hanging himself, he left a long letter in which he recounted the circumstances in which he had killed the man and acknowledged his guilt. He claimed to have become a Wendigo after having killed a foreman to stay with his wife. He ended up being cursed, becoming a Wendigo and with his brother, killed an innocent and devoured parts of his body. Embarrassed and fearful, he finally decided put an end in his existence.

Joseph was tried for the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. He received official pardon almost 15 years later and was sent to a Psychiatric Institution. There, he ended up killing another intern (biting him) and ended up returning to the prision. Rumors say he would have escaped or else that the other prisoners would have murdered him in an ambush, no one ever know for sure.

Among the Assiniboine, the Cree and the Ojibwe, there is a ceremony that is staged during times of famine. This ritual exists to strengthen the bonds of friendship and fellowship among the members of the tribe through which food is shared so that no one goes through needs. The purpose is prevent a Wendigo arise in the community in the face of the despair caused by hunger.

Currently, cases of Wendigo's Psychosis are quite rare and many psychiatrists believe the condition has been eradicated. However, the Wendigo myth remains widespread among native populations living in northern Canada and the Alaska border. There are people who believe that the Wendigo and the evil spirits responsible for raising them continue to lurk in the woods, watching the taboos being broken.