 This is the Wendigo Mini-FAQ, compiled by our own net.wendigo. Eventually, I'd like to have mini-FAQ's representing all of the werephenotypes... if you know a lot of folklore and fact about your own were-animal, or just feel an urge to do some research and writing, put something together and mail it to me. Windigowak (that's the proper plural) are Shifters, like werewolves and the like...they tend to take the (natural) form of either a wraithlike being, a 2-3 meter tall skeleton of ice, or an emaciated 2-3 meter tall, hairy, slightly felid-looking-inthe-face critter with _very_ large fangs and claws. They can also go dim, and can (and very often, do) take their original human forms, the sole thing giving them away in the latter guise being the eyes (which tend to glow red). Windigowak have hearts of ice, visible in the ice- skeleton form, and voices that can be alternately soft as a whisper or loud as a tornado. Oh...and they tend to dine on anything they can catch, due to an eternal hunger...including the occasional meal of "long pig", if any of you know what I'm getting at... :) There are variants on this--at least one myth claims that windigowak also have animal-like feet, while another states they have but one toe. Other common names are Kokodjo and Atcen (pronounced AT-shen); the myth was all over, even if the names were different (In fact, the really proper name is _witiko_: it means something to the effect of "He who lives alone". I make no claims on knowing anishinabeg, so if I'm wrong, please correct me on the translation). Even the French- Canadians adopted the myth. As to how one becomes a windigo, there are several ways. One is to dream of the windigo spirit calling one's name (or even better yet, dreaming one IS a windigo). Another is to be lost in the forest and be called by the windigo spirit. A third is to violate tribal custom of the anishinabeg (Ojibway) by committing a transgression (such as eating human flesh) and being cursed to go windigo by a mide' shaman. A fourth way is to undergo a ritual that will affect the change. As to killing windigowak (note: windigowak are our FRIENDS, even though they eat human flesh...DON'T try ANY of this :), the most effective way (well, the _only_ effective way) is to burn it, the theory being the fire will melt the heart of ice. There are also stories of windigowak being cured; one involved pouring hot suet down the poor windigo's throat till he puked up the heart of ice, the other being one where (upon the first symptoms of vomiting "normal" food and looking upon one's neighbors as snacks) the mide' shaman attempted a cure using migis shells (ritual shells that had curative properties, and were blessed by the gods themselves). Now, to windigowak in myth and folklore: The best book of windigo myths I have seen is a book called _Windigo Psychosis_ (a psychology text that explored "windigo psychosis", which is much like the medical definition of lycanthropy). It lists all the major stories...quite a good book if you can find it. If not, any book on Ojibwa mythology should have a few of the original windigo stories in it. (You could also try Cree, Lakota, or any other northern tribe; it's pretty universal.) As far as fiction goes, the most famous windigo story is Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo"; it is one of the wraith stories, and is hands down the most imitated (Derleth's stories of Ithaqua in the Cthulhu Mythos are perhaps the most famous Blackwood inspirations). The Blackwood story ended up in a television show in the 1960s, and was in a comic in the 1940's. Also, recently a children's book was released ("Call OF The Wendigo") that was based heavily on Blackwood. Ogden Nash did a poem about the windigo (part of it goes "The wendigo/the wendigo/it's eyes are ice and indigo/it's blood is thick and yellowish/it's voice is hoarse and bellowish..."), and there are several good stories in the "modern" depiction of windigowak such as "Sins Of The Flesh", "The Unseen", and "Where The Chill Waits" (sorry, can't remember the author's names)...there is supposedly a song about windigowak that someone told me they learned in school, as well. Also, John Colombo put out a collection of windigo stories back in 1980; however, I can't find it, and it may well be out of print. There's crap as well in the fictional realm...the worst is Stephen King's "Pet Sematary", which so bastardized the legend the creature bears little resemblance to a windigo (and I refuse to call it such). I also have a personal beef with stories such as Slade's "Cutthroat" which make windigowak out as nothing more than overgrown apes! Alas, most of the RPG's are, well, crap. Shadowrun makes windigowak out to be vampiric orcs (eukkk!)...White Wolf does something unusual by making a Wendigo clan (tho' in a way they had made windigowak a separate race), and Dark Conspiracy does the finest job of the RPGs that has attempted to do a windigo IMO. For those who like the Blackwood windigowak, Call of Cthulu is quite good as well. (They all need work, tho'... :) And finally, windigowak in comics, and the "They Don't CALL it a windigo, but if it slashes critters to bits like one, and eats people for breakfast like one..." category: In comics, the only two "official" windigowak I've seen were the ones in Eerie Comics #10 (circa 1940), which was a good Blackwood imitation (but weren't they all then? :), and the one in the X-Men comics, which is utter and unmitigated crap. (And doubly inexcusable IMO...the original creators were Canadian, and should have known better.) As for the "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" category...there
are LOTS of contenders. There is a creature in the comic _Poison
Elves_ that is called a Doppelganger, that is much like a windigo in
many ways; there's Feral Jackson in _Strontium Dogs_, who looks _so_
much like the way I've always pictures windigowak (minus the height
and the body hair) that I swear Alan Grant, Garth Ennis, and/or
artists Harrison or Pugh _had_ to have heard of windigowak somewhere
(and if I ever see 'em at a comics con, you bet yer sweet Aunt Agnes
I'm askin' them :); there's the "manitou" in the "Shapes" episode of
_The XFiles_ that for all intents and purposes was a windigo (and yes,
windigowak ARE considered manitou, or spirits); and I even see some
similarity in the story of Grendel in Beowulf (there are reportedly
windigo stories as far west as Iceland, and "grendel" means "frost
giant")... This is my attempt at further clarification and expansion upon the collected information of shifters known somewhat generically among the cyberpack as windigowak or wendigos, which I will hereafter refer to by their proper name of 'witiko' (I use this name because in a dictionary of Native American lore, all other names for these creatures simply listed 'See witiko' for their definition.) 8) I would like to note that I fully support each and every thing that my sibling Wendigo-the-Feral said in the previous section; this is merely and addendum to what s/he has said already. "I WAS trying to tell you about the fact that the animal kingdom is dying, and because it is dying it is beginning to take heroic measures to save itself. That's why the spirit of the wolves beguiled your husband. The animal kingdom is after the mind of man." "In the West, it used to be thought that there were seven types of
personality. There are more than seven types! A type for every beast in
the animal kingdom. We are reflections of the whole of reality. Among us
there are shrew types, porcupine types, owl types, frog types, lion and
zebra types, eagle types. On and on. Often people change types when they
get dogs. That's why old people and their old dogs look alike. A bulldog
owner becomes a bulldog type. You have to understand the universe as it
really is. A hall of mirrors, and we are the mirrors. I hate to sound
like a broken record, but I would be able to do this better if I had a
beer in my hand." While of a northern Native American origin, the names witiko and windigowak have in these days to signify a wider range of creature than strictly the original Native creatures they once did: the witiko of today are instead of numerous racial and cultural origins from around the world. So the term 'witiko' has come to refer to the conglomeration of all such creatures, much in the same way that Celtic has come to refer to the amalgam of information and ritual associated with hundreds of Western European tribes, or that Native American has come to refer to any member of the numerous tribes of the Americas. In truth, the fundamental components of the windigowak occur in the lore and 'mythology' of nearly every culture across the globe: Redcaps and similar malicious fae can be found in Ireland and Scotland, the Grendel of the Scandinavian regions, the Wild Hunt in Britain and Wales, ogres and trolls of the Black Forest and Germany, as well as a wide variety of dragons and dragon-like creatures throughout Europe. In the East, there are the Rakshasa to be found in India, the Oni and Goblin Spiders of Japan and China, and literally hundreds more of which I am as yet unfamiliar. All my tribe share a few common threads: a monstrous appearance that is not simply abnormal, but the kind of thing that haunts the nightmares of the normal human herd; all witiko also possess certain animalistic traits of appearance, often incorporating multiple traits from several animals but being not wholly of any one specie's appearance - an important fact which seperates them from others of the shifting breed; and all witiko from around the globe prey in one form or another upon humanity, be it innocents and children, sinners and the unjust, or any of the vast flock of the human race. And most if not all share a singular angst toward humanity which ranges from disgust to hatred to blind rage, at what humans do to the world, themselves, or their children. So while all windigowak are unique and often of vastly differing appearance from one another, all are siblings under the skin or in the blood. We are all brothers and sisters, related peripherally to the other skin-shifters and therianthropes. But just where do the windigowak in all their multitude and forms fits into the scheme of things? Each clan or tribe of therianthrope is linked with their species: the werewolves of the world are representative of the lupine species, the werecats of the felines, the foxes of the vulpines, and there are even reptile and avian species of therianthrope. But where do the atcen fit in? Who do we represent? What are we, really? As I and the others I have talked it over with see it, the windigowak
in
all our chimerical variety have no one species to watch over, being both
all and none; instead we concern ourselves with safeguarding the welfare
and future of all the Wild, the embodiment of nature itself in all its
violent splendor. A witiko is a spirit of the wood and wild, seducing men
and women away from their campfires to run amok through the trees and prey
upon their brethren. We are more concerned about the limiting of Man's
power and return of the wilderness to the Wild than any one species of
animal. For more information on this subject, you can email the author,
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