The legend of the wendigo is rooted in the oral histories of North American tribes predating European contact. Anthropologists suggest it originated as a cautionary tale about community, deterring individual greed and isolation during harsh winters when survival depended on sharing resources. The first written reference to the wendigo appeared in 1636 from Paul Le Jeune, a French Jesuit missionary among the Algonquin in Quebec. He described a woman warning of an atchen that had consumed tribal members. The wendigo legend is linked to events of murder and cannibalism, notably Swift Runner in 1879, who claimed a wendigo spirit compelled him to eat his family. Jack Fiddler and his brother were charged in 1907 for killing a possessed woman. The lore states those who commit cannibalism or become possessed can transform into a wendigo, a monstrous being with supernatural powers. Various methods, from prayer to dreams, can invoke this transformation. Individuals might seek this path, craving raw flesh and growing claws and fangs. Native Americans, fearing the wendigo, would sometimes hunt it. Jack Fiddler claimed to have killed fourteen wendigos, illustrating the legend’s impact. The wendigo’s chilling howl signifies a terror that haunts the Great Lakes forests.
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The wendigo legend exists in the oral history of North American tribes predating Europeans’ arrival in North America. Some anthropologists believe the legend developed as a cautionary tale about the importance of community to guard against individual greed, selfishness, and isolation. The wendigo was a personification of cold and hunger in a time when human survival relied on banding together and sharing resources, particularly during the long, harsh winters of the northern wilderness. The legend may also have served as a warning to children not to wander too far into the woods.
The first known written mention of the wendigo appears in a 1636 report by Paul Le Jeune, a French Jesuit missionary living among the Algonquin people in what is now Quebec. Le Jeune described a woman who warned of an atchen that had eaten some tribal members nearby and that “would eat a great many more of them if he were not called elsewhere.”
A few instances of murder and cannibalism in North America were blamed on the wendigo. These included a case in Alberta, Canada (1879), where a Cree hunter and trapper named Swift Runner claimed a wendigo spirit had entered his dreams and told him to eat his family. He was tried for murder, found guilty, and hanged for his crimes later that year.
Another case occurred in 1907 among the Sandy Lake First Nation community in northern Ontario. The tribal shaman, Jack Fiddler, and his brother, Joseph Fiddler, were charged with the murder of Joseph’s daughter-in-law, whom they had strangled to prevent her from becoming possessed by a wendigo. After the brothers’ arrest, Jack Fiddler escaped the police and strangled himself, and Joseph Fiddler died from tuberculosis in prison in 1909. Exactly how and when the first Wendigo came to be is lost to history and legend. But ever since that time, the Wendigo has haunted the Great Lakes woodland and the cold forests of Canada for hundreds of years. Among all creatures in Native American legend, the Wendigo is the most feared and powerful. The Wendigo was once a man that broke a tribal taboo and ate human flesh. A malignant spirit possesses the cannibal, and the Wendigo is born.
How does one become the Wendigo? There are numerous ways among the Native American people, but the most common method is for a man to willingly engage in cannibalism. Hunters, campers, and hikers (not necessarily Native Americans) most often travel with a companion, someone with whom they are good friends and are able to trust. Although a rarity, when these people become hopelessly lost and eventually run out of supplies, they inevitably turn on each other. Morality has no part of nature’s law. In the end, only the strongest live and kills the other. The victor then feasts on the flesh of the corpse. This heinous, blasphemous act is all that is needed to summon a malevolent spirit of the forest.
The spirit forcibly possesses the cannibal’s body, forcing the human soul out. The moment the cannibal is touched by supernatural forces, he is overcome by extreme nausea and pain. He starts vomiting uncontrollably, for hours at a time. Eventually, the cannibal loses enormous quantities of blood, and inevitably dies. However, the body undergoes a terrifying transformation. The body grows in strength and height, growing a thick coat of white fur. The human’s strength and weight increases greatly, gaining supernatural powers in the process. The head takes on the features of a predatory beast, including the growth of prominent fangs and sharp teeth. The fingernails and toenails grow into sharpened talons, completing the transformation. The cannibal is then resurrected by the evil spirit, no longer a man, but a bloodlusting beast known as the Wendigo.
Although cannibalism is the most common and potent method, one can become the Wendigo through other means as well. Another common means is when a tribe is faced with a dire threat, a brave warrior prays to an evil spirit of the forest. The spirit agrees, possessing the warrior and transforming him into the Wendigo. This new form possesses more than enough power to deal with the threat, and after eliminating it, the warrior-turned-monster flees into the forest, never to be seen again.
The Wendigo’s spirit has been known to jump from body to body as its own body wears out, and possessing an individual causes them to become the beast. Dreaming of the Wendigo is another method, probably caused by possession during the night. Like other supernatural beings, the Wendigo is able to infect humans by biting them, causing the victim to become another Wendigo. A sorcerer’s curse will bring the transformation on as well.
However, there are depraved individuals who are willing to become monsters. They start by fasting for days at a time, and then journey into the forest. There, they offer their flesh to the Wendigo. Instead of devouring them, the Wendigo may decide to adopt the human as one of its own children. Over time, they become hairy, start to grow claws and fangs, develop a craving for raw human flesh, gain supernatural abilities, and become a Wendigo themselves (although these individuals are weaker than the monster that adopted them).
The Native Americans once feared (and still do) the Wendigo so much that small groups of brave, armed men once actively hunted the beast in the past. One, a Cree Indian by the name of Jack Fiddler, had claimed to have killed fourteen Wendigoes during his lifetime. He and his son, Joseph, were tried for the murder of a Wendigo-possessed woman on October 7, 1907. Both men pleaded guilty for the crime, explaining that the unfortunate woman had been possessed by the Wendigo’s spirit. On the verge of completing the transformation, the Fiddlers killed her with silver bullets, which they said had to be done before she turned on the tribe. As one can imagine, the judge and the jury were probably more than a little skeptical of the idea of the alleged “possession” of the woman.
In the end, the Wendigo is notoriously difficult to destroy, nearly impossible to escape, and will sooner or later devour its chosen victim. Its howl echoes throughout the surrounding area for miles, turning the blood of those who hear the Wendigo’s cry into ice. Not a monster that one could encounter and hope to survive.
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