Wendigo; The History Of A Vicious Man-Eating Spirit
I have been quite fascinated with cannibalism lately. Really, I'm worried but as long I don't have the urge to eat anyone yet, I should be fine. Well, I should be or else I'm potentially possessed by a cannibalistic soul called the Wendigo. That's right, today we are going to discuss something horrific which is called the Wendigo and one of the most popular psychiatric diagnosis in early 1900 known as the wendigo psychosis. Although wendigo psychosis seems legit, there is no or less medical literature regarding it, thus making it questionable whether the condition really existed or just been fabricated from the wendigo's folklore. There are a lot of back stories to the tale of Wendigo but one of the most popular stories was written in early 1900 by an author named Algernon Blackwood in which he wrote a fiction (or non-fiction, no one can ascertain the truth behind the write up) about a group of hunters returning from the Canadian Backwoods after being possessed by the cannibalistic spirits (Source).
The bad thing about being informed or trying to research a folklore is we don't know whether information related to it is true or not. Like many others, the story of wendigos don't start up with people naturally love to eat humans but rather they do so to survive a certain condition before getting addicted to human's flesh. Famine is a bitch and out of that harsh condition, there can be a lot of possibilities arisen especially from a degenerate anti-social freak. Not to be stereotypical but people do need to lose a certain level of fear in order for them to bypass that barrier that has been separating between rights and wrongs. Even with all kind of lore that people have been telling one another for generations, the question remains; do wendigos really exist or is it just a mean to legalise doing something? In 1906, it was found that one of the most bizarre things that have been done to repel wendigos after it possessed humans is to burn its human's host. The practice of burning sick people for fearing of them being converted into a cannibalistic creature has been a norm for a while in one of the largest tribe living in the Canadian forest called the Cree.
One of the members of the tribe called Jack Fiddler has been boasting his skill of killing wendigos while helping a lot of people from being possessed by the evil spirit itself. There were signs and symptoms that could indicate whether or not people are getting turned by the evil spirit and most of the documentation gave different sets of symptoms except for one; the fever. People who are about to turn into a cannibal will get a high fever, which, today we will usually consider infection as the first possible diagnosis. Turning into a cannibal seems irrelevant now but due to the lack of information and knowledge back then, it is perfectly fine to diagnose that. Nevertheless, Jack and his brother were arrested after killing 14 people claiming that they were already cannibals when they seek for treatment; there is no other way to do it. I know the accusation (or diagnosis) is alleged but people believe what they want to believe, eh? Eventually, Jack escaped and killed himself before he could be apprehended by the local authorities which ended the tales of one of the greatest wendigo's hunter ever lived; supposedly.
In my previous article, I wrote about how being a cannibal doesn't satisfy your nutritional need as human's meat contains less nutrient compared to other types of meat. There are a few tribes which have been practising headhunting and some of them are quite well known for their tendency to be cannibalistic. In Malaysia, Sarawak probably is the most popular region which is known to be inhabited by different tribes who practised headhunting for ritual and ceremonial purposes. It's an interesting subject for anthropological studies and a few kinds of literature have stated how this ritual is important for a specified tribe especially when they believe in deities that would promote prosperity through the capture of human's soul mainly contained in their head. Back then, they believe humans' life force can be harnessed slowly by keeping human's head close to them and since this is for the sake of strengthening the relationship between people within their own community, severing the head of their enemies are much more relevant than to provide sacrifices to satisfy those rituals.
Compared to most of the ritual cannibalism which has been practised for hundreds of years, being possessed by wendigo is quite different. In one of the folklore related to Wendigo, it was written there that Wendigo is a wandering spirit which would possess the body of a human who would die from hunger. It's like allowing a spirit to possess your body so that you can survive in any harsh condition but no one knew the price of making a "deal" with the cannibalistic devil until they crave for human's meat. In some cultures, cannibalism is an important ritual which had to be practised to maintain balances between members of their tribes while for others, cannibalism is a part of a specific ritual to be accomplished by a specific people in their own tribes. Let's take a look at the Gimi people who live in isolation and had the history of ritual cannibalism. Once, they worshipped a punishing deity called The Mother which has been feeding on the life force of their own people causing a few medical problems such as impotence, low breast milk supply and infertility. They counteract this problem by practising a cannibalistic ritual, mainly performed by women, who would eat their own son, husband or father. In this context, the cannibalistic ritual was performed to maintain balance, whatever that has been taken by The Mother should be replaced by consuming the life forces of other humans.
Apparently, making a deal with the devil will consume your soul. In the past, people who have the desire to eat human's meat were presented with some features that could have been described as psychotic in observation. People will become delusional and probably hearing some voices, asking you to eat people (auditory hallucination). According to a journal written by a group of anthropologists, if wendigo psychosis is a real psychological disease, then it would replace schizophrenia as the hallmark of the psychiatric illnesses. People who suffered from Wendigo psychosis seem to have all sort of psychiatric problems and if people were trying to differentiate the two (Wendigo psychosis and schizophrenia), the only difference might have been the urge to kill and eat humans' flesh; having that kind of obsession can really affect people in the shortest period of time. Try to imagine how would you feel if you are asked to quit alcohol as a chronic drinker. Yeah, you might think you can do it, but for the first 48 hours, you will suffer a few neurological consequences that could have been severe and for some cases, fatal. Now replace the alcohol with human's meat and extend the duration to longer than a month. It could be worse than that.
The difference between a normal cannibal and a Wendigo associated cannibal is whether they can control themselves if they weren't provided with human's meat for a specified amount of time. For a cannibal, human's meat is like foods, you have a lot of them, and sometimes, you have to commit yourself to vegetables or just drink some water to live but for a Wendigo associated cannibal, human's meat is like the air that we breathe in to live. They need to eat it or they will get crazy and violent. Scientifically speaking, we aren't sure of why people have the urge to eat human's meat when there are other meats that are more nutritious and readily available but getting yourself involved with the cannibalistic spirit is a really bad way to go. In the folklore of Wendigo, the spirit was thought to expand as they eat some foods making them hungrier with each meal. It is a symbol of gluttony and before we have the chances to examine people who might be affected by this condition, it just disappears. Seems convenient enough.
To illustrate how addictive human's meat is, let's take a look at some example in the animal kingdom. Some animals eat meats, some eat plants while the rest of them, eat both. It was speculated by various papers that if animals start to change their dietary preferences from eating other animals to humans, they will get addicted. Take a look at the history of lions that have been ransacking the Njombe's region. They always come for more and some people claim that even though there was a herd of prey located near to the housing area in the Njombe, the pride of lions still look for humans. Their attack on humans was documented as one of the darkest spot in the human's history killing approximately 1,500 people in the 1930s. Can we attribute their propensity to eat human's flesh instead of other animal's prey to addiction? Probably but it is also fair to say that compared to other animals, humans are weak and can be easily preyed upon.
What about the beast of Gévaudan which has been attacking close 200 victims? I mean, that particular predator even use some animals as baits to lure out humans. It's quite intelligent and frankly speaking, sounds more like a serial killer than an animal. All of these attacks can either provide us with some perspectives or conclusion to the question of what does human's meat taste like. Is it addictive? Well, we won't know for sure, aren't we? No, don't eat your cousin for dinner but if you do, can you E-Mail me how they taste like? :P
References And Further Reading Materials
- Wendigo Psychosis: the Probably Fake Disease that Turns People into Cannibals. Retrieved On September 17th, 2018.
- 12 Terrifying Facts About The Wendigo And Its Dark History. Retrieved On September 17th, 2018.
- Be Wary of the Wendigo: A Terrifying Beast of Native American Legend with an Insatiable Hunger to Devour Mankind. Retrieved On September 17th, 2018.
- Tales of the Wendigo -- Real or Myth?. Retrieved On September 17th, 2018.
- Ritual Cannibalism: Past and Present. Retrieved On September 17th, 2018.
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I remember sometimes hearing that once an animal in captivity has tasted human flesh, it must be put down, because it acquires a taste for it. I don't know if there's any truth to that since an animal like that should be put down anyway because of its violent propensities. But the idea that human meat can be addictive is still intriguing.
And I think that Jack Fiddler character is quite suspicious!