What Is A Wendigo?

I’ve spent part of this holiday watching (with glee) seasons 1, 2, and 3 of Charmed (a present from a very sweet family member who always knows exactly what I want/need at any given time – even if I have no clue). I just finished watching the episode where Piper is turned into a Wendigo and I found my curiosity aroused so I pulled out my handy dandy Encyclopedia of Fantasy to look it up. Yes, I have an Encyclopedia of Fantasy (I have the Sci Fi one too) and yes, I’m going to share with you what I read because it was really . . . neat, cool, awesome (well, you get the idea). So here we go:

WENDIGO: In Native American tradition – especially among the Algonquins – an evil spirit. Native Americans believed you could be possessed by a Wendigo and thereby turned into one, a psychosis usually manifested by way of devouring. its main attribute is that it eats people and can transfer that affliction to any it bites – the parallels with European myths concerning Vampires are obvious. The Wendigo has been likened to the call-of-the-wild personified.

Wow! The piece actually goes on for about another five paragraphs but I thought that would be enough to get the gist. Funnily enough the Wendigo is normally portrayed as either a spirit of the wind (no body) or as a giant skeleton of ice. So much for the cute, furry creature that Piper turned into (well okay, if you take away the orange eyes and icky teeth).

I’ve decided that once a week I will pull something from this encyclopedia to write about – that way I’ll get my research time in and you may learn something new and exciting too!

PJacks