So hey, in all these posts, I’ve focused a lot on well known pop culture monsters, but I want to take a quick detour into a monster which fascinates me even if it doesn’t get much air time nowadays: the Wendigo from indigenous Algonquin-speaking American cultures.

And quick content advisory: this gets pretty gory.

In times of scarcity, people often resort to desperate measures, but even in the barest winters, there was one line Algonquin-speaking cultures refused to cross. They believed, if a person ever became desperate enough to commit cannibalism, that person’s humanity was forfeit. Legend told that the cannibal would swell in stature, pulling the skin tight and revealing a skeletal frame underneath. Still-bloody lips would pull back revealing pointed teeth in a garish grin, and the creature’s eyes would grow keen as they sunk into their sockets. The newly-minted monster, the Wendigo, was blessed with supernatural speed, strength, and senses (not unlike werewolves from a few weeks ago), but it was also cursed with an eternal insatiable hunger for flesh. Driven mad by the hunger and the smell of its own decaying body, the Wendigo would forever lurk on the edges of society, shunned by those who used to be its people.

I love Wendigo stories because they show how a society’s taboos can enter into their mythology. If a member of these communities committed cannibalism, that person really would be ostracized and regarded as a monster, but the Wendigo story canonizes this shunning into the culture itself. To violate this cultural taboo was to become a monster. Many of our monsters represent deeper cultural themes, but few showcase a cultural taboo quite like the Wendigo. The Wendigo isn’t only a creature of nightmares; it’s a cautionary tale used to remind a society of its values. Sure, the image of the monster is pretty scary, but the real fear lay in having to leave behind one’s home and effectively lose one’s identity, doomed to roam the wilds driven only by hunger.

And that’s why the Wendigo is scary.