Windigo

Alternate Transliterations

• Wendigo

• Witiko

Physiology

The windigo is an icy, undead creature, with a ravenous hunger for human flesh. The creature is a memetic parasite, existing first and foremost as a spirit entity, which then possesses a human cannibal and transforms them into an undead creature of ice.

In explaining the physical appearance of a windigo, we need to note that there seems to be a vast difference between how the windigos of traditional accounts are described as compared to the descriptions given in modern sightings.

The “traditional” windigo is almost universally described as a giant corpse, thin and emaciated, with torn bloody lips and sunken eyes. Occasionally the traditional windigo is described as having either claws or sharp teeth, but otherwise the windigo appears very much human, or at the very least, an emaciated, dead human.

Example of a "Traditional" Windigo

The “modern” windigo, on the other hand, is described quite differently. It still appears emaciated and humanoid, but the modern windigo has more pronounced claws, is covered in shaggy fur, and, most strikingly, bears an antlered deer skull for a head.

Example of a "Modern" Windigo

Which of these descriptions of the windigo is true? The answer, as we will see, is both, and neither.

The discrepancy between how windigos are described in older and modern accounts is not the only discrepancy in windigo description, there is also a difference in how a living windigo is described as opposed to a dead one. When old accounts talk about a living windigo, it is described as a giant corpse, as we have detailed above. However, when describing dead windigos, these same accounts will describe it as a giant creature made of ice, with the human being that became the windigo encased within the icy form of the creature.

These accounts are able to give two diverging descriptions to the windigo due to the fact that, when alive, the windigo possesses a form of memetic camouflage. The windigo’s true form is the form that has been observed when the creature is dead: it possesses a large, slender body made from pure ice, with the person who originally became the windigo encased within this ice-body. This ice-body possesses a large, gaping mouth filled with rows of sharp, icicle-like teeth, as well as two long, clawed, arms made from the same ice.

However, when alive, the windigo has a layer of memetic camouflage obscuring this true form (similar to the pinnacle grouse). This camouflage causes the windigo to appear different to the observer, informed partially by the observer’s own fears and beliefs. The earliest windigos thus appeared to be giant, emaciated corpses, at least until they were slain and their true form of ice was revealed.

But as the windigo entered into popular culture, the “wendigo” of fiction began to change, and as the underlying zeitgeist changed, the true windigo’s memetic camouflage has changed as well, changing to match the expectations of the populace.

The windigo’s camouflaged form first began its change with artist Matt Fox’s illustration for the novella the Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood. In this illustration, the creature was still roughly humanoid, but had the addition of fur and antlers.

The illustration that began the Windigo's memetic evolution

Later on, filmmaker Larry Fessenden created his own work titled Wendigo, combining Algernon Blackwood’s interpretation of the creature with a deer creature from a story that his schoolteacher had once told him. From here, the idea of the “wendigo” as a deer-headed humanoid took off within the broader sphere of culture, the deer head eventually further evolving into a deer skull to reflect the creature’s undead nature.

The costume from Fessenden's Wendigo, implanting the image of the deer-headed windigo into the zeitgeist

The true windigos have adapted to this new zeitgeist, preying on our fears by adopting this new form into their memetic camouflage. While the true form of the windigo is that of the giant ice-body we have described, how the windigo memetically appears to our eyes is based in part on our own fears and expectations. And as our expectations on a windigo’s appearance have changed over the years, so has the windigo.

The fact that the windigo’s true form is made of ice gives it a vulnerability to extreme heat, and its form will sizzle and melt if exposed to copper due to a sort-of supernatural allergy. Ultimately, however, the windigo can survive any damage dealt to its ice-body. The windigo can only be slain if the cannibal encased within the windigo’s body is dealt a mortal blow.

However, even then it is not a true death, as the windigo spirit will persist on, lingering in the area until an act of cannibalism is performed in the nearby vicinity, at which point in time, the windigo spirit will attempt to possess the cannibal in question, and gain a physical form once more.

The windigo’s physical body is created from such a spirit possessing a cannibal, much like how a hodag is born from a hodag spirit possessing the corpse of an abused animal. While windigos are commonly seen as symbols of greed and gluttony, the specific intent behind the act of cannibalism is not important. Someone who eats another human being out of desperation and necessity is in just as much risk of possession as a man who murders and eats another as a means of intimidating his enemies.

Once possessed, the cannibal will begin to act erratically, and begin to babble nonsense phrases. Gradually, they will try to lower the temperature of their bodies (often through stripping and running off into the wilderness), and will eventually seek out and kill other humans, using the water from these initial kills to create its ice-body and complete its transformation into a Windigo.

There is no known method of saving the cannibal, once possessed in this way, however the process of transformation can be halted. The windigo that has not yet formed its ice-body must be kept in a state of constant cold until such a time in which their ice-body has formed. However, if this process is interrupted, and the possessed is forced into a warm environment, the windigo transformation will not occur, and the possessed person will die, paradoxically with symptoms reminiscent of hypothermia.

There have been some accounts that claim a windigo brings cold winds with it wherever it goes. These are mostly a result of misattribution, a windigo does not bring cold winds and snow, but rather travels under the cover of the cold in order to best preserve its physical form, being made of ice. The windigo possesses some ability to keep its own body supernaturally cold, and can as a result survive warmer temperatures, but this ability is not to the extent of greatly affecting the surrounding climate.

Misidentifications

Many of Wisconsin’s creatures end up improperly identified as windigos.

The creature most often misidentified as a windigo is the night rider, a being of force and wind that has been observed throughout the state of Wisconsin. This is likely the result of similarities between the behavior of night riders with that of Ithaqua (see Behavior and Woodslore, below). Ithaqua’s subsequent association with the windigo has led to the mistaken assumption that the windigo is a creature that walks upon the winds and abducts people, and so encounters with, or possessions by, the night rider are often reported as windigo encounters.

The bearwalker is also commonly misidentified as a windigo. This is primarily due to Internet culture, which has conflated the windigo with the skinwalker, a creature from outside of Wisconsin, which bears some similarities with our native bearwalkers. Thus through misidentifying a bearwalker as a skinwalker, and the general confusion of a skinwalker with a windigo, the bearwalker comes to be misidentified as a windigo in a roundabout manner.

Bearwalkers, skinwalkers, and windigos have largely been confused with one another through Internet culture

On the other hand, windigo sightings are also sometimes misreported as bearwalkers due to a strange coincidence in popular media. The same year that Larry Fessenden's movie Wendigo presented a windigo as a deer-headed humanoid, Jeff Daniels released the movie Escanaba in da Moonlight, which presented bearwalker as a creature with "the body of a man and the head of a buck". Through shear coincidence, both creatures were reimagined as deer-humanoids in different movies in the same year.

The final category of windigo misidentification comes through misidentifying the victims of another creature as the victims of a windigo. Dead, partially eaten humans are sometimes blamed on a windigo, however this blame is nearly always misplaced. Unless interrupted (and often enough, in spite of being interrupted), a windigo will attempt to consume its victim in its entirety. As a result, a corpse that has only been partially consumed is actually evidence that the killer was not, in fact, a windigo, but something else entirely. Most commonly, the leavings from baykoks and hidebehinds, both of which only eat part of the body, are misidentified as the leavings of windigos.

Habitat

The windigo is not native to the state, but arrived with the Ojibwe in the 1700s. Through following the Ojibwe in the manner of a predator following migrating prey, the windigo moved into the north-eastern part of Wisconsin. Gradually, the Windigo spread itself west, possibly as far as Door County by some accounts.

The numbers of windigos present in the state have radically decreased since their initial spread throughout the 1700s, as acts of cannibalism have become rarer than they were in that period of time (the "Golden Age of Cannibalism" within Wisconsin), thanks in part to food in general becoming more plentiful throughout the state.

Windigo range of today compared to their widest extent in the late 1700's

The windigo is only active in the winter, hibernating in the summer. As the snows begin to thaw, a windigo will bury itself deep into the earth, entering a state of slumber. Throughout the summer, the windigo’s supernatural cold keeps it un-melted, deep beneath the earth. When winter arrives, the creature digs itself back to the surface, and resumes its hunt.

Diet

Likely due to its connection with cannibals and cannibalism, the windigo preys exclusively upon human flesh.

The windigo’s digestive system is a complicated affair, first documented in the 18th century by Brother Akiaakwaadizi. The body is torn into chunks by the creature’s claws and teeth, and is swallowed down a “throat” into the torso-cavity of the creature. This throat and cavity are further filled with jagged “ice teeth”, that further grind the consumed prey into a fine paste.

The windigo’s body, being made of ice, begins to absorb the water from the body of its victim, adding the water of its kill to the ice that makes up the body. When this “digestion” is finally completed, the windigo will vomit up the portion of its prey that was not water, which at this stage of digestion, is little more than unrecognizable dust.

Traditionally, the windigo is said to grow in direct proportion to what it eats, but this is only a partial truth. In reality, since the windigo absorbs only the water within the human body, it technically grows in proportion to 60%, give or take, of whatever it eats, though crystallization makes this growth appear greater than it actually is.

Through the experiments of the 18th century, it has been determined that a windigo can, in fact, absorb and grow through the consumption of any water or water-based life form that it consumes, however the windigo exclusively hunts and consumes human flesh. Unless force-fed by an overly-courageous investigator, it will not willingly consume anything else to give itself sustenance.

Even the water in the air, to a small degree, nourishes the windigo, causing it to slowly grow and recover from wounds even if it is unable to acquire any prey. Under no circumstances should one immerse a windigo in a body of water. While it will not consciously attempt to drink the water, the effects can still be disastrous.

Behavior

The windigo is typically single-mindedly obsessed with the hunting and consumption of human beings. Most of the time, it behaves almost mindlessly in this regard, seeking, killing, and consuming in a cycle of destruction until it is itself destroyed.

However there are exceptions to this. More intelligent windigos have been observed, using more cunning strategies and tactics, even using tools and speech, in order to more effectively consume prey. Rumors of semi-benevolent windigos persist despite a lack of hard evidence, as do rumors of windigos that only prey on “the wicked”. Most notably is an alleged windigo that dwells in the Death’s Door passage between Door County and Washington Island, and which only eats poachers and people from Illinois. However, stories of a windigo living in Death’s Door may be just another case of a misidentified night rider, as it is well known that a night rider dwells in the air near that area.

It has been suggested that a certain degree of a cannibal’s personality is preserved in that of a Windigo, and that especially strong-willed people account for the cunning variant, or the supposed “benevolent” variant, though gathering hard evidence for this theory has proven, as of now, impossible.

Windigo behavior changes when the snows begin to melt, of course. At that point, a windigo’s sole desire becomes retreating underground to hibernate for the summer. During this time, a windigo will not hunt even if a human is right in front of it, more concerned with safely interring itself for the summer weeks.

The holes left behind by a hibernating windigo resemble bear dens

As discussed prior, the windigo will not consume anything other than human beings, despite the fact that it could attain nourishment from other sources. This openly malevolent nature is evidence towards a darker purpose behind the windigo. Further evidence of some dark purpose or force behind the windigos can be found in the final piece of observed windigo behavior, a pattern of behavior that has been roughly described as the “windigo religion.”

Windigos have, on occasion, been observed to suddenly, and without explanation or warning, begin to act erratically, making strange twitching motions, walking in strange patterns, and suddenly babbling and chanting in human speech (in whatever language the cannibal spoke in life). The phrases that windigos have been observed making are, often enough, meaningless nonsense, but a few notable patterns have been consistently observed from multiple windigos, such as the phrases “burning feet”, “wind walking”, and “lord of the winds”, as well as the name “Ithaqua”.

A theory has been put forward by Brother August Derleth’s scholarship suggesting that the windigo spirits are the creation of some greater malevolent entity, and that the windigos retain some sort of inborn reverence towards this dark creator, explaining some of the pseudo-religious patterns we find within wendigo-speech.

Woodslore

Despite their dwindling numbers, the means to identify and hunt windigos have been preserved due to the danger such creatures pose to the general public. Their weakness to heat and copper provide the most obvious means of dispatching windigos, and there are some who manufacture copper bullets specifically as a means of dealing with windigos, as well as for hunting other creatures with a similar aversion to copper. It has been proposed that flamethrowers would be incredibly effective against a windigo, but this has been shown to not be as effective as one would assume. Ice can take a long time to melt even when exposed to flame, and so copper is simply a more effective weapon than fire.

Windigos are even repelled, somewhat, by the presence of copper, though not repelled enough to dissuade it from attacking a human. The experiments of Brother Akiaakwaadizi have further shown that a windigo spirit either will not or cannot possess a cannibal who is wearing a sufficient amount of pure copper jewelry.

The windigo is actively hunted by both thunderbirds and gnomes (in the case of the latter, almost always with the aid of the former), and records of battles between the species exist within Wisconsin folklore. While windigos will defend themselves against external threats like these, they do not actively seek out conflict with these creatures, as neither thunderbirds nor gnomes are of interest to the single-minded windigo, interested only in human prey.

The most concerning element of the woodslore surrounding the windigo is what is referred to by Reveeteers as the “Windigo Population Paradox”. Acts of cannibalism within the modern State of Wisconsin are relatively low, and the most notable examples of modern Wisconsinite cannibalism have occurred too far south to be in danger of windigo possession.

Thankfully, Milwaukee is too far south of Windigo territory for possession to have occurred

Yet every few years there are sightings forcing the Ancient Order or other similarly aligned groups and powers to hunt down the offending creature. Rarely do windigos reach the dangerous sizes they once did, and are typically dealt with in a short amount of time, but the number of such incidents is concerning. Simply put, then, the paradox is that the reported number of windigos within the state is greater than the reported instances of cannibalism.

This leaves us with one of two conclusions: That either incidents of cannibalism within Wisconsin are higher than popularly thought, and which go unnoticed. Or, more concerningly, that there exists some method of windigo reproduction that we are currently unaware of.

This brings us back to the topic of Ithaqua, the name frequently mentioned in the babble of windigo-speech. Ithaqua as an entity has found its way into recorded folklore in a number of certain places throughout the world. It is described as gigantic in size, though no one has gotten a clear look at it to say anything more than this. It either flies or “walks on wind”, and has been noted by Brother August Derleth as having been the entity behind a number of mysterious obscure abductions throughout time. The ultimate fate of the vast majority of these abducted is unknown.

Alleged photograph of Ithaqua as it passes in front of the moon

So the final question we must ask is a harrowing one: Are those who are abducted by this Ithaqua the windigos we now hunt?