Larry Fessenden's deer-headed wendigo... was not actually deer-headed!

As Emily Zarka, Ph.D., helpfully informed us, the image of the windigo as a hideous satyr originates from the 2001 film Wendigo directed by Larry Fessenden. Fessenden also curated the book Sudden Storm: A Wendigo Reader, now sadly out-of-print.

(Technically, it was Matt Fox who seemingly invented the satyr motif in the 50s with an illustration of one for a printing of Blackwood’s story in a magazine. However, Fessenden seems to be responsible for popularizing the satyr motif outside the pages of that magazine.)

Although Fessenden popularized the satyr motif that now dominates Euro-American popular culture, his movie describes the windigo in an ironic manner. Take a gander:

Man: “A Wendigo is a mighty, powerful spirit. (...) It can take on many forms. Part wind, part tree, part man, part beast. Shapeshifting between them. (...) It can fly at you like a sudden storm, without warning, from nowhere and devour you – consume you with its ferocious appetite. (...) The Wendigo is hungry – always hungry. And its hunger is never satisfied. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. And the bigger it gets, the hungrier it gets. And we are hopeless in the face of it. We are devoured.”
Miles: “Is the Wendigo bad?”
Man: “Nothing between the earth and sky is bad. But there are spirits that should be feared, (...) that are angry. (...) Do you believe me? ”
Miles: “I guess.”
Man: “Go ahead and take it. Nobody believes in spirits anymore. Doesn’t mean they’re not there. He who hears the cry of the Wendigo is never the same again.”

The script is unambiguous. The windigo depicted therein was a shapeshifter. When it appeared as a satyr, that merely one of the countless forms it could assume. (It probably assumed that particular form since the cast was hunting a deer at the time.) It was never a satyr in truth, insofar as truth applies to trickster demons, but assuming the shape of one!

According to the back-of-the-book advertising blurb for Sudden Storm:

Between Algonquin mythology and field-noted cryptozoological points of view, the Wendigo is portrayed as a ferocious yeti-like monster, a half man-half stag creature, a troll, or even just the wind itself.

See that? Fessenden himself acknowledges that the windigo isn't really a satyr, but that stories depict however the storytellers please. Considering all the online chuckleheads who claim the satyr is the only "correct" depiction, it is the height of comedic irony that the guy who invented the satyr motif actually wrote the windigo as a shapeshifter.

Demons of the katardi family

So I had an idea for a monster. The premise of this idea is that the "wendigo" mentioned in Stephen King's Pet Sematary (the novel and both movies) was not a wendigo. Instead, I posit that this cemetery demon was the same sort of demon as seen in the Evil Dead movies.

Jud is the one to imply the the soured ground is haunted by a wendigo. Given that he is not Mi'kmaq and probably heard distorted versions of the folklore, he could have easily been wrong about the nature of the demon. Just like Blackwood and King themselves!

The cemetery demon displays none of the characteristics of a wendigo as it appears in Algonquin stories. It is not limited to acting during the winter, but acts year round. It is not motivated by greed or gluttony, but by more generic malevolence. It does not go around killing and eating people, nor possessing victims to do the same. Instead, it torments its victims with misfortunes, psychological manipulation and (as of the 2019 movie adaption of Pet Sematary) vivid hallucinations a la The Shining or Poltergeist. It possesses and reanimates the dead, using them to terrify and torment the living a la The Evil Dead or The Exorcist.

Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon featured a "god of the lost" who fans conflate with the cemetery demon from Pet Sematary, but there is no evidence of this in the story itself. Both demons appear and behave completely different. In the novel, the god of the lost appears as a wasp-faced demon that torments lost travelers with paranormal SFX until they die of exposure. Perhaps more importantly, the supernatural events of the novel are ambiguous and could have been entirely imagined by the protagonist. Only the 2019 movie adaption of Pet Sematary suggests any similarity when it adds hallucinations to the demon's repertoire. Addendum 10/4/2019: The "god of the lost" is similar to "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible," an imaginary demon that Rachel conceived to represent the influence of evil, the specter of death, and the bad luck inflicted upon the family by the presence haunting the cemetery.

In the Evil Dead movies, the "kandarian demon" possesses both the living, the dead, inanimate objects and trees as "deadites" in order to torment and kill people. Much like the cemetery demon needs victims to bury bodies on its burial ground before it can reanimate, the kandarian demon needs to be invoked by spells from the Sumerian Book of the Dead before it can possess victims.

There is a funny coincidence that I have to share! In the script for Within the Woods, a short film intended to pitch The Evil Dead to studios, the kandarian demon was called "Tinga." It was described as an spirit that protected the Native American burial ground (as if we did not see that trope a bazillion times). When the protagonists violated the grave of a medicine man, it killed and possessed victims as deadites.

Sound familiar?

Thus, I was inspired to make a connection between the cemetery demon and the kandarian demon. The reanimated dead in Pet Sematary are not wendigo zombies, but deadites!

Which brings me to another idea...

In an early draft of the script for The Evil Dead, the demons are described as members of the katardi family. The katardi inhabit forests and, while dangerous and omnipresent, cannot possess victims unless invoked or resurrected by reciting spells from a six-volume book of the dead. Only the high priests of the Ca'n Dar tribe were allowed to have these books, because they alone could control the demons.

Forest demons named katardi, huh? The common thread between the cemetery demon, the god of the lost, and the kandarian demons is that they inhabit forests, display crazy SFX, and have arbitrary prohibitions. In Minnesota, tales told to tourists describe the "wendigo" as a protector of forests. Is that a solid basis for imagining a new family of demons? Seems good enough to me!

Addendum 11/6/2019: YSDC CthulhuWiki has a page on deadites. It made the same connections.

Black spirit, basket ogress, and wechuge

During my research I came across bestiary entries for an ogre named Black Tamanous ("black spirit"), sometimes shortened to simply Tamanous ("spirit"). The name refers also to a supposed cannibal cult patronized by that ogre and to an annual winter ceremony or potlach held by them.

According to Encyclopedia of Giants and Humanoids in Myth, Legend and Folklore by Theresa Bane:

Black Tamanous (tah-mah-no-us)
Variations: Dzunkwa, Tsonokwa, Tsonoqoa
A cannibalistic monster from the mythology of the the Pacific Northwest Indians of North America, the terrifying Black Tamanous ("black spirit") would hunt for humans in the wilderness. When the Great Transformer cleansed the earth of all the evil GIANTS he somehow managed to miss Black Tamanous, leaving him to continue to plague the people.
Source: Rose, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons, 51; Underhill, Indians of the Pacific Northwest, 189

According to The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews:

Among the peoples of the North Pacific coast of America, Black Tamanous was the cannibal spirit who was overlooked when the Great Transformer rid the Earth of all the gigantic primordial beings which were responsible for bringing evil. Black Tamanous continued to stalk the Earth, bringing terror as it sought to gobble up people. He was the leader of the Cannibal Society among the Kwakiutl tribe. They met every year during the winter season to observe the ceremonial eating of human flesh.

This story seems simple enough, but further research revealed that it was far more complicated than it seemed. I could find few sources and none that I can confirm are firsthand accounts, so the information I have is sparse and suspect at best. The black spirit appears indelibly marked with a terrible history of racism, colonialism, appropriation, and blood libel.

The "cannibal society" was named Black Tamanous or Hamatsa (sometimes translated as "dog eaters" and "cannibal dancers") and the sources I consulted claimed that these were real, at least during the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was a secret society or fraternity among some Pacific Northwest tribes (the Black Tamanous being Klallam and the Hamatsa being Kwakiutl). It required high dues and feasts, so it was only joined by rich men’s sons. They were reputed to hold black masses where they blackened their faces and ate dogs alive in an orgy of cannibalism. Supposedly they performed such rites in order to influence demons against their foes. (Compare the hellfire clubs seen in Victorian England.) Given the tribes' unwillingness to discuss this issue with outsiders, and the history of colonial governments banning them from practicing their own religions, the veracity of these statements is questionable and it sounds like a case of blood libel. (Compare the "wendigo psychosis" historically used to oppress Algonquin tribes.)

Other more recent sources explain that the Kwakiutl Hamatsa or “cannibal dance” was far more benign in nature. Meat is Murder! by Mikita Brottman explains that the cannibal dance was intended to sublimate such harmful urges, not release them! The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, by Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye, explains that the cannibal dances were purely symbolic. The masked dancers would play-act the ogre Baxbakwalanuxsiae (“man eater at the mouth of the River”, often shortened to Man Eater), a monster comprised of gnawing mouths, and its raptor-masked companions as they decapitated victim roles and consumed carved heads and trophy skulls. This is comparable to, for example, the masked morality plays of the Korè cult of the Bambara people in Mali that were intended to scare viewers into good behavior by displaying the reviled habits of hyenas.

Some tabletop role-playing games took the cannibal cult idea seriously and ran with it. Shadowrun depicts the Tamanous as a human trafficking organization run by supernatural cannibals like ghouls. Chill depicts both the black spirit and the cult it patronizes, and invents additional details not found in the original myth: the black spirit may assume human form, leaves black tarry footprints, and specifically eats cannibals. Given the paucity of information on the myths, online gaming sites have produced increasingly distorted depictions while mistakenly assuming this is true to the original myths.

Possible descent?

The word tamanous (or cognates thereof) apparently appears in the languages of several Pacific Northwest tribes, including the Chinook, Klallam, and Kwakiutl. When transliterated into the Latin alphabet, spelling variations (or possibly conjugations) include tamahnous, taman’awas, tamanamus, tamánawas, and tamanoüs. It is typically translated as "spirit," but its exact meaning is broader due to the various contexts in which it appears. It is used as a noun for spiritual beings (including totems, guardian angels, and demons) and spiritual workings (spiritual power, divine medicine, healing acts), an adjective for objects that house spirits and medicine men who deal with spirits, and a verb for the act of influencing spirits. It may refer to various religious practices such as sacred rites, hobbies, dances, potlatch, and winter ceremonials. The most disturbing context in which I found the word was in accounts of the Pacific Northwest tribes being banned from practicing their own religions, although I suppose I should not be surprised.

Basket ogress

The names Dzunkwa Tsonokwa, and Tsonoqoa seem to be a conflation with another Pacific Northwest monster, the basket ogress. She is an ogress who carries a basket in which she places children she captures, and serves a similar role to the fairy tale hags in European stories. Such stories of cannibal women are found among many tribes along the Northwest Coast. (Cannibal hags appear to be a really old trope, like 30,000 years old!)

The sources I consulted did not explain if this reference was a mistake made by anthropologists or if the basket ogress and the black spirit are indeed the same. I personally suspect that "black tamanous" refers to any evil spirit and anthropologists simply confused this usage.

Compare Wechuge

The sparse origin of the black spirit as a survivor of the transition from primordial to historical times is similar to that of the wechuge found in Athabaskan stories. According to Dunne-za legend, in ancient times the world was the domain of giant animals that preyed upon humans. A hero arose and, with the help of watchful gods, he drove the monsters away into the underworld. However, he proved negligent and some of the monsters managed to escape the purge. They survived in a greatly reduced form, but no less evil and hungry for human flesh. They hide in the underworld just next to humanity, awaiting any opportunity to wreak havoc.

If I did not know any better, I would think these were different accounts of the same story. Given that both tales of the black spirit and the wechuge originate from the Pacific Northwest, I cannot help but wonder if the two tales share some common inspiration. If "black spirit" was simply a generic term as I suspect it is, then it makes sense that the wechuge would be referred to one. Given the lack of firsthand accounts, I strongly suspect that the sources I consulted conflated stories from different tribes that were not related.

(On another note, this backstory loosely resembles that of the Great Old Ones in the Lovecraft mythos. This backstory loosely resembles the beast giants of Norse myth too, which inspired Tolkien's Shadowfax and ultimately Moorcock's beast lords. I just thought that was interesting trivia to note.)

The Athabaskan peoples live in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps had contact with the Algonquin peoples in proximity, so wechuge may be a cognate of wendigo. Because of course it would be! Why would I expect otherwise? When discussing depictions of First Nations culture in Euro-American popular culture, you cannot walk two feet without hitting the wendigo.

Contrast Wendigo

Obviously, the cannibalism aspect has invited comparison to the wendigo of Algonquin belief. The two stories come from different tribes and are not related. The First Nations people were not a homogeneous monolith, so depicting cannibal demons from different tribes (or invented wholesale) together and as enemies risks promoting false stereotypes about real living cultures. In my opinion, if you are going to take a monster from another culture and mutilate it until it is no longer recognizable, then you should change the name to something else and not pretend it is related to the culture that inspired you. Especially not if the original story is blood libel, as it is with the black tamanous and wendigo psychosis.

Did we learn nothing from Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling? (Please do not cheat by keeping the name but sanitizing all connection to the original culture, such as by setting the story in a D&D campaign setting unrelated to Earth. Looking at you, Paizo.)

Conclusion

While my research leaves much to be desired, I think I was able to get the gist of things. The black spirit and its cult appears to be an amalgamation of stories from different tribes, blood libel against tribal practices, and the inventions of game writers. While I do not see myself reproducing these details in full, the idea of a satanic cult that worships an ancient cannibal monster and is opposed by a troupe of exorcists does have its appeal. Even before I heard of the black spirits, I was familiar with the idea from watching Butcher's Block and Mordeo.

On a related note, the mythic Pacific Northwest does sound like a nice setting for a game campaign. There are many different ways you can play around with devouring spirits without needlessly mutilating the original stories or conflating tribes as a monolith.

That’s not a wendigo! Part deux

What characterizes specifically pre-modern wendigo stories is that the monster itself is typically a man-eating giant (known in anthropology and comparative mythology as an "ogre") that lives in the cold. Hence the generic name "ice cannibal" used in comparative mythology. Due to the overwhelming negative influence of Western colonialism, the modern wendigo stories told by Ojibwa re-purpose the motif as a Mammon figure.

As I have said before, this is completely absent in appropriations of the wendigo name by Euro-American popular culture. I already went over some Euro-American wendigo depictions and how accurate or inaccurate they were. Keep in mind that the wendigo stories have changed over time and any matter of authenticity is decided by the surviving Algonquin peoples, not some random ignorant morons on the internet.

So I assembled a list of monsters in popular culture that are called or compared to "wendigo" by commentators, but never referred to as such in the original work itself. Most of these have nothing in common with ice cannibal stories, and comparisons are only made because of that stupid moose skull meme.

• The Beast, Over the Garden Wall.
• The Pestilent God, Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block. 
• Jersey Devil, The Wolf Among Us.
• Leshen, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
• Moder, The Ritual. 
• Cleric Beast, Bloodborne. 
• Kandar the Destroyer, Ash vs Evil Dead.
• The Mordeo, CryptTV.

At least thematically, some of these monsters display similarity to certain aspects of some wendigo stories. But these are largely generic forest demons, giants and such. Some might eat souls, brutally butcher people or be transformed from humanity, but nothing of that is specific to wendigo. "The Girl in the Basement" probably has more in common with the wendigo thematically.

Cannibalism granting you power at the cost of your humanity only plays a role in the stories of "the Pestilent God" and "the Mordeo." Both creatures look like the generic creepypasta goatman, yet the authors chose not to call them "wendigo." (The creator of the Mordeo explicitly stated that it was based on the wendigo stories, although obviously very loosely.) I will give the authors credit for not engaging in cultural appropriation, and I admire the ease with which they did so. So many other authors are too lazy to just make up their own names and mythology.

Fun fact: mordeo is Latin for "I bite, nibble, gnaw." Quite apt, don't you think?

Something I didn't mention in prior posts was that the "wendigo" has taken a life of its own in the folklore of non-Algonquin Euro-American settlers. Sightings describe it as a tall, hairy creature with antlers. It is alternately considered an omen of death, or a territorial protector of the forest that punishes trespassers and those who disrespect nature. These stories seem intended to promote tourism (Nathan Robert Brown, The Mythology of Grimm: The Fairy Tale and Folklore Roots of the Popular TV Show).

Screech owls are creepy

In a number of languages across the world separated by time and space, the names for screech owls have independently gained negative supernatural connotations.

Malevolent forest god meme

While browsing I came across the Leshen from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Originally only a vaguely described forest god in Slavic mythology, the game depicts it with a naked deer skull for a head. This immediately invited comparisons to the Euro-American faux wendigo, because nowadays everything with a deer skull is confused with it.

That's not a wendigo! It's the wild hunt!

As I recounted in my last post on the wendigo, modern popular culture has twisted the wendigo from a carnivorous demon of cold with highly variable physical features to what can only be described as a "zombie were-deer." This is not the first time that the wendigo myth has been mutilated by settlers, and it is possible to trace the changes over the years in the media.

Variations of the American Ice Cannibal, aka Wendigo

The Wendigo monster as portrayed in Fiend Folio 3e and Pathfinder Bestiary 2 actually has almost nothing to do with the Wendigo of Algonquin folklore except for being a cannibal. The part about flying and lacking feet comes from an Algernon Blackwood short story and the horns originate from an illustration in the June 1944 edition of Famous Fantastic Mysteries.