The Fear of the Windingo

Each quarter, a group of students, faculty, and staff at WWU convene an environmental justice reading group to read and discuss recent texts. This quarter (Fall 2019) the group is reading Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. The following entry reflects the group’s discussion last week.

The Fear of the Windingo

By: Malene Garcia and Ling Qi

 

The Myth of Windigo originated from Native American Algonquian tribes from Nova Scotia to Great Lake Region of Canada. Different regions had their own unique descriptions of Windigo. In summary, Windigos can be categorized into two major types: snowman-like Windigo (mostly developed with ice with long tusks in the mouths) and deerman-like Windigo  (mostly covered with dry and furry skin tainted with blood, had deer horns growing on their heads). Despite the differences in descriptions, different versions of Windigos share similar characteristics: Windigos were all transformed from humans, they are giants, they are eternally hungry and unsatisfied, and Windigos will not hesitate to consume their own species when there’s a shortage of food. Through the psychological and anthropological evidence from the studies of indigenous culture, researchers suggested the creation of Windigo was originated by indigenous people’s struggles with extreme weather and starvations, fear of death, confusions with human greed, and their efforts to thrive and survive in sustainable ways. Indigenous people also saw the tale of Windigo as the opportunity to educate their younger generation to respect natural cycles, suppress inner greed, prevent spiritual corruption and social taboos such as cannibalism, and to be aware of the dangers in the wild. The Windigo themed ceremony, Wiindigookaanzhimowin, was regularly performed during times of starvation among indigenous tradition, to remind people cannibalism conduct is a taboo, a sign of weakness and corruption, and will not be tolerated.

One example of a myth from another society that has parallels to the Anishinaabe people’s Windigo if the story of Erysichthon. In this story Erysichton is a King in Greek mythology. After chopping down a tree in the woods where rituals for Demeter (the goddess of agriculture) were performed, she placed a curse of insatiable hunger on Erysichton. He ended up spending all his fortune on food to feast on. The more he ate, the hungrier he became. This hunger became so strong that he sold his daughter off as a salve to be able to get more money to buy more food. His daughter prayed to Poseidon, who turned her into a donkey so that she could escape unnoticed. After going back to help her father, he sold her again to get more money to feed his ever-growing hunger. His story ends with him going back into the woods to beg for Demeter’s mercy. She ignores him, and he ends up spending the night eating himself until there is nothing left of his body. This story starts out with a punishment for disrespecting nature by taking too much of the land’s resources for greed. It explores the idea of taking only what we need from the land, otherwise we could end up just as Erysichton and not be able to contain our greed until it becomes harmful to ourselves and those around us. This has a lot of similar themes to the story of Windigo who was a person who turned into a monster that eats people and cannot control its hunger.

Historically, the myths of dragons in Europe shared great similarities with the myths of Windigo. Just like Windigo, in Anglo-Saxons epic poem, Beowulf, dragons were also described as horrifying, irrational and greed-oriented being that eternally conflicting with humans. The dragons in Norse mythology were no exception. Take the dragon Fafnir, for example. The dragon was also formerly human, the son of the king Hreidmar, driven by the thirst for cursed fortunes, he killed his own father and transformed into an evil dragon. However, what differentiates European myths of dragon from indigenous myths of Windigo is that the creation of European dragon was to set the stage for heroism, which provides us with one of the European perspectives of sociological strategies of survival in ancient times.

Across cultures, communities have developed stories that display the dangers of greed and its positive feedback loop. All three characters have a hunger for greed so strong that they aren’t able to go back to living a normal life. These stories teach the importance of living sustainably. In some stories that is portrayed as finding ways to get through nature’s harsh conditions, in others it is respecting the land and its resources. While myths like these are not as commonly told in American culture today, the effects of greed can still be felt and seen in the environment, and so it is still important that we recognize the importance of sustainability.

Works Cited:

Goddard, Ives (1969). “Owls and Cannibals: Two Algonquian Etymologies”.

         Paper presented at the Second Algonquian Conference, St. John’s,

         Newfoundland.

Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific

         Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Published by Milkweed Editions.

“World Environment Day and the Myth of Erysichthon.” The National Herald, 30

         May 2016, https://www.thenationalherald.com/125507/world-

         environment-day-and-the-myth-of-erysichthon/.

 Wyld, Henry Cecil (1946). The Universal Dictionary Of The English Language. p.

         334.