"Legends of The Great Ojibway" (Part I)

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Windigo
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"Windigo", © 1977 Norval Morrisseau

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The Windigo (also Wendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is part of the traditional belief systems of various Algonquian-speaking tribes in the northern United States and Canada, most notably the Ojibwa/Saulteaux, the Cree, and the Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais. Though descriptions varied somewhat, common to all these cultures was the conception of Windigos as malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural beings (manitous) of great spiritual power. They were strongly associated with the Winter, the North, and coldness, as well as with famine and starvation. Basil Johnston, an Ojibwa teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives one description of how Windigos were viewed:

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"The Windigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Windigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody [....] Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Windigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."

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Source: WIKIPEDIA

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* The painting in this posting: "Windigo", 40"x31", © 1977 Norval Morrisseau /Private Collection/