Talk:Wendigo/Archive 1

Source Question

I am interested in the suggested origins of the name wendigo (ween dagoh, etc.) recently added to this article. Can the poster provide references for who proposed these origins?

Cannibals

First off, this is my very first Discussion entry in Wikipedia, so please forgive me if it's not true to form. I think stating that the dead returning from the Pet Sematary (or more accurately the Indian burial place beyond it) came back as cannibals is not entirely true. They sure did turn malevolent but even in the case of Gage Creed there is no hint in the book that he was hungry for human flesh. The other case we know of is the one of Timmy Baterman who didn't even actually harm anyone (if I remember correctly). I have not made any changes to the article since I'd like to wait for other users' opinions (and since I don't yet feel comfortable changing articles on my own account ;-)). Hope that someone can back me up on this statement.

SveTho

I saw the movie, and it did not infer any cannibilistic intent to those who were 'brought back'. Yes, they were malevolent and homicidal, but they wished to harm others, not devour them. I agree that part of the article should be changed Pendragon39 05:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

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Isn't this Ogden Nash poem a copyright violation? It was published in 1936 in the collection Custard and Company. Ed Cherlin 4:14, 9 Aug 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so - because it's actually just an excerpt of a longer poem. DS 17:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that cannibals are real. People who eat other people for any reason should not be judged b/c of it.

Question

I noticed in the episode of "Supernatural" it was pronounced (when-DEE-go). I've always said it (WHEN-di-go). Which way is proper?

-Luke

Either. The Supernatural website links here, oddly.

-"Supernatural" has an incorrect pronounciation. The latter mentioned above, pronounced 'when-di-go', is the correct and generally accepted version.

Obviously, this doesn't apply to the English pronunciation of the name, but the Ojibwe name is Wiindigoo, pronounced /wiːndiɡoː/~/wiːndiɡuː/ (or approximately "WEEN-dih-GOE" or "WEEN-dih-GOO"). The various forms of the name come from Ojibwe or related Algonquian languages, but I don't know the specific forms of the name in other languages. I don't know the proper pronunciation in English, actually... --Whimemsz 01:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This article fails to discuss the Wendigo in Psychiatry

The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry has articles which discuss the Culture Bound Syndrome, Wendigo Psychosis. There have been court cases where "insanity" or the belief that one was the Wendigo has been used as a defense. Current research has revealed stories, from living Native Americans, of people who were effected by the dissociative break and began to believe they were either becoming the Wendigo or were being chased by a Wendigo. One account reports an execution of a tribal member who exhibited symptoms of psychosis.

Mental events have happened on scientific expeditions that copied the conditions, which caused the episodes of Wendigo Psychosis. The most important of these was the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898. Eighteen normal sailors and scientists began to go insane when the Belgica became frozen in polar ice, ("Through the First Antarctic Night," Cook)

Those crewmembers did not have a cultural belief in the bogeyman, Windigo. Instead they exhibited extreme depression, one man became a deaf mute, one hid in small remote spaces to sleep fearing the others were plotting to kill him, psychotic paranoia, another died from fear, heart attack.

It all stopped when the ship was hacked from the pack ice and began the trip home.

L K Tucker 18:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Culture_Bound_Syndromes.htm

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Chaco_Canyon.htm

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity.htm

No Sources

I dont beleive that this article should be included as it fails to provide viable sources. None of the statements made refer to the actual condition of "Windigo Psychosis".

I've removed the section from the article. The entire section consisted of two sentences that were not informative at all. Please include more info and provide a source before replacing. CPitt76 17:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge

The section on Wendigo in Ithaqua is source-free and has a strong original research feel, not to mention let's-pretend-it's-real approach to discussing an imaginary subject. Just about all of it could be cut, with no need to merge--I might put it all on the Wendigo talk page and people can salvage anything they feel like. Nareek 05:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Maine

I read in the Lewiston Sun Journal (which put this site as a reference for possible animals) that the Turner Beast is thought to be a wendigo, or at least reported to be by people who've seen it. (though I think that it was something like a hyena-dog, either from the extinct species or a cross-breed)

Trivia

Why is this article still in the "Articles with large trivia sections" category when it doesn't even have a trivia section? 4.239.66.217 03:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Picture?

Surely someone has depicted it one time or anyother in a non-copyrighted form? --Lenoxus 19:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

State of the article

I've given my thoughts in the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Anishinaabe box at the top of the article (or you can read them by following this link: /Comments). --Miskwito 06:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It only transforms during the three stages of the full moon. Then it searchs and kills it's victems by cutting out their hearts and eating them.

Stephen King's Pet Sematary

I've read the novel three times now. There are several mentions to the wendigo on it, some of them could fit in the article somehow. Please, somebody who has read it as well, could write a line or two?

I'm not an english native speaker, sorry —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I1100a (talk • contribs) 15:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

I gave it a sort of brief parenthetical note for now. I haven't read the book, though, so I myself can't really say more than that. --Miskwito 18:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Johnathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy

There are parts in the trilogy where it tells Bartimaeus is a Wendigo-Bartimaeus is a shapeshifter

Jack Fiddler, Windigo Psychosis, and historically-documented windigos

I just started an article on Jack Fiddler, an ogema who was famous for his ability to defeat the windigo and who was arrested at the end of his life for killing a woman in his band that had become possessed by it. I think it would be appropriate to link somewhere in this article, but I don't know where the right place would be. I think it would be POV to put it in the Windigo Psychosis section since that would be saying that the several windigos he killed were in fact mentally-ill people. The main academic source, (Killing the Shamen by Thomas Fiddler and James Stephens) would not be comfortable framing it this way and neither would I. References to people who were killed after going windigo are not all that rare in the historical record. Unfortunately, I don't have the book next to me anymore, but there should probably be a less-POV way we could present historic incidents. Leo1410 18:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A better solution, perhaps, would be to frame the idea that all cases of Windigo Psychosis were culture-specific psychological disorders as the view of psychologists and anthropologists. In other words, to make that section written more neutrally concerning the reality of Windigo spirits actually possessing people; if that were done correctly, I think mention of Fiddler could be added. I'll try to come up with something today --Miskwito 18:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Swift Runner

I corrected the Swift Runner portion of the article. Now, it reads "During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Within just 25 miles of emergency food supplies at a Hudson Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children.[19] Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner's was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather a man suffering from Windigo Psychosis..." However, it seems to me that the detail of the eldest son died is important because this type of psycosis comes "often as a result of prior famine cannibalism." So, either it needs to be explained that Swift Runner consumed his first dead son and then continued to kill or it should not be worth the mention in the story as it would be irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.64.199.210 (talk) 07:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)