Meaning of windigo | Babel Free

Definitions

Alternative spelling of wendigo.

alt-of, alternative

Examples

“A windigo is an Indian who has eaten, or who (perhaps a poor lunatic) says he wants to eat⟳, human flesh. At Sturgeon Lake (Bishop Clut tells us), among the Indians uninfluenced by religion, there were some supposed windigos. A sudden fear of them seized upon the other Indians, and they executed one windigo. The important point⟳ in such a case was to make⟳ the cannibal vomit up the ice which he was supposed to have⟳ in his inside.”

“"Windigo psychosis" has been the most celebrated culture trait of the Northern Algonkian peoples for almost half a century. […] The conclusion reached is that, although aspects of the windigo belief complex may have⟳ been "components in some individuals' psychological dysfunction" (Preston 1980: 128), there probably never were any windigo psychotics in the sense⟳ that cannibalism or murder⟳ was committed to satisfy⟳ an obsessional craving for human flesh. It is argued, rather that windigo psychosis as an etic/behavioral form⟳ of anthropophagy is an artifact of research⟳ conducted with an emic/mental bias.”

“The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.”

“The noun windigo [Ojibwa wīntikō, Cree wīhtikōw] refers to one of a class of anthropophagous monsters, “supernatural” from a non-Algonquian perspective, who exhibit grotesque physical and behavioral abnormalities and possess⟳ great spiritual and physical power.”

“No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring⟳ from the earth.”

CEFR level