Wendigo: Analysis and Dissection-IN PROGRESS
Preamble
Understand now, as we begin, this hunt was not begun lightly.
There are so many signs and events which led to this. Small and large. It is unfortunate, as with most greater movements in life, that knowing the movement does not tell yu exactly where you are as the movement ends. Your steps have already been predetermined, and yet things are placed, either of their own accord or by the actions of others, within that path.
The question that it really comes down to, is the Question of Ganesh. Is that which is in my path a part of what I was to move with and should be danced with,or something which through wish of it’s own or others has been placed to impede my progress.
The sad thing is that in “living in the moment”, you cannot ask these questions as you come upon the obstacle, you can only ask as you walk away.
Questions as to the why, how, and what of things dissassemble them, and they cannot move of thier own will, once a certain level of dissecton has occurred. The dissection can only continue. Cutting it to pieces till it is no longer recognizeable save in the recollection of an anatomical diagram. Continue until at last you come to the heart…or perhaps where in fact, if you’re smart and saved yourself no small amount of travial, where you were smart enough to start. Asking the questionof “HOW IT MOVES” immediatley bring something under direct scruitiny. Nothing under direct scrutiiny and observation moves entirely f it’s own accord. All actions flow from the center, and few creatures under observation whish to make what holds them together known.
When looking as that thing known as “wendigo”, you must know right away that which binds it at it’s center.
Wendigo has a heart of ice. And Ice is Water and Air, and Shadow.
And therin lies the means to it’s defeat.
I The Story Of it’s Motion
From Wikipedia.Com:
The Wendigo (also Windigo, Weendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is a mythical creature appearing in the mythology of the Algonquian people. It is a malevolent cannibalistic spirit into which humans could transform, or which could possess humans. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk, and the legend appears to have reinforced this practice as taboo.
Wendigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. This once occurred frequently among Algonquian Indian cultures, though has declined with the Native American urbanization.
The Wendigo 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 Wendigos 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 Wendigos were viewed:
| “ | The Weendigo 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 Weendigo 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 Weendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption. | ” |
At the same time, Wendigos were embodiments of gluttony, greed, and excess; never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they were constantly searching for new victims. In some traditions, humans who became overpowered by greed could turn into Wendigos; the Wendigo myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation.
Among the Ojibwa, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, and Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais, Wendigos were said to be giants, many times larger than human beings (a characteristic absent from the Wendigo myth in the other Algonquian cultures). Whenever a Wendigo ate another person, it would grow larger, in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so that it could never be full. Wendigos were therefore simultaneously constantly gorging themselves and emaciated from starvation.
Cheery, isn’t it.
Wendigo has a Lovecraftian counterpart (which in turn means something I will not touch on at the moment, but will come up later.) In the Lovecraftian Mythos. Wendigo is Ithaqua. Algeron Blackwood first fictionalized him in his story “the Wendigo”, and August Dereleth, not Lovecraft, created Ithiqua from it. Here is the description of Ithaqua of Derelith’s framework.
Again, from Wikipedia.Com:
Ithaqua is one of the Great Old Ones and appears as a horrifying giant with a roughly human shape and glowing red eyes. He has been reported from as far north as the Arctic to the Sub-Arctic, where Native Americans first encountered him. He is believed to prowl the Arctic waste, hunting down unwary travelers and slaying them gruesomely. He is believed to have inspired the Native American legend of the Wendigo and possibly the Yeti.
Ithaqua’s cult is small, but he is greatly feared in the far north. Fearful denizens of Siberia and Alaska often leave sacrifices for Ithaqua—not as worship but as appeasement. Those who join his cult will gain the ability to be completely unaffected by cold temperatures. He often uses Shantaks, a dragon-like “lesser race”, as servitors.
Ithaqua figures prominently in Brian Lumley’s Lovecraft-based Titus Crow series, ruling the ice-world of Borea. In Lumley’s works, Ithaqua periodically treads the winds of space between Earth and Borea, bringing helpless victims back to Borea to worship him among its snowy wastes. He frequently attempts to reproduce with humanoid females, hoping to create offspring which can surpass his own limitations, imposed by the Elder Gods, and so help free the rest of the Great Old Ones. It is suggested that Ithaqua has the ulterior motive of desiring offspring to assuage his bitter loneliness, as he is the only one of his kind. None of his surviving offspring to date has accommodated him, all turning against him at some point.
