Wendigo

Quick meaning: Wendigo is a noun meaning Synonym of splake (“kind of hybrid fish”).

Meaning

Synonym of splake (“kind of hybrid fish”).

More Meanings

1. (mythology) A malevolent and violent cannibal spirit found in Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, and Cree mythology, which is said to inhabit the body of a living person and possess him or her to commit murder.

Example Sentences

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

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.

Through the pine woods of Keewaydin, / Over the snows of Shebandowan, / The Wendigo roams in the winter's frost / And pursues to destruction the hunter. / Yet no man can meet with the Wendigo, / No man can face him or see him; / Only his track in the snow is seen, / And lost is the hunter that sees it. […] The heart that ne'er quailed on the war-path / Turns to stone at the name of the Wendigo.

Word Forms

• wendigos
• wendigoes

Synonyms for wendigo

Depending on context, synonyms include wetiko, witigo, witiko, splake.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include windago, windigo, wechuge, wyakin, devil, ogre.

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