Inspiration: Wendigo/windago

I draw some of my inspiration for writing from researching new things that I hear about. I love learning and exploring. Knowledge is power, you know. So, here, I've shown you part of how I gather some of those new ideas throught some folklore. Folklore gives me ideas about how to form a base of a fiction piece. The myth of a creature can help me build up kind of a mystery creature in my stories, although fiction is not my favorite genre, this is how I deal with character development in some part.

Okay so, up late one night, I can aacross a show on tv talking about the wendigo. It spark some interest, so I researched it and here is what I found.

• The Wendigo is said to be an Algonquian native legend. There is alot of mystery surrounding the creature including the how it's name is spelt. Some spell it wendigo (like I have) and others spell it windago and whether it is spelled with a small w or a capital W. There's alot of stories of whether the wendigo is a spirit or if it was once a human who has been transformed. Also it's appearence differs. Some say that it is a big foot like creature while others still think that it is a very thin, icy, grey human-like creature.

• Algonquian legend states,"It is usually described as a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be completely made of ice. Its body is skeletal and deformed, with missing lips and toes." Eww...right.

• Retold by The Ojibwa First Nation, and it states, "It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes, the Windigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Windigo himself, hunting down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh. "

• There is even a medical diagnosis that is called Wendigo Psychosis. This involves people who are with a set group of people for an extended amount of time where their food and water supplies run low. Sign of this disorder are, at first poor diet, nausea, and vomiting. Later, they develop a craving for human flesh and delusions that they may become a Windigo like descibed above in the Ojibwa legend. At the same time, individuals have a phobia of becoming a cannible.

• In the show I watched, they show recovered footage of what looks like skin hanging from tree branch, all while hearing distant screams which you are told is suppose to lead people into its grasps. Its victims' skin was ripped off with muscle tissue in tact. It is also said that the beast is never satisfied with what it has consumed and that it will continue to eat human skin. It said that the windigo was thought to be created from the evil thoughts of cannibalism (as characterized by the pyschosis) and that it was thought to be an evil, demonic spirit that could possess people.
• These stories originated in Canada and Northwest America. Although in the 19th century there is a report of an attack in Illinois.
• There are even movies:

Scary, uh. Yea, this story kept me up all night. Good thing it was a weekend. I just thought that it was weird and something interesting that I had never heard of before. I love hearing about new things and going out and expanding my horizons a little bit at a time, even if it goes into a field I've never really explored, like cryptozoology.