Reviving witiko (windigo): An ethnohistory of "cannibal monsters" in the Athabasca district of northern Alberta, 1878-1910

Ethnohistory

Volumn 56, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 355-394

  Carlson, Nathan D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 70350037789     PISSN: 00141801     EISSN: 15275477     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2009-001     Document Type: Review

References (180)

1. See, for example, Robert A. Brightman, "The Windigo in the Material World," Ethnohistory 35 (Fall 1988): 346-51, and the evidence presented in the text of this paper.
2. See James B. Waldram, Revenge of the Windigo: The Construction of the Mind and Mental Health of North American Aboriginal Peoples (Toronto, 2004), 18, 194.
3. Peter J. Guarnaccia and Lloyd H. Rogler, "Research on Culture-Bound Syndromes: New Directions," American Journal of Psychiatry 156: 1322-27.
4. Wen-Shin Seng, "From Peculiar Psychiatric Disorders through Culture-Bound Syndromes to Culture-Related Specific Syndromes," Transcultural Psychiatry 43 (December 2006): 568; and others appearing in print and on the Internet. Papers such as these use Louis Marano's writings (see note 79) as support for assertions that windigo psychosis does not exist, and by implication, that a windigo condition does not exist either (see note 11). While papers written prior to Robert Brightman's article ("The Windigo in the Material World," 1988) are excused from this critique, such writings as those listed above, and others composed post facto, postulate, without clarification or new evidence, that windigo is a discredited artifact of cultural anthropology. Despite evidence to the contrary, this is still a prevalent and tenaciously held position. It is assumed here that continual references to Marano's hypothesis for explanations of windigo are the result of incomplete literature reviews (by unintentionally ignoring or deliberately excluding Brightman's foundational article on the subject) or of a desire to perpetuate the idea that windigo behavior is nothing more than a fabrication, in either historical records or oral traditions. While this position has a measure of moral and political legitimacy to it ("windigo psychosis" as such expounding notions of "Orientalism" on northern Algonquian cultures, i.e., exoticizing them as "savage cannibals"), when measured against the facts and evidence it has only limited applicability. Superficially, just because the evidence supports the historicity of "windigo" behavior, this notion, in and of itself, cannot be used to exoticize northern Algonquian cultures as "savage" or "cannibalistic"; windigo behavior and cannibalism were, and still are, abhorrent and repugnant to the cultures and societies belonging to the northern Algonquian linguistic grouping. See Johann Georg Kohl, Kitchi-Gami: Life among the Lake Superior Ojibway (St. Paul, MN, 1985 [1850]), 356.
5. The title of this article can be interpreted in two ways: Aside from the ideal of "reviving" witiko from skeptical dismissals, in reference to the "revitalist" or "apocalyptic" prophetic religious movement invoking the witiko (as discussed in the body of this paper), the title can also be understood as referring to "revitalization" movements throughout history, such as the Ghost Dance of the American Plains. In this instance, the revitalization movement refers to the use of witiko as symbol for a cataclysmic force that was believed to be coming to visit the local native residents of Athabasca (in the form of Christian missionaries and settler societies, etc.), and alternately, for a cataclysmic force that was going to rise up and destroy the perceived "interlopers." In this case, "reviving" witiko implies a revitalization movement where the impetus to return local beliefs and culture patterns to a "primordial" or "pristine" state was catalyzed by a predominant fear of the witiko monster-and its metaphorical havoc-reflected in cultural breakdown, the loss of land, proselytization, and oppressive colonialism. See Michael Harkin, ed., Reassessing Revitalization: Perspectives from North America and the Pacific Islands (Lincoln, NE, 2004). An interestingly similar movement is discussed in an article by Jennifer S. H. Brown, "The Wasitay Religion: Prophecy, Oral Literacy, and Belief on Hudson Bay," in Harkin, ed., Reassessing Revitalization, 104-23. Like the Athabasca Windigo Prophecy, the Wasitay movement was a revitalization movement evoking windigo imagery.
6. The "Algonquian" nations described in this study are a diverse grouping of indigenous societies with unique culture patterns and beliefs, and are only categorized together linguistically for the similarities in their languages, and, for the purposes of this paper, their shared belief in the witiko (windigo) monster in its varying incarnations. The Algonquians referred to in this paper include the Cree peoples (of the Plains, Woods/Rock, Swampy, Moose, and Eastern dialects), the Ojibwa (Anishnabe), Saulteaux, and, with respect to the region covered in this discussion, the Métis of northern Alberta, who were (in many cases) culturally, genetically, and legally indistinct from the Athabasca Crees prior to the Treaty 8 Commission of 1899. See G. Neil Reddekopp and Patricia Bartko, "Distinction without a Difference? Treaty and Scrip in 1899," in "Treaty 8 Revisited: Selected Papers on the 1999 Centennial Conference," ed. Duff Crerar and Jaroslav Petryshyn, special issue, Lobstick: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Thought, Social Commentary, Scholarly Research, and and Scrip," in "Treaty 8 Revisited," 259-76.
7. David Leonard and Beverly Whalen, eds., On the North Trail: The Diary of O. C. Edwards (Edmonton, AB, 1996), xii.
8. Across Canada, windigo is known by a variety of terms: wîhtikôw (northern Alberta Cree and Métis), atoosh (James Bay Cree), and wîntikô (Ojibwa), among others. Legendary monsters cognate to the Witiko include Chenoo of the Micmac-see Harold McGee, "Windigo Down-East, or the Taming of the Windigo," in Proceedings of the Second Congress, Canadian Ethnology Society, vol. 1, ed. Jim Freedman and Jerome H. Barkow (Ottawa, 1975), 110-32-Wechuge of the Beaver-see Robin Ridington, "Wechuge and Windigo: A Comparison of Cannibal Belief among Boreal Forest Athapaskans and Algonkians," Anthropologica 18 (1976): 107-29-and Stoneclad of the Cherokees-see Raymond Fogelson, "Windigo Goes South: Stoneclad among the Cherokees," in Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence, ed. Marjorie M. Halpin and Michael M. Ames (Vancouver, BC, 1980), 132-51.
9. The notion of a Western framework may suggest a viewpoint that is too generalized or monolithic. While the indigenous people discussed in this article certainly exist within the idea of the West, what I imply by this idiom is a Western, nonindigenous epistemology, primarily founded upon scientific enquiry, materialism, positivism, and a rationalism that discounts notions of supernatural phenomena, the nonmaterialistic aspect of human consciousness, spirit entities, monsters, and spiritual "power" or indigenous "medicine." I understand that not all Westerners ascribe to such a viewpoint, and as such, this paradigm may not encapsulate, or correctly describe, their own viewpoints or beliefs. The usage of the term Western in this article refers solely to the current Western scientific paradigm, and not to "Westerners" (nonaboriginal Europeans or North Americans) themselves, whether or not they ascribe to such a perspective.
10. In her lifetime, Marie Carlson served with the Métis Association of Alberta (a political organization representing the provincial Métis and nonstatus Indian population), worked as a camp cook in the Canadian arctic and switchboard operator for Alberta Government Telephones, and campaigned for office in the legislative assembly of the government of Alberta (the first aboriginal woman to do so-Joyce Johnson, personal communication, 2005).
11. Edmonton Bulletin, Feb 24, 1896, p. 1.
12. "Wapiska Lakes," Edmonton Bulletin, 16 April 1896. Emphasis added; cf. "A 'Wehtigo' Murdered," Manitoba Free Press, n.d., 1896. According to other accounts by eyewitnesses and others, as cited in this article, the body was decapitated and buried-not cremated. Moreover, Napanin arrived at Trout Lake in the beginning of January, according to the numerous other sources cited herein, and not at the end of January as the Bulletin reported.
13. Joseph E. Guinard, "Witiko among the Tête-de-Boule," Primitive Man (now Anthropological Quarterly) 3 (1930): 69.
14. cf. Rogier Vandersteene, "Some Woodland Cree Traditions and Legends," Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 1 (1969): 63.
15. Alternately, Witiko is sometimes described humorously in the atâyohkewina as a comical trickster figure, counterpart to the Cree culture hero Wesakecâhk-see Anne Anderson, Legends of Wēsakēchā (Edmonton, AB, 1976), 26-28.
16. James Stevens, Sacred Legends of the Sandy Lake Cree (Toronto, 2003), 29-30.
17. In this article, witiko (windigo) is described using the neutral term "condition" to avoid preferential treatment of either Algonquian or Western scientific epistemological frameworks.
18. See Regina Flannery, Mary E. Chambers, and Patricia Jehle, "Witiko Accounts from the James Bay Cree," Arctic Anthropology 19, no. 2 (1982): 55-78.
19. Howard Norman, Where the Chill Came From: Cree Windigo Tales and Journeys (San Francisco, 1982) for a discussion of Cree windigo legends and stories. The atâyohkewina and the kayâs acimowina are both extremely rich and multifaceted bodies of Cree and Métis oral traditions. While brief segments of the kayâs acimowina are described and cited in this article, a comprehensive study of oral traditions on witiko would constitute a work unto itself, particularly in corroboration with historical records. While this article treats almost exclusively with references to witiko in surviving written historical records, I have recorded and transcribed several oral stories by a variety of Cree and Métis elders from northern Alberta, and am in the process of collecting more. An article or book is forthcoming on this material (provisionally titled "Windigo: Emerging from the Shroud of Legend"), in which a number of transcribed oral stories and archival materials will be cited and accompanied by a discourse analysis of the oral stories and their meaning in connection with historical documents. The wealth of material pertaining to this topic is simply beyond the confines of this article to explore.
20. See Nathan D. Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw: Cannibal Monsters in Northern Alberta Cree and Métis Cosmology," thesis, University of Alberta, 2005, 76.
21. See Morton I. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis: A Study of Relationship between Belief and Behaviour among the Indians of North-Eastern Canada (Seattle, WA, 1960).
22. John Robert Colombo, Windigo: An Anthology of Fact and Fantastic Fiction (Saskatoon, SK, 1982). Although the majority of Euro-Canadian accounts are secondhand, some are derived firsthand, as discussed in this article.
23. For example, see Library and Archives of Canada (LAC), record group (RG) 13, vol. 1417, file 138.
24. Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA), accession number (acc.) 79.266/126, box 1.
25. PAA, acc. 83.1, box 2d/157; Thomas Fiddler and James R. Stevens, Killing the Shamen: Cree Legends of Sandy Lake (Manotick, ON, 2003).
26. Guillaume Charette, Vanishing Spaces: Memoirs of Louis Goulet (Winnipeg, MB, 1980), 136-38, 175-77.
27. cf. Sydney L. Harring, White Man's Law: Native People in Nineteenth-Century Canadian Jurisprudence (Toronto, 1998).
28. See Lou Marano, "Windigo Psychosis: An Anatomy of an Emic/Etic Confusion," thesis, University of Florida, 1981, 1.
29. Although many Crees and Métis in Athabasca continue to believe in the witiko phenomenon, there are others who no longer ascribe to its possibility. For example, two Cree elders from Wabasca stated in a northern Alberta community newspaper that although the witiko condition did exist in the past, they were "not so sure anymore." Further, when elaborating on this, one elder stated that it was the influence of the Catholic Church that was responsible for the disappearance of the witiko condition. See "Windigo: Legend or True?" Fever (Wabasca, AB), 11 August 2005, 7-8.
30. Accordingly, while many local people still believe in witiko, the belief complex as a whole was only collectively ascribed to prior to the twenty-first century. Although my article supports the historical existence of the witiko condition, I have made this statement in consideration of those who have converted to other religious belief systems, such as Catholicism, or abandoned religious belief systems altogether.
31. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
32. Jennifer S. H. Brown and Robert Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed: George Nelson on Cree and Ojibway Religion and Myth, 1823 (Winnipeg, MB, 1988), 85.
33. Seymour Parker, "The Wiitiko Psychosis in the Context of Ojibwa Personality and Culture," American Anthropologist 62 (1960): 603.
34. Brown and Brightman, Orders of the Dreamed, 88-94, 165.
35. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 64.
36. See Richard Preston, "The Witiko: Algonkian Knowledge and Whiteman Knowledge," in Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence, ed. Marjorie M. Halpin and Michael M. Ames (Vancouver, BC, 1980), 128.
37. Parker, "The Wiitiko Psychosis," 603.
38. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 93-103.
39. See Ruth Landes, "The Ojibwa of Canada," in Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, ed. Margaret Mead (New York, 1938), 126.
40. Brown and Brightman, Orders of the Dreamed, 165.
41. Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," thesis; Louis Marano, "Windigo Psychosis: An Anatomy of an Emic/Etic Confusion," Current Anthropology 4 (1982): 385-412.
42. See Teicher, Windigo Psychosis.
43. Vivian Rohrl has suggested that the ingestion of animal grease was intended to treat a vitamin deficiency that could cause a psychosis resembling witiko-see Vivian J. Rohrl, "A Nutritional Factor in Windigo Psychosis," American Anthropologist 72 (1970): 97-101.
44. This hypothesis has been critiqued by Jennifer S. H. Brown, "The Cure and Feeding of Windigos: A Critique," American Anthropologist 73 (1971): 20-22.
45. Harold Franklin McGee, "Windigo Psychosis," American Anthropologist 74 (1972): 244-46.
46. Brown and Brightman, Orders of the Dreamed, 92-93.
47. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 93-103.
48. Another practice believed to facilitate the melting of the ice was the sweat lodge, as in the Trout Lake case of 1896. See Emile Grouard, "Souvenirs de mes soixante ans d'apostolat dans l'Athabasca Mackenzie, oeuvre apostolique de M. I. Lyons," in La liberté, trans. Clint Westman and Gabriel Asselin (Winnipeg, MB, 1922), 329.
49. See Brown and Brightman, Orders of the Dreamed, 93, 94.
50. "Wapiska Lakes," Edmonton Bulletin, 16 April 1896.
51. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 93-103.
52. Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw," 125.
53. Robert Brightman, Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships (Regina, SK, 2002), 142-47.
54. Frank G. Speck, Naskapi (Norman, OK, 1935), 37.
55. Marie Merasty, The World of Wetiko: Tales from the Woodland Cree, ed. Candace Savage (Saskatoon, SK, 1974), 1.
56. Richard Preston, "Ethnographic Reconstruction of Witiko," Papers of the Ninth Algonquian Conference, ed. William Cowan (Ottawa, 1978), 62.
57. See Charles A. Bishop, "Northern Algonquian Cannibalism and Windigo Psychosis," in Psychological Anthropology, ed. Thomas R. Williams (The Hague, Netherlands, 1973), 237-48.
58. Leo G. Waisberg, "Boreal Forest Subsistence and the Windigo: Fluctuation of Animal Populations," Anthropologica 17 (1975): 169-85.
59. James G. E. Smith, "Notes on the Wiitiko," Papers of the Seventh Algonquian Conference, 1975, ed. William Cowan (Ottawa, 1976).
60. Brightman, "The Windigo in the Material World," 337-79.
61. Edmonton Bulletin, 10 March 1888, 4.
62. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 281/327, box 59, 1887.
63. Ibid.; Edmonton Bulletin, 10 March 1888, 4.
64. Atchinson Daily Globe (Kansas), 17 March 1888. There is no known account of this woman's arrest, incarceration, or trial, despite the fact that the previous year (1887) in the Athabasca district, Michel Courtereille of Lesser Slave Lake had been arrested and imprisoned for murdering his wife Marie, a suspected witiko-see "Supreme Court," Edmonton Bulletin, 22 October 1887.
65. Brightman, Grateful Prey, 99.
66. Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 91.
67. Brightman, Grateful Prey, 99.
68. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
69. Edmonton Bulletin, 5 March 1911, 8.
70. LAC, RG 18, vol. 150, file 228-98, 1898.
71. Dominion of Canada, Sessional Papers, Volume 12-Third Session of the Eighth Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, Session 1898 (Ottawa, 1899), 592.
72. LAC, RG 15, vol. 1334, reel C-14946, "Auger, Dominique.".
73. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 281/148, box 56, 1897.
74. "Lesser Slave Lake," Edmonton Bulletin, 15 March 1897.
75. Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 167.
76. Vandersteene, "Some Woodland Cree Traditions," 56.
77. Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw," 118-20.
78. Brightman, Grateful Prey, 76-102.
79. Ibid., 153-56.
80. R. H. Cockburn, ed., "Like Words of Fire: The Lore of the Woodland Cree from the Journals of P. G. Downes," The Beaver 315 (1984): 41.
81. Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 169.
82. Merasty, World of Wetiko, 1.
83. See Kohl, Kitchi-Gami, 356.
84. See Brightman, "The Windigo in the Material World," 373.
85. Edmonton Bulletin, 17 October 1895, 1.
86. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
87. Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 196.
88. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
89. Ibid. Emphasis added.
90. See Jean LaBissioniere, Providence Trail Blazers (Edmonton, AB, 1978), 86.
91. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
92. See LAC, RG 15, vol. 1334, reel C-14946, "Auger, Catherine.".
93. "Wapiska Lakes," Edmonton Bulletin, 16 April 1896.
94. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
95. Beatton's ethnic background is ascertained from a land scrip application he filed for his Métis children at Lesser Slave Lake in 1899. Although Beatton declared he was solely of Scottish/Orkney descent, his children were candidates for scrip grants by way of their Métis or mixed ancestry mother, Emma Shaw-see LAC, RG 15, vol. 1335, reel C-14947, "Beatton, Francis." Marano (incorrectly) argued that Beatton was likely of Métis ancestry, and thus his testimony was fabricated in part by his own belief in Windigo.
96. see Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 169. Brightman argued that even if Beatton was Métis, his writing demonstrated a Euro-Canadian cultural background, and that his writings should exhibit consistent fabrications was only "marginally tenable"-Brightman, "The Windigo in the Material World," 350.
97. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 281/5, box 53, 1896.
98. A typewritten copy of the original letter contained a misspelling of the name "Napanin." It was rendered "Mapanin," and this distortion was duplicated, unknowingly, by Marano in "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 167 and Brightman in "The Windigo in the Material World," 350. Cf. LAC, RG 18, vol. 152, file 271-80, 1896.
99. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 280/1a, box 52, 1896.
100. LAC, RG 18, vol. 152, file 271-80, 1896.
101. Grouard, Souvenirs de mes soixante ans d'apostolat dans l'Athabasca Mackenzie, 329-31.
102. LAC, RG 18, vol. 152, file 271-80, 1896.
103. First identified by John M. Cooper, "The Cree Witiko Psychosis," Primitive Man (now Anthropological Quarterly) 6 (1933): 20-24.
104. Guinard, "Witiko among the Tête-de-Boule," and Emile J. Saindon, "Mental Disorders amongst the James Bay Cree," Primitive Man (now Anthropological Quarterly) 6 (1933): 1-12.
105. windigo psychosis was discussed in a series of writings by Irving Hallowell: "Culture and Mental Disorder," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 29 (1934): 1-9.
106. "Psychic Stress and Culture Patterns," American Journal of Psychiatry 92 (1936): 1291-1310.
107. Culture and Experience, (Philadelphia, 1955).
108. Ruth Landes: "The Personality of the Ojibwa," Character and Personality 6 (1937): 51-60.
109. "The Ojibwa of Canada," "The Abnormal among the Ojibwa Indians," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 33 (1938): 14-33, and The Ojibwa Woman (New York, 1938).
110. Teicher: Windigo Psychosis. Teicher discussed this subject within the framework of psychoanalytic theory. He conducted an extensive review of windigo accounts and compiled a monograph detailing seventy cases, hypothesizing that the belief system of the Algonquians generated and determined the course of the aberrant behavior and cannibalistic compulsion categorized as windigo psychosis. Windigo psychosis was also discussed through the medium of psychoanalysis in Parker, "The Wiitiko Psychosis".
111. J. Anthony Paredes, "Case Study of a 'Normal' Windigo," Anthropologica 14 (1964): 97-116.
112. William M. Bolman and Alan S. Katz, "Hamburger Hoarding: A Case of Symbolic Cannibalism Resembling Whitico Psychosis," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 142 (1966): 424-28.
113. Thomas H. Hay, "The Windigo Psychosis: Psychodynamic, Cultural, and Social Factors in Aberrant Behaviour," American Anthropologist 73 (1971): 1-19.
114. Alternately, witiko was discussed in terms of structuralist theory-see Raymond Fogelson, "Psychological Theories of Windigo 'Psychosis' and a Preliminary Application of a Models Approach," in Context and Meaning in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honour of A. Irving Hallowell, ed. Melford E. Spiro (New York, 1965), 74-99.
115. McGee, "Windigo Down-East, or the Taming of the Windigo".
116. David H. Turner, "Windigo Mythology and the Analysis of Cree Social Structure," Anthropologica 19 (1977): 63-73. Biological and environmental variables were also considered and debated.
117. see Fogelson, "Psychological Theories of Windigo 'Psychosis,'" 74; Rohrl, "A Nutritional Factor in Windigo Psychosis"; "Comment on 'The Cure and Feeding of Windigos: A Critique,'" American Anthropologist 74 (1972): 242-44.
118. Brown, "The Cure and Feeding of Windigos"; McGee, "Windigo Psychosis"; Bishop, "Northern Algonkian Cannibalism and Windigo Psychosis"; Smith, "Notes on the Wittiko"; and Waisberg, "Boreal Forest Subsistence and the Windigo." An apparent lack of meaningful evidence supporting the existence of the windigo psychosis led some commentators to critique the past literature, noting that the witiko reports of Algonquians and fur-trade era accounts were not substantive enough evidence to support the claim for a clinical psychiatric disorder-see John J. Honigmann, Personality in Culture (New York, 1967).
119. Preston, "The Witiko: Algonkian Knowledge and Whiteman Knowledge"; and Ridington, "Wechuge and Windigo.".
120. Some writers have refuted the claim that windigo psychosis is a disorder sui generis, and instead have argued that windigo is merely (and singularly) a culturally localized variant of paranoid schizophrenia. See, for example, William Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, 7th ed. (Orlando, FL, 1997), 138-41.
121. Marano's thesis regarding triage homicide (see "Windigo Psychosis," thesis) has been influential with regard to general opinions surrounding the topic. Arguing that the Algonquians had succumbed to a type of "witch hunting" mania as a result of the traumas surrounding starvation, famine cannibalism, and epidemic diseases in the fur-trade era, Marano concluded that those persons who had been executed as witikos were killed for reasons having nothing to do with any compulsion to eat flesh, but rather, were regarded as witikos post mortem by their executioners in justification of euthanasia, senilicide, triage homicide, and the prevention of famine crises. Marano dismissed the windigo psychosis as a fabrication of anthropologists who accepted the historical windigo reports at face value and suggested windigo was created as a symbol of starvation and cannibalism, as manifest in persons who posed a liability to the survival of Algonquian bands. By taking a skeptical reading of the documentary sources on witiko, Marano suggested that reports made by the Algonquians themselves could not be trusted in their entirety, and furthermore, the seeming lack of any concrete documentary evidence by Euro-Canadian eyewitnesses supported the claim that the witiko condition was a fabrication of the Algonquians and windigo psychosis a fabrication of academics. Marano's seminal work was initially praised (see M. Jean Black, "Comment on Windigo Psychosis," Current Anthropology 23 [1982]: 385-412), has since become highly influential, and remains today one of the most widely read and accepted writings on the topic. For instance, see Waldram, Revenge of the Windigo, 18, 194.
122. In a characteristically articulate paper, Robert Brightman challenged Marano's thesis as being an insufficient explanation for the historical witiko accounts. Although there were certainly instances where Algonquians had been executed for reasons having nothing to do with cannibal compulsions, Brightman noted there were a number of instances where Euro-Canadians (such as George Nelson, Alexander Henry, and David Thompson) delivered firsthand eyewitness testimony where the behavior of Algonquian persons identified as windigos matched the reports given by Algonquians themselves ("Windigo in the Material World," 346-51). Brightman referred to witiko as a psychiatric disorder rather than a psychosis and coined the phrase windigo performance to describe witiko as a type of culturally mediated theatrical performance motivated by fatalistic resignation to witiko ideology and the transformative power of dreams, cannibalism, and sorcery (373).
123. Note, for instance, the curiously absent references to Brightman's article ("Windigo in the Material World") in Waldram's literature review in "Revenge of the Windigo," 190-211. Also see note 2.
124. The decision to use the boundary of Alberta was mainly arbitrary, and was only influenced by my own knowledge of the region, the relative lack of commentary on the witiko phenomenon in that region, my familial connection with the native residents of that place, and a desire to make a contribution of a relatively obscure facet of history to the province of Alberta. I understand that the boundary has no bearing on witiko ideology, other than, perhaps, the local belief that witiko could be caused by dreams of deceased relatives, an idea which, to my knowledge, has not been found or discussed in any other region as of yet.
125. For instance, see Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw," 115-43.
126. Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," Current Anthropology.
127. Leonard and Whalen, On the North Trail, 77-78.
128. Robert Bell, "The 'Medicine-Man', or, Indian and Eskimo notions of medicine" (paper read before the Bathurst and Rideau Medical Association, Ottawa, 20 January 1886. Published in Montreal), 9.
129. LaBissioniere, Providence Trail Blazers, 74-75. I must thank Norm Blaskovitz, of Edmonton, for originally bringing this case to my attention.
130. Waldram, Revenge of the Windigo, 18. In fact, I have garnered from historical records the names of six people who were allegedly hospitalized for a witiko "condition." A colleague of mine attempted to access these records, but was refused by the Provincial Archives of Alberta (Shawn Smallman, personal communication, 2007). A discussion on this material may be forthcoming.
131. Vandersteene, "Some Woodland Cree Traditions," 55-63.
132. Brightman, "Windigo in the Material World," 346-51.
133. PAA, acc. 70.387, file A. 281/5, box 53, 1896. Emphasis added. Francois Auger was a relative of Napanin.
134. Ibid. and "Wapiska Lakes," Edmonton Bulletin, 16 April 1896.
135. This Cree elder, whom I deliberately have not named, was a resident of Trout Lake who purportedly lived to be over 100 years of age. The eyewitness related this story to Cardinal when Cardinal was a child. I have discussed this story with Cardinal on two occasions: 16 April 2005 and 20 June 2008.
136. When I asked Cardinal if "the witiko" had any children, he was uncertain. But prior to the interview recording, he mentioned the names of four people who were (or may have been) his children: "John," "Francis," "Edward," and "Sam." Three of these names bear similarities to the names of the children listed by Catherine Auger on her Métis scrip application: "Jean," "Francois," "Edouard," and "(Adam) Peter." Personal communication, 16 April 2005 and LAC, RG 15, vol. 1334, reel C-14946, "Auger, Catherine.".
137. With reference to the illness that made the witiko "sick," Cardinal stated that it had been caused by "bad medicine" that had been put upon him by another individual. This medicine began to affect him on the trip between Wabasca and Trout Lake. Personal communication, 16 April 2005 and 20 June 2008.
138. The witiko, according to Cardinal, had been bound hand and foot with ropes that were tied on the other end to rows of logs that formed the base of the floor of the cabin. Personal communication, 16 April 2005.
139. Cardinal stated that when the witiko increased in size, a sound could be heard, a "snapping" or "popping" sound that was similar to the sound of ice breaking. Personal communication, 16 April 2005 and 20 June 2008.
140. As noted above, bear grease was administered as a traditional cure that would cause the "ice" in the chest or viscera to become expelled. The notion that this "witiko" expelled "paint" suggests perhaps that the cure may have been efficacious for a short duration, marked by the witiko becoming slimmer, but was ultimately ineffective, as the ice in the viscera was not removed from the body.
141. I am uncertain who the nephew was, or whom he was the nephew of.
142. According to Clint Westman, an anthropologist who also interviewed Cardinal about the witiko incident for a different study, the reference to a "plane" was an anachronistic story device used to indicate the urgency of the situation, and should not be an indicator that the account is inaccurate. Personal communication, 2007.
143. Cited from Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw," 133-34. Emphasis added. On 20 June 2008, Cardinal guided me to the location of the grave. Cardinal stated that a fire had swept through the region in the 1940s and had burned away all traces of the gravesite, which was previously marked with a barbed-wire fence around the perimeter. Personal communication, 20 June 2008.
144. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis.
145. Brightman, "Windigo in the Material World," 351.
146. In other words, in a context where there was conventional food on hand.
147. LAC, RG 13, vol. 1417, file 138, "Ka-ki-si-kut-chin 'Swift Runner,'" 1879.
148. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 85-88.
149. Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 124-35.
150. Saskatchewan Herald, 9 February 1880; cf. PAA, Missions de la Congregation du Oblats de Marie Imaculeé, No. 70, Juin 1880, Oblate Collection, and Colin A. Thompson, Swift Runner (Calgary, 1984) (emphasis added).
151. Brightman, "Windigo in the Material World," 353.
152. There exists a small number of known documented witiko cases in which Algonquians reported, allegedly from their own firsthand experiences, instances in which band members or relatives committed cannibalism in a nonfamine context (see Brightman, "Windigo in the Material World," 351-61). If these reports are accepted as factual, then windigo cannibalism was a historical reality. Nevertheless, these cases likely cannot be verified by any outside means, making the Swift Runner incident the most compelling case to make the claim for windigo anthropophagy. As Brightman correctly argued, cases involving windigo cannibalism compose a small percentage of the entire known body of case studies, and such cases, involving starvation and alleged homicides, by their very nature, would not likely be reported or, more importantly, recorded. Essentially, the argument for windigo cannibalism is drawn from inferences, if Algonquian testimony is accepted as factual. Again, Marano's hypothesis may be a proper explanation for some cases, but one should not summarily disregard Algonquian testimonies because one surmises that these claims are devoid of objectivity, in cohort with the extant firsthand Euro-Canadian eyewitness documentation. Irrefutable evidence for windigo cannibalism is still required through the means of historical inquiry.
153. In other words, a firsthand account delivered by someone who claimed to have eaten human flesh in a contextually unwarranted context that can be confirmed by external documentation or evidence. In this instance, Swift Runner's testimony is supported by evidence delivered by the NWMP (see LAC, RG 13, vol. 1417, file 138, "Ka-ki-si-kut-chin 'Swift Runner,'" 1879) and also by a photograph that shows the cannibalized remains of Swift Runner's family (fig. 3). See LAC, George M. Dawson/PA-051141 and LAC, PA-051144.
154. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 64-65.
155. Professor Shawn Smallman, a colleague at Portland State University has also identified two additional cases of this type (personal communication, 2008).
156. "Supreme Court," Edmonton Bulletin, 22 October 1887.
157. LAC, RG 18, vol. 152, file 271-80, 1896.
158. Edmonton Bulletin, 6 April 1896, 1.
159. Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 64, 93-103.
160. Brightman, "Windigo in the Material World," 369.
161. Marano suggested that both Moostoos and Napanin were suffering from acute kidney failure, which in turn caused edema; see "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 170-71.
162. Acute renal failure typically results in coma and death within days if untreated; Napanin announced his witiko condition two weeks before his swelling was reported; Moostoos was talking about "going windigo" months before the swelling. It is, nevertheless, outside the scope of this article to suggest any link between a specific pattern of physiological illness (in six curiously similar witiko cases) and the witiko condition. A discussion on this topic shall be forthcoming at a later date.
163. See Teicher, Windigo Psychosis; cf. Ruben G. Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. 8 (Cleveland, 1901), 31-33.
164. See Teicher, Windigo Psychosis, 93-103.
165. Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 135-48.
166. Carlson, "Reviving the Wîhtikôw," 154-81.
167. Edmonton Bulletin, 20 April 1899. Emphasis added. A statement made by Corporal Phillips of the NWMP, preliminary investigator in the case, on 30 March 1899, substantiates the report. See Marano, "Windigo Psychosis," thesis, 139.
168. Edmonton Bulletin, 27 April 1899 (supplement).
169. "Lesser Slave Lake," Edmonton Bulletin, 15 March 1897.
170. Preston, "The Witiko: Algonkian Knowledge and Whiteman Knowledge.".
171. Witiko may have been a species of what Ian Hacking refers to as a "transient mental illness," specifically, an "illness" that occupies a specific sociocultural "niche." In this category, in "Western" society are anorexia nervosa, bulimia, dissociative identity disorder, and dissociative fugue. Using case studies of fugue disorder in the late nineteenth century, Hacking discusses how transient mental illnesses are not, strictly speaking, true universal mental disorders (although they have real negative consequences), but rather are social constructions that are generated and sustained by the conditions peculiar to their niche. When the conditions of the niche are no longer present, the illness loses reinforcement from the cultural conditions that generated it, causing it to decrease in frequency, and eventually disappear altogether. Regardless, what is immediately problematic with regard to witiko is the fact that there is no (as of yet) examined record in any medical literature documenting a witiko case from the perspective of a medical doctor, making the classification of witiko as a transient mental illness, or any definable illness understood by Western doctors for that manner, highly contentious. Although the apparent disappearance of witiko cases in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries seems to be in congruence with Hacking's postulation, no conclusions can be drawn here. Ian Hacking, Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (Charlottesville, VA, 1998).
172. McGee, "Windigo Down East," 112.
173. Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 171. I suggest here that Algonquian etiological theory be taken into consideration; this, however, does not rule out the possibility that some persons exhibiting witiko behavior may have been suffering from illnesses understood in Western medicine or psychology, such as paranoid schizophrenia. However, this hypothesis cannot explain the entirety of the phenomenon.
174. R. L. Gregory, "On How Little Information Controls So Much Behaviour," in Towards a Theoretical Biology, vol. 1, ed. C. H. Waddington (Chicago, 1969).
175. "Information Processing in Biological and Artificial Brains," in Principles and Practice of Bionics, ed. H. E. Von Gierke, W. D. Kiedel, and H. L. Oestriecher (Slough, England, 1970), 73-80.
176. Quoted in Brown and Brightman, The Orders of the Dreamed, 90.