DCHP-1 Online
Wendigo Weendigo, Windigo, etc < Algonk.; Ojibwa windigÅ evil spirit; cannibal 
1 n. The concept denoted by Weetigo and Wendigo varies from a personified Evil Spirit to a supernatural creature of which there are many, all having fearful characteristics including an insatiable appetite for human beings.
See also: Weetigo (def. 1 and note)
- 1830 The Muskegoes, who inhabit the low and cheerless swamps on the borders of Hudson's Bay, are themselves reproached by the other tribes as cannibals, [and] are said to live in constant fear of the Weendegoag.
- 1847 When Windego saw him, he was very angry, and said, "What do you mean, boy, by coming out and making that noise? I am going to eat you."
- 1863 These montagnais think . . . that the Wendigoes are great cannibals, twenty and thirty feet high. They think that they live on human flesh, and that many Indians who have gone hunting, and have never afterwards been heard of, have been devoured by Wendigoes.
- 1963 Some of the old accounts of Wendigos in the northwest describe apparitions more in accord in description and behaviour with the Sasquatch . . . than with the traditional wendigo or weetigo of the Cree-Algonkinian tribesman.
2 n. usually wendigo, a man turned cannibal and believed possessed by an evil spirit.
See also: Weetigo (def. 2)
- 1859 The Weendigoes are looked upon with superstitious dread and horror by all Indians, and any one known to have eaten human flesh is shunned by the rest; as it is supposed that, having once tasted it, they would do so again should they have an opportunity.
- 1860 Thick Foot's brother had killed his grandson, a boy ten or twelve years of age, being apprehensive that said boy was becoming a "Windigoo."
- 1921 A weendigo, as one who was known to have been guilty of making such a terrible repast was called, was always thereafter not only detested but shunned.
- 1949 The Weentigo, an Indian who had killed his companion and eaten him, was an object of dread and superstition to the Indians everywhere.
2b n. usually wendigo, turn wendigo, become a maneater.
- 1886 Delirium, resulting from fevers, etc., was a thing they entirely misunderstood, and looked upon it as a symptom of the approach of irresistible cannibalism, or "turning windigo," and it became their duty to knock such patients on the head.
- 1934 Upon a spruce bed in one of the birch-bark lodges lay the young squaw Sap-was-te, raving in delirium; possessed, said Pe-ce-quan the Medicine Man, by evil spirits; liable at any moment to turn "Weendigo," or cannibal, and endanger the lives of every member of the band.
3 n. Figurative uses
- 1936 The bird with the canoe is the tribal softie; the others sling three or four hundred pounds of goods on a headband and stagger after the canoe bearers as if the Wendigo himself were on their heels.
- 1948 Charlie laughed; I laughed; we both laughed to beat the windigo.
- 1956 "And should you see any signs of Eskimos you will abandon this campus if the devil Wendigo was on your heels, and flee into the south."
4 n.
See also: Wendigo trout
- 1830 The Muskegoes, who inhabit the low and cheerless swamps on the borders of Hudson's Bay, are themselves reproached by the other tribes as cannibals, [and] are said to live in constant fear of the Weendegoag.