Last week, I stumbled over a reading of
Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo while looking for good podcasts to listen to. I've never known much about this myth other than that it was of American Indian origin and involved cannibalism, so it came as something of a surprise to hear that it seems more like something out of ancient greek myth, like a minotaur or satyr. A spirit/monster probably symbolizing the forces of nature.
So no, it don't think they are mostly just described as a person with cannibalistic tendencies and I don't see why they should sound human. No idea how many details were made up by Blackwood, but "his" Wendigo sounds more like roaring wind or water and it's not human, just humanoid but huge and beastlike. Blackwood makes no mention of cannibalism, but that probably wouldn't have been a topic he could write about at the time. Besides, a non-human mythical beast eating humans wouldn't be committing cannibalism at all. I think the speculation is that the Wendigo stories were made up by the indians to show cannibalism as being evil so their tribesmen wouldn't resort to it during famine, and that might be why in modern times, the Wendigo became associated with these atrocities.
While looking up some details, I found that the Wendigo is often depicted as a humanoid with antlers (examples
1 2). Which brought me to something else entirely.
I can relate! This description sounds similar to the two conscious close proximity experiences in my life. The first was the visitation experience I had at age 6 or 7 (1964) of a group of non-human appearing entities that seemed to glide along and move in unison "like cattails in a breeze." The second was when a weird antler-adorned humanoid form appeared to glide across my greenhouse windows at dusk, from left-to-right, ten feet from me—outside my house in CO (1999).
Descriptions of entities exhibiting a "gliding" motion intrigue me and I intuit that this sinuous motion may be somehow diagnostic (?) in nature.
I guess to american paracasters, the connotations were kind of obvious (because of the native american background) but I never really knew why this description should be pointing to something like the Skinwalker or the Wendigo. It was definitely one of the stranger and scarier sighting reports I've ever heard of. And just now, while digging up some stuff about the Wendigo, I came upon a sentence on
this site
In one variation of the story, the creature could only be seen if it faced the witness head-on, because it was so thin that it could not be seen from the side.
...which of course would mean that the creature described in that "variation of the story" would have to be two-dimensional. Which I guess is also a good description of the first sighting mentioned above, the "sheet-thin" beings. Plus, the gliding movement of the "Wendigo" (?) outside of Chris's window could also mean that this was more like a 2D image, like some form of display.
EDIT: if Chris ever gets to read this, I'd really like to know how you ever managed to leave that place again. I would have been scared out of my wits.
). I was wondering why I didn't get any nasty, subversive threads from him or her lately.
