Hunger is an ordinary human sensation but when you start craving for human flesh, a problem is definitely in our midst. In this blog, Windigo Psychosis is to be discussed.
The first time I heard of Windigo Psychosis is when I watched an episode of Supernatural which featured a fearsome creature that was named as a windigo. That urged me to research more about the creature and found out a disorder that was named after it, the Windigo Psychosis. What exactly is Windigo Psychosis? Where did it originated from? Who are the people that experienced this disorder? And how does it manifest.
There was an article entitled, "Wendigo Psychosis: Monstrous Men", from the site, wordpress.com that was written by an author with the pseudo name, Cogitz. Windigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder, meaning they are considered to be a recognizable illness only within a particular society. This condition features an intense craving for human flesh even though food resources are available and they develop an exaggerated fear of becoming a windigo. The disorder was first identified within the tribes that originated from the Algonquian tribes of Chippewa, Ojibwa, Cree and Inuit in North America It mainly occurs during the winter season when the tribes are isolated and the food source is inadequate. Some symptoms of this disorder are poor appetite, nausea, and vomiting. An unusual symptom of this is dreaming of your relatives turning into beavers and having the desire to eat them as I've read on another article in wordpress.com entitled, "An examination" by Chris Hibbard. This disorder is not identified to be a hundred percent true but I found an article on murderpedia.com which is entitled, Swift Runner and was written by Juan Blanco. This article showed proof that Windigo Psychosis is real. In that article, a man named Swift Runner who lived in the Northern regions of America and belonged to the tribe of Cree, murdered his five children and his wife after his eldest son died. And after chopping them into pieces. He ate them. The word Windigo Psychosis was rooted from a creature, a horrible monster in the Native American culture known as the wendigo.
According to, Basil Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives one description of how Wendigos were viewed: "The Weendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Weendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody [....] Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Weendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."
Horrifying isn't it? A creature that fearsome possesses you and makes you become a flesh-craving psycho. But the thing is, in my observation, the people diagnosed with the Windigo disease isn't as much bad as the actual windigo creature because the ones suffering the disease as I've read, wanted to be executed before they could harm more people. In which, their humanity is still stronger than the disease.
According to, Basil Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives one description of how Wendigos were viewed: "The Weendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Weendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody [....] Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Weendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."
Horrifying isn't it? A creature that fearsome possesses you and makes you become a flesh-craving psycho. But the thing is, in my observation, the people diagnosed with the Windigo disease isn't as much bad as the actual windigo creature because the ones suffering the disease as I've read, wanted to be executed before they could harm more people. In which, their humanity is still stronger than the disease.
However, an article entitled, "Flesh start: A begginer's guide to Windigo Psychosis" which was written by Dr. Mark Griffiths contradicts this disorder and labels it as a hoax.
According to a paper of Dr. Lou Marano in a 1982 issue of Current Anthropology: “There probably never were any windigo psychotics in an etic/behavioral sense. When the windigo phenomenon is considered from the point of view of group sociodynamics rather than from that of individual psychodynamics, the crucial question is not what causes a person to become a cannibalistic maniac, but under what circumstances a Northern Algonquian is likely to be accused of having become a cannibalistic maniac and thus run the risk of being executed as such”.
Windigo Pshychosis is something debatable. You can't conclude if it's real or not because of the many articles that contradicts each other. But in my own interpretation, Windigo Psychosis is something that occurs when your belief in something is so strong that you mind manifests it to be true. Northern Native Americans believed in the windigos like how they believed in their gods. So their faith that the creature is real fears them and triggers something in their minds that they're becoming and transforming into a windigo. That's what makes them vulnerable. Once they break a taboo of eating human flesh, they become so anxious about it that their fear kicks in and boom! Windigo Psychosis.
Windigo Pshychosis is something debatable. You can't conclude if it's real or not because of the many articles that contradicts each other. But in my own interpretation, Windigo Psychosis is something that occurs when your belief in something is so strong that you mind manifests it to be true. Northern Native Americans believed in the windigos like how they believed in their gods. So their faith that the creature is real fears them and triggers something in their minds that they're becoming and transforming into a windigo. That's what makes them vulnerable. Once they break a taboo of eating human flesh, they become so anxious about it that their fear kicks in and boom! Windigo Psychosis.
