It may be used to justify calling. Theyre revered spirits to the point where people wont speak their name so it must be frustrating when people are just like Oh yeah, I saw one of those, it was so spooky or have an aesthetic called wendigocore. <> 0 Cookie Notice Tell us about it in the comments. Still though, Im not sure I fully get the Native American spirits(?) I think she knew that her decision would be challenged and she wanted to let people know that she had valid reasons for doing what she did. For more information, please see our As a creator, I believe it is my responsibility, the responsibility of any creator, if using characters that belong to a culture other than mine and exploring themes from that culture, to be accurate. however, the w*ndigo originates from spiritual beliefs held by Indigenous peoples. 7 (2020): Ghosts and Cultural Hauntings. 0000012532 00000 n Privacy Policy. The windigo is a Native American spirit belonging to the Algonquian tribes of North America and Canada. The moral lessons contained in wendigo stories are also used to support the task of social critique in the late Native American scholar Dr. Jack D. Forbes' book Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wtiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism (1978).There, he uses the cannibalistic wendigo as a metaphor for the behaviors and attitudes central to patterns of social domination . Ill admit, my initial reaction was very dismissive. media has really misconstrued the original lore and importance of the w*ndigo to Indigenous culture. <<410561E535828C4ABA4EA5627C70A225>]/Prev 78716/XRefStm 1365>> 0000009954 00000 n Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. 0000011489 00000 n Western appropriation has long-lasting effects on the perceptions of Native American cultures by the average consumer and even scientific communities. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Europeans may well have behaved like Wendigos when they invaded the Americasthey didbut they didnt bring the Wendigo with them. How stupid to think otherwise. i love the videos uploaded to youtube and try to keep up with posts, so this is by no means a bash at Wendigoon. And you know what? endobj A classic example is wearing a Plains Indian war bonnet (see the 80s band The Village People). The Wendigo may be a figure from American Indian mythology, but it belongs to all of humankind. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. symL,JyvCq;[H~! You dont have to be French to love the Phantom of the Opera. +9*]aty``mZm/[= ${2R{!g=b{B,L0R2"T]IDa. Magazine with fellow environmental thought leaders, LaDuke said: Theres this conflict between the cannibals and Mother Earth, and its going on everywhere. P\^$'$@YWSB;Td54BD?YH"'kh::a;Vqz&4|:>)xP2n |94NrOqE'6 the origins don't even depict the w*ndigo with deer antlers, but a human with bitten off lips. 278 0 obj <>stream and our This subreddit is about sharing your worlds, discovering the creations of others, and discussing the many aspects of creating new universes. endobj Although this article is specifically observing the Wendigo, I argue that it is one of many caveless creatures, and the treatment of them by creators of non-Indigenous horror genre should be analysed in the future. 0000007477 00000 n 0000023412 00000 n And I accept that the Wendigo can symbolize for them that exploitation. 0000009056 00000 n 2 0 obj The wendigo is intended to embody hunger, particularly as refracted through the icy cold of winter and the monstrous things that people do when their appetites overwhelm them. Thus I support Scott Cooper, the director of the forthcoming (hopefully by next spring) ANTLERS, in his efforts to seek out consultation from Indian advisors when making his movie, which features a Wendigo. This article's cross-media analysis covers television, film and game media; Teen Wolf (2011-17), Supernatural (2005-20), Bruce Wemple's The Retreat (2020) and SuperMassive Games' Until Dawn . The concept of cultural appropriation began well enough, but just like everything else woke culture political correctness, it's gone way too far. 2. endobj 0000003862 00000 n During a panel at YES! 0000006529 00000 n Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe. After thinking about it more, I think I get it about the wendigos. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge The deaths of tens of millions of Jews, Slavs, etc., at the hands of the Nazis, the deaths of tens of millions of blacks in slavery days, the deaths of up to 30 million or more Indians in the 1500s, the terribly short life spans of Mexican Indian farm workers in the US, and of Native Americans generally today, the high death rates in the early industrial centers among factory workers, and so on, all clearly attest to the fact that the wealthy and exploitative literally consume the lives of those that they exploit. We do the same thing with a lot of mythological creatures. Here's some links:Website - https://thesierramistify.wixsite.com/thesierramistifyEtsy - https://www.etsy.com/shop/thesierramistify?ref=simple-shop-header-name\u0026listing_id=736195213Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesierramistify/Art Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesierramistify.art/- Music used in this video -Prime Beatz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkG3r3-ODOw ])yB\}OIZyY8 aA6Vo !C_D#!MYik.1>%'5ryZ*>fb=n#_dr;j5 { x\o7a_h ss+yHL$eW}gfw)$/D !;n*+v}}uSU|.&-y One recurring theme across these storytelling mediums is the use of the wendigoalso spelled wtikoa monstrous figure from Algonquian mythology who exhibits an insatiable greed along with a desire for human flesh. Hunchman, K. N. (2020). Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. arent cryptids thing. Turning on I read some stuff yesterday saying that teepees are cultural appropriation and there was a long post about how wendigos arent cryptids and how stories about them are cultural appropriation. On top of that, the wendigo is a part of death. In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the "cultural appropriation" of the Wendigo, likening it to the "sexualization" of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. There's nothing wrong with drawing the popular concept of a wendigo monster, or drawing any monster with antlers, and calling it a wendigo. By looking at the depictions of windigo in these specific Western stories and in Native American beliefs, it is possible to see how stripping spirits of their original contexts is harmful to Native communities. Learn how your comment data is processed. This articlescross-media analysiscovers television, film and game media;Teen Wolf(201117),Supernatural(200520), Bruce WemplesThe Retreat(2020) and SuperMassive GamesUntil Dawn(2015). By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. The Wendigo is a 'terrifying cannibal ice monster that has its genesis in stories of people forced into cannibalism by the long winter' (Smith and Fiore, 2010: 68). Im just struggling to understand the significance of it. One of those advisors I just mentioned, Chris Eyre, had this to say of the Wendigo: They [meaning Native peoples] truly, truly believe in it, because it represents greed and colonialism when we first came to the shores of what is now America, and pillaged all of their resources and forced them [into] cannibalism. The windigo is a per-sonal spirit that still belongs to the Native American cultures from which it has been taken, and the appropriation of this spirit harms Native American communities by poorly representing their beliefs for a marketable gain. (Think Noah from . That, I would affirm, is truly and literally cannibalism, and it is cannibalism accompanied by no spiritually meaningful ceremony or ritual., More than a commentary on the life of wendigo stories amongst his own people, Forbes deploys the metaphor of the wendigo to advance nothing less than a critique of civilization at large and describes the violence that he argues lies at its foundation as one driven by a kind of wendigo psychosis. Although well-documented in Western literature, the windigo spirit of stories like . His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 0000012791 00000 n It has no place in the world of Folklore and monsters. stream Abstract. 0000009484 00000 n The latest addition to this lineup of wendigo tales is Scott Cooper and Guillermo del Toros horror film Antlers (2021) in which a Native American character provides some brief exposition before the story centered around a white community contending with the monster begins in earnest. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. George warns those who are leaving about the Wendigo myth: anyone who consumes the flesh of their enemies takes their strength but becomes a demon cursed by an insatiable hunger for more human flesh. In contrast to modern horror stories that appropriate the wendigo as a plot device, Forbes implies that what actually ought to be terrifying to us is that we live in societies enveloped in violence and exploitation that we struggle to identify as such. 0000020040 00000 n Far from just being a monster in an escapist horror flick, Forbes and LaDuke demonstrate that the wendigo can help us grasp the horrors of our real world so we can be here now and, ultimately, work toward solutions. There, he uses the cannibalistic wendigo as a metaphor for the behaviors and attitudes central to patterns of social domination visited upon his own people in the Americas and subjugated peoples everywhere. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. s\&|5T!JN04hy'I0 1pv=~0-K$k}xSK"g:O*ox&zGa13(YXzy_{v-N^!c@[H Okay, dont anybody get me wrong. Although well-documented in Western literature, the windigo spirit of stories like Pet Sematary by Stephen King and The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood are stripped of their original context and are mere stereotypes of the cultures they originate from. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the cultural appropriation of the Wendigo, likening it to the sexualization of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Learn how your comment data is processed. The creation of new worlds and new universes has long been a key element of speculative fiction, from the fantasy works of Tolkien and Le Guin, to the science-fiction universes of Delany and Asimov, to the tabletop realm of Gygax and Barker, and beyond. When she was brought to the lab she already had the curse of the Wendigo but after she was "updated" she had visible antlers and could change her shape. Not only is it not offensive, I LOVE seeing references to wendigos in popular culture! MORTUI VELOCES SUNT! Cookie Notice Dollightful's Wendigo Doll - Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation? 0000002723 00000 n 4. Im glad, because I dont believe that it is. If so, what did you think about it? Only those entitled to them should wear them. Western appropriation has long-lasting effects on the perceptions of Native American cultures by the average consumer and even scientific communities. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Check it out here:https://youtu.be/fHE4fkvUpWMI really just made this video to express how I am currently feeling about the wendigo doll situation and the questions I have about it. With teepees, Im not sure I get it. To Helheimr with it! If you were to look around the world about other religions, anything that is associated with death and disease is regarded upon. This construction is problematic in the horror genre as it presents an Indigenous antagonist that poses a threat to white culture for its otherness and indigeneity while at the same time, misappropriating, discarding and demonising the Indigenous culture the myth comes from, at whim. These new narratives that white people make fail to acknowledge that the wendigo, and the Indi. %%EOF The paper concludes that employing the Wendigo as a caveless creature is a common practice within horror as it easily creates a villain for white protagonists to defeat repeatedly. We should show proper respect to our Cryptids at all times, and Im rightfully righteously indignant at the thought of anyone doing otherwise with Mothman. I'm just struggling to understand the significance of it. U%.CI$ FKe{CiV/\Lg1DD$A!=FHD6 EInw^9qkCh&1rvR'`{7X wEB7Az~q0n8 t)$xh1rQJ,p>O/$-J)'OTk|m9(k|6U g/-JU;WM}7d5)V.yX=Qu,TDI+CA_5U|nH$WK7G3-aYaqeV2jWQV6C6OY"W5?x;f_27j3Y)/G`j|e9NHCp+-r4g7D? c! Marvel Comics pay tribute to classic Monsters. Please report rule violations. Thats just asking for trouble.) For more information, please see our Since the concept of a wendigo stems from First Nations folklore, maybe someone making a cute little doll of this evil spirit figure was seen as inappropriate or making fun of their culture? One does not need to delve very deeply into the annals of American film, television, and literature to find an array of caricatured depictions of Native American peoples and a distortion of their knowledge. WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. Rules: 0000009596 00000 n Windigo is a malevolent manitou or spirit whose insatiable appetite for human flesh can never be satisfied. In the course of the transformation from human to wendigo, the person exhibits increasing selfishness, violence, hunger, and greedparticularly for human flesh. J.K. Rowling's Cultural Appropriation Should Be A Lesson To White Writers Native Americans shouldn't be a "niche," and neither should women, LGBT people, or people of color. I believe that the Wendigo is far older than that, far more primal. Be supportive, this is a place for growth, not hostility. 0000013308 00000 n Stolen Spirits: The Appropriation of the Windigo Spirit in Horror Literature. it's just something thats been bothering me so i thought it'd come to reddit to see what other people thought. i don't think there should be any 'canceling' of Wendigoon or whatever, but definitely something should be said. Wendigos, teepees and cultural appropriation I read some stuff yesterday saying that teepees are cultural appropriation and there was a long post about how wendigos aren't cryptids and how stories about them are cultural appropriation. In my blind quest to represent everyone, all I did was reinforce the problem. HeyYaIQ 21 days ago. From Stephen Kings Pet Sematary to the television series Hanibal, the flesh-eating image of the wendigo is often presented apart from its original cultural contexts where it carries deep moral significance. In this paper, I document the depictions of windigo in Native American mythology, those of Western literature, and the effects of appropriation and misrepresentation on Native communities. 0000008549 00000 n In Algonquian traditions, the wendigo monster emerges not randomly or in violent response to colonialism as it often does in popular media but through a specific set of circumstances that are unique to different tribal groupings. so im sort of clueless how reddit works and made an account for this, so bare with me. Now that I have a major problem with. o&g( For resources: http://reddit.com/r/SRSDiscussion/wiki/required. startxref Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it. Film, <>/ExtGState<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 595.32 841.92] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> a lot of Natives and people in general don't even like saying the word itself. %PDF-1.4 % 9'b_X~~@0CKYO~8yOK9I$^I>t For artists, writers, gamemasters, musicians, programmers, philosophers and scientists alike! wendigo cultural appropriation [26][27] During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. 1. 0000000016 00000 n This analysis will trace the process of these media, made by non-Indigenous white creators, removing the Wendigos indigeneity and placing it within fictional settings as an antagonist. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 After thinking about it some more, I understand that its a kind of It was okay for these kids to pretend to be Indians but not for these kids to actually be Indians thing but I saw someone claim that it was contributing to colonisation and the death of death of their culture and that felt a bit strong. So, thanks, Dave! Basically, the wendigo was supposed to be a creature you didn't even say the name of or else you could draw the attention of one. Posts and comments should be substantive, and assertions backed in fact or personal lived experience. 0000003976 00000 n Those things, the predation on the Indians by Europeans, most certainly happened. It has become something else altogether. Usually, the appropriating culture is in a relation of domination to the appropriated culture. 0000001705 00000 n His line of questioning effectively asks what if the monstrosity we face is actually not an otherworldly presence but our all too human selves?. It springs from the well of the collective human unconscious, the communal soul. 0000010971 00000 n As much as I would love to tell everyone to just read her sources and then be able to understand everything better, I just don't think that's realistic for most people(because they are not easily accessible to most, and I don't think that was her intention by including these in her description. The Witherell House and the Cult of Weird, Movie Review: BIRDS OF PREY (And the Fantabulous Inclusion of Victor Zsasz and a Hyena). No one can try to stake a singular claim to it. That is why we know about the wendigo today, it is an oral tradition like all the . As I mentioned during our latest episode of the NYMG podcast, I've been playing Until Dawn, and the game has got me thinking about a few different things that I'd like to spend some time parsing through, like the game's representation of things like gender and race, how it is that the idea of choice seems to influence the way we think about these representations, and the manner in which . T[,%q5 And they are worth considering including in ones classroom teaching. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(443401, 'c61f3219-a9f3-4b0c-95ea-f614a80c184b', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Pictured above: A portion of the poster for the film Antlers (Fox Searchlight, 2021). MORTUI VELOCES SUNT! 0000004071 00000 n 0000004651 00000 n But I do notice that Eyre stopped short of saying colonialization is the origin for the Wendigo legend. (Anything that isnt outright vandalism isnt likely to harm the statue at all, but I wouldnt dare do anything disrespectful around it. Cooper and del Toro made the conscious decision to tell the story of the wendigo in a way that is respectful to its Native American roots, which in turn helps make Antlers a more authentic horror film. l Ca#!LzH{t+8W5 !2*_{)rgx-`]CTXSH($g When the soldiers reach Ives' cave, Boyd and Reich investigate. 0000012030 00000 n 0000015547 00000 n 17spaz 2 yr. ago You must be here to either learn more about social justice or answer questions from a social justice viewpoint. I have this character in a webcomic I want to write who is a Wendigo. I have always felt a distinct emotional connection to it, in fact. This space is not for debate. Kaitlin Smith on November 30, 2021. Cultural appropriation consists of borrowing something from another culture in mockery or thoughtless misuse. So yeah, if anyone could offer any insight/information, thatd be appreciated. Smith and Fiore detail that, among the Cree and northernmost Ojibwa, it is a feared creature because it is understood as both a 'mythic character' and as a threat to humans (2010: 68). WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. i enjoy his content, but the w*ndigo is part of a closed religion and is supposed to be a lesson about human greed and selfishness, not a cannibal monster story. 3. She is Native American. they've been stripped of cultural context. Dollightful's Apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-KBzKWvrUTo clear up the addition that I made even more, I think that it would be pretty important for the information on this topic to be easily accessible to her viewers. "@TheThiccholas @realcoolJAY They can't say Issa wendigo cus of cultural appropriation props to them buuuuuut also WENDIGO type energy sooo " Just as the vampire and werewolf do not belong exclusively to people of European descent and the Mummy doesnt belong to Egyptians. As a creator, I believe it is my responsibility, the responsibility of any creator, if using characters that belong to a culture other than mine and exploring themes from that culture, to be accurate. With the comments turned off on Dollightful's apology video, I thought that maybe we could have some discussion here(if anyone ever sees this, anyway). By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. appropriation that has troubled the exchange between Indigenous . Ojibwe scholar Dr. Brady Santi has developed this guide for teachers who would like to teach students about her communitys unique belief systems with an emphasis on the wendigo as it appears in popular films. % Theres something else. (A friend sent this screenshot to me, along with the info, because he knows how much PC-ism pisses me off. One example is Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke who has called for a decisive shift away from what she has termed Wendigo Economics for the sake of the health of the natural world. Privacy Policy. And were on the right side, thats what were working on but sometimes you get that cannibal tendency. i don't know if anyone has talked about this, but i have a special interest in Native American culture, history, etc. hb```b``Ub`e``s`g@ ~+ a1fm{s/K5N9MHd@*2Ey]#B}>x,&ucrnhm:HkN=_B }Wzp.S#WCXi;dRa ,.0H*. Vol. It's taboo to the Anishaabe people, but the common depiction of it in media is no where near the original frozen cannibal spirit that the legends are based off of. 0000005304 00000 n It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Appropriating the Wendigo As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. I have named this observation of the Wendigothe Caveless Creature phenomenon. Indigenous, Sponsored by Ball State University Libraries. trailer 0000000974 00000 n By Christian Chiakulas, Contributor Writer, musician, activist, single father from Chicago. Answer (1 of 6): First and foremost, I'm not telling you this because I personally have a problem with you dressing as a wendigo for a cryptid fair, but we are living in an age of cancel culture where a costume you sported ten years ago might be used against you. Answer (1 of 8): Yes, unless actively researched with proper resources and talked to with First Nation folks as proof-readers. spellings (see Colombo 2) but is most commonly rendered as Windigo, Wendigo, or Witiko. 0000001546 00000 n %PDF-1.7 In this paper, I document the depictions of windigo in Native American mythology, those of Western literature, and the effects of appropriation and misrepresentation on Native communities. Driving down a dark quiet highway in Southern Manitoba, a man sees someone bent over on the side of the road. 0000005961 00000 n However, it never provents for people of that tribe to share this and that story. Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. The question of how to challenge the wtiko psychosis as described by Forbes and Wendigo Economics as described by LaDuke is a difficult one, but the mythic force of the concept of the wendigo helps to underscore the urgency of these questions. This is a story shared not merely for entertainment but to reinforce the communal values that allow the communities in which this practice occurs to live well with one another and within their environments.
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