English

Alternative forms

• wendigo
• wiindigoo
• windago, windiga

Noun

windigo ‎(countable and uncountable, plural windigo or windigos or windigog)

1. (mythology) A malevolent, violent, cannibal spirit found in Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, and Cree mythology, which inhabits the body of a living person and possesses him or her to commit murder.
   • 2004: Michael Jensen, Firelands

     Once there, however, I found no signs indicating the way John and the wendigo might have gone.

   • 2005, Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, Penguin 2008, p. 49:

     No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.

2. A psychological condition specific to some Native American groups, in which a person (in fever-induced delusions) believes that he or she is possessed by a cannibalistic wendigo spirit, or in which society hysterically believes a person to be so possessed.
   • 1985: Ronald C. Simons, Charles Campbell Hughes, Culture-Bound Syndromes: Folk Illnesses of Psychiatric and Anthropological Interest

     “Windigo psychosis” has been the most celebrated culture trait of the Northern Algonkian peoples for almost half a century.

Synonyms

• (derived from Cree) wihtikow, witiko, wetiko, witigo