Indigenous peoples of North America nursed their own nightmares about malevolent spirits long before Europeans landed on their shores. Jesuit missionaries in New France were the first to put these stories into writing in the annual reports that they sent to their superiors in Rome. Active in modern Quebec, the Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune (1591–1664) provided the first description of the cannibal spirit known as the Wendigo, which drove starving people into a killing frenzy. The memoirs of nineteenth-century authors, like artist Paul Kane (1810–71) and the explorer Henry Youle Hind (1823–1908), testified to the tenacity of belief in the Wendigo among native peoples across the Canadian north. Other evil spirits haunted this landscape as well, including the giant flying heads of Iroquois lore, whose appearance heralded a death in the family.
What caused us greater concern was the intelligence that met us upon entering the Lake, namely, that the men deputed by our Conductor for the purpose of summoning the Nations to the North Sea, and assigning them a rendezvous, where they were to await our coming, had met their death the previous Winter in a very strange manner. Those poor men (according to the report given us) were seized with an ailment unknown to us, but not very unusual among the people we were seeking. They are afflicted with neither lunacy, hypochondria, nor frenzy; but have a combination of all these species of disease, which affects their imaginations and causes them a more than canine hunger. This makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men, like veritable werewolves, and devour them voraciously, without being able to appease or glut their appetite—ever seeking fresh prey, and the more greedily the more they eat. This ailment attacked our deputies; and, as death is the sole remedy among those simple people for checking such acts of murder, they were slain in order to stay the course of their madness. This news might well have arrested our journey if our belief in it had been as strong as the assurance we received of its truth. We did not, therefore, cease to pursue our way, pushing on toward the end of the Lake, where empties the river that was to afford us entrance into a country hitherto unknown to the French.
We passed down the river “Macau,” where there are some beautiful rapids and falls. Here we fell in with the first Indians we had met since leaving the Lake of the Thousand Islands; they are called “Saulteaux,” being a branch of the Ojibbeways, whose language they speak with very slight variation. We purchased from an Indian man and woman some dried sturgeon. The female wore a rabbit-skin dress: they were, as I afterwards learned, considered to be cannibals, the Indian term for which is Weendigo, or “One who eats Human Flesh.” There is a superstitious belief among Indians that the Weendigo cannot be killed by anything short of a silver bullet. I was informed, on good authority, that a case had occurred here in which a father and daughter had killed and eaten six of their own family from absolute want. The story went on to state, that they then camped at some distance off in the vicinity of an old Indian woman, who happened to be alone in her lodge, her relations having gone out hunting. Seeing the father and daughter arrive unaccompanied by any other members of the family, all of whom she knew, she began to suspect that some foul play had taken place, and to feel apprehensive for her own safety. By way of precaution, she resolved to make the entrance of her lodge very slippery, and as it was winter, and the frost severe, she poured water repeatedly over the ground as fast as it froze, until it was covered with a mass of smooth ice; and instead of going to bed, she remained sitting up in her lodge, watching with an axe in her hand. When near midnight, she heard steps advancing cautiously over the crackling snow, and looking through the crevices of the lodge, caught sight of the girl in the attitude of listening, as if to ascertain whether the inmate was sleeping; this the old woman feigned by snoring aloud. The welcome sound no sooner reached the ears of the wretched girl, than she rushed forward, but, slipping on the ice, fell down at the entrance of the lodge, whereupon the intended victim sprang upon the murderess and buried the axe in her brains: and not doubting that the villainous father was near at hand, she fled with all her speed to a distance, to escape his vengeance. In the meantime, the Weendigo father, who was impatiently watching for the expected signal to his horrid repast, crept up to the lodge, and called to his daughter; hearing no reply, he went on, and, in place of the dead body of the old woman, he saw his own daughter, and hunger overcoming every other feeling, he saved his own life by devouring her remains.
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 had they an opportunity. They are obliged, therefore, to make their lodges at some distance from the rest of the tribe, and the children are particularly kept out of their way…
The Indian sat looking at the fire for many minutes. I did not want to interrupt his thoughts. After a while I filled his pipe, put a coal in it, and gave it to him. He took it, still looking at the fire. Perhaps he saw the spirit of his [recently deceased] cousin there, as Indians often say they do. He smoked for a long time. At length he spoke, looking at the body [of his cousin], and pointing to it, saying, “He said last winter that someone would die before the year was out.”
I knew well enough that it was one of their superstitions that had troubled him, for he was a heathen not more than a year ago; and a man does not get rid of his heathen notions by being touched with a drop of Manitou water. So I said to him, “Did he see anything?”
“He came across tracks.”
“Tracks?”
“A Wendigo,” said the Indian.
“Have you ever seen one?” I asked him.
“I have seen tracks.”
“Where?”
“On the St. Marguerite, the Mingan, the Manitou, the Oa-na-ma-ne. My cousin saw tracks on the Manitou last winter, and he said to me and to many of us, ‘Something will happen.’ ”
“What were the tracks like?” I said to him.
“Wendigoes,” he replied.
“Well, but how big were they?”
He looked at me and said nothing, nor would he speak on the subject again.
“These Montagnais think,” continued Pierre, “that the Wendigoes are giant cannibals, twenty to 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. They are dreadfully superstitious in the woods…”
There were many evil spirits and terrible monsters that hid in the mountain caves when the sun shone, but came out to vex and plague the red men when storms swept the earth or when there was darkness in the forest. Among them was a flying head which, when it rested upon the ground, was higher than the tallest man. It was covered with a thick coating of hair that shielded it from the stroke of arrows. The face was very dark and angry, filled with great wrinkles and horrid furrows. Long black wings came out of its sides, and when it rushed through the air mournful sounds assailed the ears of the frightened men and women. On its underside were two long, sharp claws, with which it tore its food and attacked its victims.
The Flying Head came most often to frighten the women and children. It came at night to the homes of the widows and orphans, and beat its angry wings upon the walls of their houses and uttered fearful cries in an unknown tongue. Then it went away, and in a few days, death followed and took one of the little family with him. The maiden to whom the Flying Head appeared never heard the words of a husband’s wooing or the prattle of a papoose, for a pestilence came upon her and soon she sickened and died.
One night a widow sat alone in her cabin. From a little fire burning near the door, she frequently drew roasted acorns and ate them for her evening meal. She did not see the Flying Head grinning at her from the doorway, for her eyes were deep in the coals and her thoughts upon the scenes of happiness in which she dwelt before her husband and children had gone away to the long home.
The Flying Head stealthily reached forth one of its long claws and snatched some of the coals of fire and thrust them into its mouth—for it thought that these were what the woman was eating. With a howl of pain, it flew away, and the red men were never afterwards troubled by its visits.