Wild man, cannibal, trickster: the wendigo in literature and media

In traditional Algonquian belief systems, the wendigo (also windigo, wétiko, and many other variants) is a manitou associated with hunger, greed, winter, and cannibalism. The figure also appears in works of literature, film, and television created by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers. In this thesis, I examine representations of the wendigo in literature and media by comparing it to three other figures: the wild man, the cannibal, and the trickster. Focussing on works by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, I also examine how the wendigo and its attributes can take on different meaning and significance in different cultural contexts.
In Chapter One, I examine the wendigo’s role as a monstrous and wild figure in works by Algernon Blackwood and Basil Johnston, considering in particular how the concepts of wildness and wilderness take on different meanings for each author. In Chapter Two, I examine the wendigo as a cannibal, in both a literal and a metaphorical sense, comparing Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road and Louise Erdrich’s The Round House with the films Ravenous and The Last Winter. In all four of these works, the wendigo is associated with exploitation and violence, and in the two novels, this violence is frequently sexualised and/or racialised, with the destructive greed of the wendigo linked to that of colonialism. In Chapter Three, I examine the relationship between wendigos and tricksters in Tomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen and in the American television series Hannibal. Although tricksters are frequently the enemies of wendigos in traditional narratives, both works depict a blurring of the line between the two figures.