The Wendigo: The Winter Monster- A Strange Matters Short

Strange Matters Podcast

Campfire Audio Productions

Science, History, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences

4.4 • 987 Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2016

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This Strange Matters Short is all about the Wendigo, the legendary Native American man-eating creature. This episode continues our series on cryptozoology, the study of beings that are considered myths and legends. The Wendigo is a tale that was told for generations by the Algonquian people who inhabited the northern regions of the U.S and Canada. This bizarre creature was supposedly a terror that haunted the local tribes. Hiding in the frozen woods of the North and attacking their villages, the Wendigo would kill and devour men, women, and children. Even stranger than the story of the Wendigo is the disturbing mental disorder that plagued the Algonquian people. This so called “Wendigo Psychosis” would spontaneously drive members of the native tribes to kill and eat anyone around them.
Is there any legitimacy to this mysterious and terrifying monster? Why were the Algonquian people so obsessed with the possibility of falling into the practice of cannibalism? Could the Wendigo monster really just be a tall tale describing the acts of those who became mentally ill and driven to eat their fellow tribesman? Listen to this episode and hear all the theories about this strange creature!
If you like this episode check our our earlier discussion on the The Chupacabra!
Background & Ambient music can be found by artist on Cryo Chamber
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Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Oh, Hello and welcome to the Strange Matters podcast. Here are Strange Matters
0:29.8	we discuss everything that is bizarre, mysterious, and unexplained.
0:33.7	I'm Sean, and I will be your host for this episode.
0:37.1	Today I will be continuing our series on crypto zoology by talking about one of my favorite
0:41.4	mysterious creatures, the man-eating creature of the north, the
0:45.0	Wendigo.
0:46.4	For those who don't know, cryptozoology is the field of study about any creature or animal
0:51.2	that is considered be either a myth or whose existence has not yet
0:54.4	been proven. As for the subject of this episode, the Wendigo is a really
0:58.5	creepy and interesting creature and in my opinion that the thought of his
1:01.8	existence is definitely more disturbing than the Chupacabra, which we covered in our earlier episode.
1:08.0	Today I will be giving the background and surroundings that started the tale of the Wendigo,
1:12.0	and also the cultural impacts this legend has had.
1:15.0	So let's begin. The story of the Wendigo has been around for centuries, and it is a legend of the Algonquian group of Native Americans throughout the East Coast and Northern regions of the United States and Canada.
1:36.0	Depending on what tales being told, the Wendigo can either be a man-hungry beast or demonic spirit.
1:42.3	The Wendigo is usually portrayed as a half-beast like creature
1:45.3	possessing some traits of a man but also other parts of animals or spirits,
1:50.0	again depending on what variation of the legend you look up.
1:53.0	When common trait though that is shared in every story of the Wendigo is that of cannibalism,
1:58.5	that these creatures that were once human either hunt and eat other men or that the spirit of the
2:04.0	Wendigo possesses those who are guilty of cannibalism and turns them into
2:07.7	monsters. Many today believe that the Wendigo monster actually existed, but that the legend was instead made up to reinforce the taboo among the tribes against cannibalism.
	...

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