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MARY SCHAUBSCHLAGER

Winter Wendigo

Relief

12" x 12"

2016

The Wendigo is a man-eating creature of Algonquin folklore. A person may become a Wendigo if they partake in cannibalism, or may be compelled to cannibalize if they are possessed by a wendigo. Descriptions of the wendigo conjure images of a dead human body: emaciated, with desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones, deep sunken eyes, a blood-smeared mouth filled with broken teeth, and whose body and breath smell of rot. The Wendigo grows in proportion to how much it has eaten, but it expands in frame rather than simply gaining weight--thus, it is doomed to forever feed a larger hunger. Algonquin people were also familiar with extreme hunger. Many lives were claimed by hard winters when food was scarce, keeping Algonquin populations low. Northern Algonquins practiced periods of self-starvation rather than succumbing to cannibalism, possibly fearing the fate of the Wendigo more than the fate of their unfed hunger.