wendigo cultural appropriation wendigo cultural appropriation

spellings (see Colombo 2) but is most commonly rendered as Windigo, Wendigo, or Witiko. Now why cant that be said to prudes lurking here. Cookie Notice In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the cultural appropriation of the Wendigo, likening it to the sexualization of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It also includes the unauthorized use of parts of their culture (their dress, dance, etc.) The Wendigo is by far one of the most mysterious and feared monsters in not only in the Algonquian folklore which it is attributed to, but also other . And how many would have known that in the past - and even now - the originators of the cornrows, the headdresses, the bindis, would have been persecuted for wearing them? The wendigo is a terrifying presence that feeds on negative energy and human flesh, making it a natural addition to the horror genre. Now that I have a major problem with. I have drawn my own version of golems too, and that is Jewish mythology. Cultural appropriation is a huge red flag that the brand has minimal diversity or representation behind the scenes," she explains. How stupid to think otherwise. appropriation, or - as I argue - misappropriation, of the Wendigo as a My tongue and my brain do not speak the right language. I think people just need to chill out, no mater what their religion and culture is. Wendigo Cannibalism in Native American Folklore. The idea of getting down to the nitty-gritty came from the 18th century English slave trade, when nitty-gritty referred to the worthless debris left at the ship's bottom compartment after slaves had been evacuatedand evolved to include the slaves themselves. Lipsitz, writing in the the 1990s, argued that cultural appreciation becomes cultural appropriation "when an element of culture is adopted from a marginalized group without respect for its . But its none of your concern what turns someone on! Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge He just gave the boy so much time to go there and back. (A friend sent this screenshot to me, along with the info, because he knows how much PC-ism pisses me off. Cho isn't even only problematic character, Lavander changed her race (in movies, i'm not sure about books but still, Rowling could of said something). [13] They were strongly associated with winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation.[14]. [30], Fascination with Wendigo psychosis among Western ethnographers, psychologists, and anthropologists led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980s over the historicity of this phenomenon. The latest addition to this lineup of wendigo tales is Scott Cooper and Guillermo del Toros horror film Antlers (2021) in which a Native American character provides some brief exposition before the story centered around a white community contending with the monster begins in earnest. The beautiful maang tikka, or hair accessory falling down the part in the middle of the hair, marks a . Cultural appropriation can be defined as the "cherry picking" or selecting of certain aspects of a culture, and ignoring their original significance for the purpose of belittling it as a trend. I believe cultural appropriation is Only when someone of another 'race' or culture creates something and passes it off as if it is authentic. . Seems to me a great deal of what people write about in fantasy stories is borrowing from other cultures & nations & communities. J.K. Rowling, author of the absurdly-popular Harry Potter series (of which I'm a massive fan), recently waded into controversy with her four-part "Magic in North America" series, which outlines the Potterverse's American history. My intentions were pure, as were Rowling's, I imagine. There's too much variety of opinion on the question to obtain a consensus. As described by the Native American Cree legends, they were humans who have been mutated into cannibalistic monsters after being possessed by the Wendigo spirit, causing them to eat the flesh of other humans. "[36] Out of equilibrium and estranged by their communities, individuals thought to be afflicted by the wendigo spirit unravel and destroy the ecological balance around them. It also includes the unauthorized use of parts of their culture (their dress, dance, etc.) 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. Windigo is a malevolent manitou or spirit whose insatiable appetite for human flesh can never be satisfied. The horror film Antlers adopts an old monster for its story, which serves as both a benefit and a hindrance. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. They heard the Windigo calling the boy. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets; the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. He wasn't dead. Apparently, wendigos are sacred creatures from several indigenous cultures. The boy told the Indians that the Windigo was near them, and showed them his hand where the Windigo cut him to see if he was fat enough to eat. So it seems to me like the objection might have something to do with an inappropriate mixing of religious contexts from two different belief systems. Wendigo psychosis is a fascinating condition with a storied history. Mistgod Edited Oct 11, 2020 Hobbyist Traditional Artist Apparently, wendigos are sacred creatures from several indigenous cultures. I will draw whatever I feel like drawing. Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. Is it Cultural Appropriation if I have a Wendigo character. Dont like someones fetish? As a creator, I believe it is my responsibility, the responsibility of any creator, if using characters that belong to a culture other than mine and exploring themes from that culture, to be accurate. Draw/write what you want, I say. It has become something else altogether. That taste of human flesh, which out of that rose the wendigo.. It sounds like you did research which is more that J. K. Rowling so I think yes? But Native Americans shouldn't be a "niche," and neither should women, LGBT people, or people of color. If ANYTHING is disrespectful to woke (does not exist in the real world) culture then I say: DO IT - AND DO IT BIG!!! Wendigo is a part of MCU, too. The use of the creature in horror stories . Even in the face of ongoing cultural appropriation and erasure, wendigo stories are but one reflection of the survivance, wisdom, and brilliance of Native peoples. We feed it because we don't know how else to live, and so we live disconnected lives watching the seasons change through windows . I hate that I am defending JKR but I think a lot of people don't really think about how the internet was in in the late 90s and what kind of content was on the internet. Jack committed suicide, but Joseph was tried and sentenced to life in prison. I dont know who originally posted it, or where. without permission. If I can draw my own version of a Chinese dragon, or my own version of angel or demon, I can draw a wendigo. It was created by Mayuki . Oh yeah, Marvel. As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. [29], Another well-known case involving Wendigo psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and medicine man known for his powers at defeating wendigos. Ill admit, my initial reaction was very dismissive. Im glad, because I dont believe that it is. I won't pretend I know everything about NA culture, but I believe that headresses and that kind of finery is only used on special occasions and was not how ordinary NAs dressed all the time. It really depends who you talk to. 12. Cultural appropriation means using a racial, religious, or social group's customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits without authority or right. And FWIW, I've read stories that disturbed me & even disgusted me but the author has the right to tell their story whether I like it or don't. The Indians asked the Windigo if there was any fat on them. The Wendigo happens to be part of my own (Anishiinaabe) cultural heritage. Thus I support Scott Cooper, the director of the forthcoming (hopefully by next spring) ANTLERS, in his efforts to seek out consultation from Indian advisors when making his movie, which features a Wendigo. creators (a large majority being white) . teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the "cultural appropriation" of the Wendigo, likening it to the "sexualization" of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. By Derrick Clifton. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. One day they came to an Indian village and the Windigo sent the boy to the Indian village to get some things for him to eat. I really just want to learn about how to appreciate aspects of cultures that I am not included in respectfully. On the other hand, "The Wendigo" is one of the first representations of the windigo by a Clunky prose aside, this is the "noble savage" trope repurposed for Rowling's universe, with just a pinch of Magical Negro thrown in for good measure. These bonnets are symbols of warrior achievements and are the equivalent of military medals. Replying to @luciproletariatfox #culturalappropriation #wendigoon, #yeti #wendigo #voodoodoll #culturalappropriation, #duet with @firelotusthewitch #culturalappropriation #vvitchtok #vvitch #witchywoman #pagantok #norsepagan #norsetok #pagansoftiktok #pagancommunity, I am curious to hear the opinions of others on this one. Monsters like Wendigos often represent, in the imprecise language of emotion, a common cultural fear. That's an easy solution and I still keep my freedom to create. In some traditions, humans overpowered by greed could turn into wendigos; the myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation. I have always felt a distinct emotional connection to it, in fact. It springs from the well of the collective human unconscious, the communal soul. People can appreciate and draw as many wendigo and other scary monsters as they like, it's all entirely fictional and doesn't hurt anyone. I'm not skilled enough to draw these (")> lolz. One recurring theme across these storytelling mediums is the use of the wendigoalso spelled wtikoa monstrous figure from Algonquian mythology who exhibits an insatiable greed along with a desire for human flesh. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. Handle the characters and the story with respect. It also seems to me to be unacceptable for authors to be unable to use one (or more) of those characters/symbols/etc. In my blind quest to represent everyone, all I did was reinforce the problem. I would refuse to be shackled by political correctness. In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo psychosis. He was eating the juice (marrow) from the inside of the bones of his legs that were cut off. Most sensible thing said ever. That borrowing and exchanging of cultural elements is what makes America the melting pot of the world. I would advise anyone, however, who feels that way about my choice to create art or literature based on a wendigo, to simply avoid my gallery and writing. I mean, I have native heritage, grew up with the culture and I even have a wendigo character in my own comic that's based on the pop-culture version with the elk skull and whatnot so I honestly don't see an issue with it but if you're really concerned then perhaps try a different monster called the Leshy from Slavic folklore? The wendigo -- a creature from Native American myth -- carries powerful symbolism and is presumably sufficiently mysterious to keep enough audience members guessing at its motives and abilities. For more information, please see our For this screenshot controversy, I am actually going to go over a video game for this. He ultimately was granted a pardon but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon. No one said it were exceptional that way. J.K is weird for using name like that, it isn't hard to google names, i know she wrote books before internet was as "popular" as now, but i honestly doubt that she couldn't find name and surname of east asian person, she could of used names from either celebrity ( use surname of one and name of other or something like that), she could of used name from character from some book, there were ways of finding name that isn't bad as Cho-Chang, also i find it a bit weird that said character is in "smart" house, feels way to stereotypical for me. Appropriating the Wendigo As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. First, he gives definitions of the key concepts of "appropriation" and "arts," and delimits his investigation as one concerned with "cultural" appropriation. Lurking in the deep woods of the Northern United States and Southern Canada lies a mysterious and fearsome Native American monster, the Wendigo. Even in the face of ongoing cultural appropriation and erasure, wendigo stories are but one reflection of the survivance, wisdom, and brilliance of Native peoples. Privacy Policy. Beyond Forbes, other Native American thinkers have also used wendigo stories to present critical perspectives on various social problems and call for their resolution. This country is seeking to be whole Stretching out its arms and consuming all it can. It just looks like a human that may be bigger than normal. If Hello Kitty and the Minions from Dispicable Me being considered acceptable Halloween costumes wasn't the exact point I stopped taking Halloween seriously as a holiday, Wendigos being considered a form of disrespectful "cultural appropriation" was. Some of this critique was rightly directed at literal cultural theft . [16] Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. As much as I would love to tell everyone to just read her sources and then be able to understand everything better, I just don't think that's realistic for most people(because they are not easily accessible to most, and I don't think that was her intention by including these in her description. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Lots of stories have aped Native American folklore before her, including some of mine. They got Thor and Loki all wrong and what the hell? to tell a new tale. This term only applies to a . Okay, dont anybody get me wrong. [49][50] In the 2021 film The Inhuman (L'Inhumain) the arrival of a wendigo symbolizes inner turmoil after a character turns his back on his Indigenous heritage in the pursuit of material success. The deaths of tens of millions of Jews, Slavs, etc., at the hands of the Nazis, the deaths of tens of millions of blacks in slavery days, the deaths of up to 30 million or more Indians in the 1500s, the terribly short life spans of Mexican Indian farm workers in the US, and of Native Americans generally today, the high death rates in the early industrial centers among factory workers, and so on, all clearly attest to the fact that the wealthy and exploitative literally consume the lives of those that they exploit. Here's some links:Website - https://thesierramistify.wixsite.com/thesierramistifyEtsy - https://www.etsy.com/shop/thesierramistify?ref=simple-shop-header-name\u0026listing_id=736195213Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesierramistify/Art Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesierramistify.art/- Music used in this video -Prime Beatz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkG3r3-ODOw and our Still though, Im not sure I fully get the Native American spirits(?) With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. What I do think is not so great was it could have been something that was corrected for the films, where they do have access to people and the internet was more developed in the mid 2000s. [2], Although distinct from how it appears in the traditional lore, one of the first appearances of a character inspired by, or named after, a wendigo in non-Indigenous literature is Algernon Blackwood's 1910 novella The Wendigo. DeSanti points to the 1999 horror film Ravenous as an illustration of this argument equating "the cannibal monster" to "American colonialism and manifest destiny". Anyone who lives in a place that is exposed to more than . How dare they? Watch popular content from the following creators: Thorn (@shr00mermaid), Thorn (@shr00mermaid), Nuoance(@nuoance), MattHatterPlays(@matthatterplays), Aidan Mattis(@theaidanmattis) . And they are worth considering including in one's classroom teaching. https://www.deviantart.com/forum/community/complaints/2611618/. I believe that the Wendigo is far older than that, far more primal. See more. Some researchers argued that, essentially, Wendigo psychosis was a fabrication, the result of nave anthropologists taking stories related to them at face value without observation. One example is Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke who has called for a decisive shift away from what she has termed Wendigo Economics for the sake of the health of the natural world. [clarification needed] The ceremony, known as wiindigookaanzhimowin, was performed during times of famine, and involved wearing masks and dancing backward around a drum. does not have antlers or have any wolf features. The Windigo had a knife and he'd cut the boy on the hand to see if he was fat enough to eat, but the boy didn't get fat. That, I would affirm, is truly and literally cannibalism, and it is cannibalism accompanied by no spiritually meaningful ceremony or ritual., More than a commentary on the life of wendigo stories amongst his own people, Forbes deploys the metaphor of the wendigo to advance nothing less than a critique of civilization at large and describes the violence that he argues lies at its foundation as one driven by a kind of wendigo psychosis. The Windigo also has the power to turn humans into cannibals who suffer the same . In my blind quest to represent everyone, all I did was reinforce the problem. Rowling tries (and fails) to mitigate these implications by saying "although it is generally held to be a mark of the very greatest witches and wizards that they have also been able to produce wandless magic of a very high quality." So, thanks, Dave! Key elements of culture include: language art,. Create what you want; let the audience decide its fame. It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Representation in media is crucially important, something I have become very aware of as I've grown older and consumed more entertainment. [17] Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation. 17spaz 2 yr. ago Since the concept of a wendigo stems from First Nations folklore, maybe someone making a cute little doll of this evil spirit figure was seen as inappropriate or making fun of their culture? His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 Cultural appropriation is a bullshit term made up by people who feel some bizarre psychological need to make up reasons to punish themselves. [21] The last known wendigo ceremony conducted in the United States was at Lake Windigo of Star Island of Cass Lake, within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.[when? People were not really using Google until the 2000s and that kind of info might have not been available in the 90s. In the course of the transformation from human to wendigo, the person exhibits increasing selfishness, violence, hunger, and greedparticularly for human flesh. Far from just being a monster in an escapist horror flick, Forbes and LaDuke demonstrate that the wendigo can help us grasp the horrors of our real world so we can be here now and, ultimately, work toward solutions. Only assholes think thats offensive. It's also linked to the many cultural taboos against these negative actions and behaviors. There, he uses the cannibalistic wendigo as a metaphor for the behaviors and attitudes central to patterns of social domination visited upon his own people in the Americas and subjugated peoples everywhere. He writes: Wtiko is a Cree termwhich refers to a cannibal or, more specifically, to an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible evil acts, including cannibalism I have come to the conclusion that imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalism and, in fact, are precisely those forms of cannibalism which are most diabolical or evil It should be understood that wtikos do not eat other humans only in a symbolic sense. Windigo psychosis may well be the most perfect example of the construction of an Aboriginal mental disorder by the scholarly professions, and its persistence dramatically underscores how constructions of the Aboriginal by these professions have, like Frankenstein's monster, taken on a life of their own.