WEBVTT - Wendigo... 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.400 January six, eighteen ninety six. I went to see the 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:06.720 sick man today and he's a pitiful looking devil. They 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:08.920 had him with about six blankets and he still was 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.200 nearly freezing. I can do nothing for him. January twelve. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:13.920 I went to see him today and he looks worse 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:15.840 than ever. I gave him a dose of castor oil, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.200 but he he says his heart is freezing. He keeps 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.960 insisting he'll become a cannibal. He wants the Algonquins to 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:25.000 kill him before he gets worse. January Francois came here 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:26.680 and asked me if I would read some prayers for 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.040 the sick man. He doesn't look like a human being. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.880 He seems to be terribly swollen in the body and face. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.240 The sight of him is enough to frighten any person. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.720 The poor Algonquin slept very little here for the last 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.639 nineteen days since he arrived. They have been watching him 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.000 all the time. I don't know how this will end. 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.239 January one Friendzois, came from me last night and I 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.199 went with him. I told him we ought to take 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.080 some rope with us and tie him up if we could. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.400 The sound of him was terrible. It was like the 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:53.960 calling of a wild animal. We tied him with the 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:55.880 ropes and I left to find some more, but but 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.600 he couldn't find any, and when I got back, the 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.720 cords around his arms were already breaking. The Gonquins asked 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:02.720 what we shouldn't do. They said that when he got up, 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.800 he would kill all of us. I told them to 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:06.120 do what they had to do is I had no 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:14.720 more ropes which to bind him. Welcome to Stuff to 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:23.640 Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:25.280 welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name is 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.959 Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And that was the 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.040 account of Francis work beaten uh the Orkney HBC clerk 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.040 at the Trout Lake Outpost the winter of eight during 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:42.600 the alleged Windigo possession of napatan Auger. Edited slightly for 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.880 clarity's sake, but otherwise exactly what's in the history books. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.120 And we wanted to bring that bit to your attention 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.000 because what we're talking about is a creature or a 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.559 possession that has to deal with cannibalism. Yeah, and even 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.880 though the creature itself is obviously a creature of myth, 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.680 we've talked before about the power of myth, the power 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.600 of paranormal scripts within a culture, as well as the 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.040 real life incidences that have allegedly occurred because of or 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.520 alongside the Wind to Go belief. Because if the oral 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.160 account of this particular Wind to Go possession story, as 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.080 collected by the University of Alberta's Nathan D. Carlson, holds true, 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.600 then the Algonquin tribes people gave Napappen boiling bear grease 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.840 an attempt to cure him after this, uh this account 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.040 that I read, and then when that didn't work, they 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.320 executed him with an axe, cutting off his head and 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.519 bearing it separate from his body. Now, there are various problems, 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:42.200 of course, with any account of cannibalism, just just cannibalism alone, 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.240 much less when you start involving supernatural uh in material 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.600 as well. Yeah, and that's the thing about Window that's 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.680 so interesting is it really highlights this issue of cannibalism. 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.880 And we've talked about this before. It's very hard to 0:02:55.040 --> 0:03:00.560 really pin down cannibalism what has actually happened with humans 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.480 for sure, Actually in nature it's very easy to explain, 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.680 right because they are not ashamed of it, they're not 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.760 ashamed and and they have a purpose, a real clear 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.760 purpose their cannibalism. And you have um, the sexual cannibalism 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.720 in orb spiders, right, that helps in terms of sexual 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:21.040 reproduction fitness. And then in tiger sharks you have siblicide. Right, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.040 you have a tiger that eats excuse me, a tiger 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.240 shark that eats a sibling because it's an easy source 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.760 of energy. Yeah, it's it's just pure economics. It's a 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.120 harsh world. Sometimes you have to reabsorb energy back into 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.040 the the winning prospects, and that's just how it goes. 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.360 But of course in human culture the economics may still 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.400 hold true, but we have all of these layers of 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.680 of moral concerns of society and culture. They just complicate 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.120 the equation. Well, I mean, when you say the economics, 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.000 you're talking about survival cannibalism. In other words, you're just 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.760 at the end of your rope and you may be 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.600 with someone who could provide you with a bit of energy, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.000 or perhaps there is even a body who that has 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.040 recently passed that someone uses. And we have many accounts 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.320 of this survival cannibalism in history. There a count that 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.080 are proven and then there are accounts that are sort 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.800 of forever being argued about, such as the Dolmar party, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.279 where that some saying well, maybe they didn't resort to 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.760 survival cannibalism, whithers say yes, some say well the bones, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.240 there's no bone evidence that they did, and others say, well, 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:26.839 well they wouldn't know on the bones, they would have 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:28.880 eaten the soft flesh, and of course that wouldn't the 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.640 evidence of that wouldn't survive. And then you know how 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.440 many people are going to come back from a chaotic 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.479 trip to the mountains and be like, WHOA, I only 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.000 survived because I ate my friend Caleb. Right, it's just 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:45.000 probably something that you're going to admit at cocktail parties, right, Um, so, yeah, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.600 you've got the survival cannibalism. And then, just to complicate 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.440 things a little bit further, we have these accounts of 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:56.000 cultural rituals which may or may not be symbolic cannibalism, right, 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.640 They may actually have occurred or occurred in different ways 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.919 that we don't think is cannibal as Dick. Yeah, well, 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.680 I mean you always have the the outsider viewing some 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.280 sort of cannab supposedly cannibalistic ceremony or hearing about it. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.800 You're having Westerners observed or hear about a ritual that 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.600 that from the people that they view as primitive, and 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.360 so you know, it's hard to tack down the actual 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.800 truth of the matter. Yeah. Actually, if you want to 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.200 look at a good example of this and someone who 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.960 actually furthered this idea of cannibalism, you can look to 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.839 Columbus who encountered the Arawak people in Hispaniola during the 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.159 fifteenth century and they warned him of another tribe, the 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.799 carab that eight people, which it appears this other tribe 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.000 never existed. So this has been really hard for anthropologists 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:40.960 to go through and to try to figure out. But 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:42.960 as far as I can tell, this other tribe just 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.200 wasn't a reality. So it may have just been for 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.960 them this story about another tribe just kind of a boogeyman, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.000 a boogeyman right telling the night there's another tribe out 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:54.760 there and they're so bad they eat people. You don't 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:56.120 want to be like that and you don't want them 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.080 to come for you, right, Or maybe they just wanted, 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.760 you know, Columbus to hang around and they were like, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.000 how we need to get him to stay here with 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.080 us and not go exploring. So in addition, Columbus may 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:11.080 have mistaken the ritual of keeping a loved one's bones 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.960 around the house. So that's what the Arrow act people did, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.560 and he may have mistaken that for evidence of cannibalism. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.120 And of course the whole thing is ridiculous too when 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:25.360 you realize that Columbus h comes bearing his his Catholic faith, 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.760 and of course Catholicism, like a lot of Christianity, is 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.920 rich in this symbol symbolic consumption of Christ's blood and flesh, 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:39.080 which even though you're not actually consuming blood and flesh, uh, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.120 it is, it is symbolic cannibalism at heart, right, which 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.040 we see in so many other cultures. The problem, of course, 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.960 is that Columbus was the authority on all matters for 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:51.880 and at that point, so people are like, so where'd 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.120 you go, what'd you see? What you experience? And then 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.640 whatever he said became sort of the gospel. Yeah, And 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:58.880 that's one of the problems you have throughout history too. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:00.760 I mean, going back to plenty of the Elder and 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.800 all these guys where you just have certain voices and 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:05.800 there aren't a lot of there's not a lot of 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.720 discussion about the matter. But you know, this guy said 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.160 that there are cannibals living in Africa and that remains 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.520 sort of the voice of truth for a matter of centuries. 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.320 So that's why The Wind to Go is such an 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.720 interesting thing to look at, because it really gets at 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.840 the heart of the taboo of cannibalism, but also the 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.960 psychology of the ways in which we behave when we 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.560 have these folk tales as stand ins for for what 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.560 becomes a reality. Yeah, so I want you to imagine 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.440 a dark, gaunt giant that haunts the woods, clad only 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.760 in matted hair, and it's peering attitude from the wild depths, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.800 with blood red eyes as wild as sinister and sinister 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.560 as those of an owl, with claws that are curl 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.080 and muscles that are coiled with the strength of a bear, 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.760 and its teeth are eager, and its foul tongue is 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:56.640 longing for the taste of human flesh that sounds cuddly. Yeah. Yeah, Now, 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.160 this is something that is This creature is known to 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.840 different north around in tribal groups. Um. And when we're 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.240 talking about the geography here, we're talking about French Canadian 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.960 territory UM and the Algonquins. Are they figure in this 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:12.640 quite a bit as well as a couple of the 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.440 other tribes. Yeah, the Algonquins as one of the most 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.800 populous and widespread North American native language groups, and uh, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.240 at different times it composed like a whole bunch of 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.239 different tribes. You know, they did a lot of different 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.760 tribes that would spoke the Algonquin tongue, and there was 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.360 a lot of shared beliefs among them, and they they 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.800 thrived in the harsh world of northern North America, a 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.920 land of vast unforgiving wilderness, brutal winners, particularly during the 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.319 Little Ice Age era in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.679 which correlates exactly with a lot of this exploration by 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.800 French Canadians who met up with these different tribes. And 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.680 we'll talk about this more, but they began to um 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.520 actually adopt some of these folk tales of the Wendico 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.640 and also wanted to mention that it goes by Whittakao 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:08.040 Witigo Wikio and Weendigo long Ago Windigo Witigo and we 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:13.319 ti Goigo. It sounds like a corporation, Yes, secretly is 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.520 based on cannibalism. It's right we tigo, you can we 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.560 tigo to um. And the cool thing about this is 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:24.520 that the windogo really sort of describes two different things 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.520 at play here. One is the beast that you described 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.720 who lives in that forest waiting to feast on a human. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.680 The other is a cannibalistic spirit that can possess a human. Yeah, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.680 and that spirit kind of walks the barrier between the 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.160 world and the world of the spirits. And of course 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.719 that's a very important area in the tales and the 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.839 belief systems in the world view of the the first 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:49.720 people of North America. Yeah, and if you look at 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:54.520 the Algonquins, they they really focus on these spirits as 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.360 uh as a sort of cautionary tale to people during 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:02.440 these very harsh winters not to turn to cannibalism, because 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.600 they're saying that if you eat the flesh of another, well, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.920 your soul is now susceptible to the wind to go. Yeah. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:09.760 There there were a number of causes, a number of 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.520 things that could turn you into a window go. Most 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.000 of them are are based in diet and food and 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.280 and hunger. Um. So you might be cursed by a 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.760 sorcerer always a possibility, you know, it'll happen if you 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.920 are yourself, if you yourself are a sorcerer, you might 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.240 seek the transformation in yourself. Always an option, all right. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.040 You might trigger the change if you fast too long 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.880 or feast too heavily, So a little too much food, 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.360 a little too little food, you're gonna potentially open yourself 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.040 up to the window goes caress. But most importantly are 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:40.800 all of all as you mentioned, if you if you 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.880 were forced to consume human flesh, or if you're tripped 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.960 into doing so, even in a dream, then the window 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.320 go can reach out to you, touch your soul and 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.800 bring on this steady and horrible change, And then you 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.800 might feel ice in your hearts. Yeah, because that's uh, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.320 that's that's the big thing right there. Um. They're number 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:05.120 of symptoms. According to the Algonquin Reports catalog by Nathan D. Carlson, 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.880 the symptoms include stupor, catatonia, depression, paranoia, and orexia or 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.720 the inability to hold down food, nausea, vomiting, emaciation, glazed eyes, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:19.280 bodily or facial swelling, violent shouting, hallucinations of family members 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:24.200 as food animals, particularly as beavers, and finally, this unstoppable 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.520 urge to consume human flesh. Yeah, there was one account 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.000 that reading in a separate book where like a mother 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.360 was was potentially turning into a window go and she 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.280 was telling her she's matter or children. She's saying, you 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.040 all look like beavers to me. Now wow, But but 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.600 it's that. But the big thing that, like the major 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:45.520 symptoms and the ultimate symptoms are the unstoppable urge to 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:50.000 consume human flesh. And this chill in your in your torso, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.400 in your heart as your heart becomes this lump of ice, 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.040 that's right, as the transformation occurs. Let's take a quick 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.480 break and when we get back, we'll talk about psychosis. 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.479 All right, we're back. We're just talking about the symptoms 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.559 in the folk tales of the of the Wind to 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.160 Go and uh, and how your heart may seem to 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.880 become this lump of of of ice and you have 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.400 this irresistible urge to consume human flesh. Now, there were 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.760 a few cures curative measures that were also related in 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:28.839 the folk tales. But I think it's interesting for you 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.680 talking about the curative measures, is that people took this 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.680 folklore and then they began to exhibit these symptoms, and 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.320 this is what that psychosis is in these cases of 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.520 people actually coming down with not actually turning into these 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:49.600 sort of werewolf like creatures, but actually comminating some dastardly acts. Yeah, because, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.240 on one hand, as h as Nathan D. Carlson points 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:58.400 out in his excellent article reviewing Wittico and Ethno History 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.040 of Cannibal Monsters and the Athabaska District of Northern Alberta 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.240 nineteen ten um, this was not just a you know, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.679 folk tale that was told. This was something in which 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.360 there was a lot of belief. There was a lot 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:14.000 of fear, he says, quote in the collective belief systems 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.439 of pre twenty one century algonquins. Contrary to the opinions 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.360 of some modern academics, as discussed below, the Wittigo condition 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.480 was not a legendary fabrication. For example, in early eighteen 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:27.920 ninety six, Richard Young, the Anglican Bishop of the Athabaska District, 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.599 wrote the following in a letter journal to the Evangelical 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.960 Fathers in the Church Missionary Society. Quote, the Indians have 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.160 a great terror of these so called windigoose or cannibals. 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.840 They believe that after eating human flesh, their heart becomes 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.000 a lump of ice and no one alive is safer 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.599 them assert as all of this sounds to us, it 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.640 is a real terror to the untutored Indian. So there's 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.319 a little obviously there's a bit of xenophobia and UH 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.800 and and racism and in that uh, that particular portrayal, 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.000 but but still it underlines that this was this was 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.960 serious medicine. And if you're in a situation where you 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.840 have been forced to resort to survival cannibalism, and then 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.760 it's known, or even if it's known only to you 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.160 and you return with shame, perhaps they other members of 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.840 your your group know that this occurred, and before you 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.120 know what, you're ostracized, and maybe you feel and there 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.080 are a number of these symptoms, like if there's a 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.880 whole list of possible symptoms, and if you begin if 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.200 you experience one of them or feel like you experience 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.280 one of them, uh, combined with the guilt that you feel, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.440 then how long before you begin manifesting this this paranoid 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.760 idea you were transforming. Yeah, let's set the scene for 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.360 this too. Or we're talking about these sort of starvation 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.520 winters that would occur and in this part of the world, um, 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:44.640 particularly as you said, during that period from the sempent 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.520 century to the nineteenth century. And you know, you have 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.280 people who would sort of collectively get together as families 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.440 during that time and band together and try to survive. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.240 But there is still a huge amount of isolation. So 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.880 you might be with five, six, seven of your fa 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.000 only members. Um, you know, out in the middle of 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.960 nowhere with this wind whistling or this wind howling. And 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.280 when you look at these algonquin Um depictions, the wind 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.080 is a huge force here. So I don't have you 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.440 ever been like on the mountain before, and and um, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.680 there's just huge amounts of wind coming in at your structure. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.440 If you're in a tent or in a cabin, yeah, yeah, 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.520 it's just if you're you're out in the open, it's 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:28.360 just whipping by. It's all you can hear in your ears. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.080 And if you're in a structure or even you know, 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.680 in the shelter of a tree or or or some stone, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.120 and it's just whistling by, and it's and it varies, 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.720 it's it's this changing tone almost the song. Yeah. And yeah, 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.400 I remember when I was in Costa Rica, Monteverde and 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.760 I was I spent a couple of nights in a 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.000 cabin on the top of the mountain there, and the 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.800 first night I was like, oh, this is beautiful. It's gorgeous. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:52.760 The second night I was like, it's this is awful. 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.280 I cannot get any sleep. The wind is howling. The 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.320 third night I started to feel like I was going crazy. 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:01.200 So imagine months of this going on. I want to say, 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.880 if you resort to cannibalism and Monteverdi, that's on. You 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:05.680 don't try and pin that on a wind to go. Well, 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.440 that's the thing, right, So I go out with a friend. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.880 We're gonna go try to trap something. You know, maybe 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.480 he breaks his leg. You know, things aren't looking good forms, 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.240 so off them and I have a little bit of 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.560 his meat. And then as we as you said, come 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.760 back to camp or to your cabin, and you feel 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.240 in the shame for it. Um. Now, I didn't want 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.240 to point out that Kevin Vulcan a professor of psychology. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.960 He's often called on as a behavioral expert on TV shows, 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.080 and they're like, he categorizes it as an extreme form 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.520 of cabin fever. So again, you've got harsh environmental factors there. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.600 You're with a couple of people and things can go awry. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:43.560 You're with a bunch of people that you love but 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.000 are also maybe driving in a little crazy yeah. And 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.280 uh and because that's one of the common tropes of 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.320 the window go story is you have like a mom 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.840 or a dad or even both that go nuts and 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.640 start eating the kids. And then you know, you eat 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.400 one kid, then you eat the second, and then and 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.280 then it just could out a hand. Yeah, Vulgan says, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.880 it becomes a compulsion. So there you are in your cabin, 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.200 the wind howling for months on end, and you began 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.240 to really think that you are the winding go right, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.679 it's it's taken hold of you. You're feeling icing in 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.560 your heart and uh, your your child is starting to 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.520 look like a drumstick yeah or beaver beaver. Yeah. All right, 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.520 we're gonna continue talking talking about that particular strain, but 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.480 just to go back presented cures that that we're explored 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.320 for for the wind to go situation, Carlson relates to 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.879 several from different sources, but they include drinking high wines 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.320 by the fire, which sounds rather pleasant. I would say 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.760 that should be your first stop on any attempt to 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:45.119 treat a suspected wind to go situation. Next the hit 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.679 the consumption of heated or even boiling animal flats fats. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.240 So you have some some moose meat, bear meat, what 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.800 have you. You heat to heat the fat up, get 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:56.880 it nice and boiling, and then you drink it. Now, 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.560 both of these methods drinking by the fire, drinking hot 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.679 animal fat. The idea is that it would help uh 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.640 burn away the ice that is formed in the heart. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:08.840 That's the key to the window go There was another 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.680 tail that I believe Carlson related in which there was 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.600 a group of window goes and they were they were 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.680 just a you know, complete terror and you know, eat 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.120 everyone in sight. And they were particularly hard to deal 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.800 with because, on one hand, window goes were said to 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.040 be bulletproof, you know, or bullets didn't affect them, and 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.199 the only way to to really kill them was to 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.439 deal with that icy heart. But these window goes had 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.800 taken their icy hearts out and store them elsewhere so 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.960 that they were they weren't not susceptible to that. Yeah. So, 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.560 um so those are some options. Also, you could of 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.560 course get a spirit medium to use a shaking tent ritual, 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.520 which is a special tint in which spirits could be summoned. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:46.879 But if these didn't work, the only thing to do 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.040 was to tie the window go down and hack it 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.679 to pieces with an axe bearing the pieces so as 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.080 to keep it from becoming whole again and killing everyone inside. Now, 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.080 someone by the name of Jack Fiddler, an Okay CREA member, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.120 actually took that the kind of became the van helsing 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.040 for his community of window Goes. He claimed to have 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.200 slaid fourteen people who were possessed, and he was in 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.800 prison when he murdered a woman who he says was 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.040 on the verge of turning into a windinga. So just 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.160 you know, there were people out there that we're trying 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.600 to actually, you know, stop it before it started what 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.639 they really thought was going to be a possession. And 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.160 of course we have so many different examples of people 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.159 who actually did this to their families, who actually ate 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.560 their families. So you can see why someone like Jack 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.040 Fiddler might really take this to heart as his cause, 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.280 his his reason for being. Yeah, and now, of course 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.639 one of the of course, the problems we mentioned with 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.800 cannibalism and cannibism stories, so the window Goes stories were 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.720 we're told enough around the campfire and by a bi 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:56.080 bi Algonquin tribes people who really love stories and told stories. 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.679 And the nature of stories that are told as is 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.480 that you you take on stories as your own that 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.520 are other people's. You you prop up a story by 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.760 saying you were there when you weren't. All of these 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.960 things happened. The fish gets a little larger with each telling, etcetera. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.800 And then you have the French Canadian voyagers, the travelers 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.760 who are who are who are meeting these people trading 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.800 stories with them, and of course they're early into telling 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.680 stories as well. Uh So we can't take every story 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.240 to heart, but some of them are are are actually 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.920 really well found at For instance, uh the swift Runner kids, Now, 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.440 this was a Cree trapper who serially murdered and consumed 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.919 the bodies of his wife and five children. And this 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.560 was near Athabaska Landing Trading Post in the north the 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.080 Central Um in north central Alberta in the Winner of 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.920 eighteen seventy eight, and um, all the murders except the 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.480 last one, we're more of a clear case of starvation cannibalism. 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.840 But then the last one, well, I'll just read you 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.400 what he had to say, when when he was interviewed, 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.679 he said, at that that moment, the window go suddenly 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.679 took possession of my soul, and in order to live longer, 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:00.920 far from people, and to put out of the way 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.400 the only witness to my crime, I seized my gun 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.840 and killed the last of my children, and aid him 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.160 as that I had done the others. Some weeks later 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.320 I was taken by the police, sentenced to death, and 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.680