Windigo Psychosis: The Anatomy of an Emic-Etic Confusion

Abstract

Contends that there is no documentation for windigo psychosis (referring to a hunter forced to eat human flesh and thereafter transformed into a maniacal cannibal). The author spent 5 yrs doing fieldwork among the Northern Algonkians and conducted an extensive archival search and a critical examination of the anthropological literature before concluding that there probably never were any windigo psychotics in an etic/behavioral sense. When the windigo phenomenon is considered with respect to group sociodynamics rather than individual psychodynamics, the question becomes not what causes a person to become a cannibal, but under what circumstances a Northern Algonkian is likely to be accused of having become a cannibal and thus risk being executed as such. It is argued that those so executed were victims of triage homicide or witch hunts, events common in societies under stress. The term "psychosis" is an artifact of research imposed on the phenomenon by outsiders. (154 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)