Wendigo
In Algonquian folklore, the wendigo () or windigo is a mythical man-eating monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of the United States and Canada. The wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. It is historically associated with murder, insatiable greed, and the cultural taboos against such behaviours.
Wendigo
In addition to characterizing individual people who exhibit destructive tendencies, the wendigo can also describe movements and events with similarly negative effects. According to professor Chris Schedler, the figure of the wendigo represents "consuming forms of exclusion and assimilation" through which groups dominate other groups." This application allows Native Americans to describe colonialism and its agents as wendigos, since the process of colonialism ejected natives from their land and threw the natural world out of balance. DeSanti points to the 1999 horror film "Ravenous" as an illustration of this argument equating "the cannibal monster" to "American colonialism and manifest destiny". This movie features a character who articulates that expansion brings displacement and destruction as side effects, explaining that "manifest destiny" and "western expansion" will bring "thousands of gold-hungry Americans . . . over the mountains in search of new lives . . . This country is seeking to be whole . . . Stretching out its arms . . . and consuming all it can. And we merely follow". For a more detailed exploration linking wendigo attributes to colonialism, see Jack D. Forbes's 1978 book "Columbus and Other Cannibals", which was an influential text in the American Indian Movement.