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
As a concept, wendigo can apply to other situations than just Native American-European relations. It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Joe Lockhard, English professor at Arizona State University, argues that wendigos are agents of "social cannibalism" who know "no provincial or national borders; all human cultures have been visited by shape shifting wendigos. Their visitations speak to the inseparability of human experience . . . National identity is irrelevant to this borderless horror". Lockhard's ideas explain that wendigos are an expression of a dark aspect of human nature: the drive toward greed, consumption, and disregard for other life in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.