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
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 short story "The Wendigo". Blackwood's work has influenced many of the subsequent portrayals in mainstream horror fiction, such as August Derleth's "The Thing that Walked in the Wind" and "Ithaqua" (1933 and 1941), which in turn inspired the character in Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary", where it is a personification of evil, an ugly grinning creature with yellow-grey eyes, ears replaced by ram's horns, white vapour coming from its nostrils, and a pointed, decaying yellow tongue. These works set the template for later portrayals in popular culture, at times even replacing the Native American lore.