Ancestral Teachings
Windingo Notes
From Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer
1. Windingo is the legendary monster of the Anishinaabe.
2. Shaped like an outside man 10 feet tall white hair hanging from its body, mouth raw where it has chewed off its lips from hunger.
3. Windingo is related to the winter famine. An insight from a people who knew hunger and starvation intimately.
4. Windingo myths proliferated especially during the fur trade, when over exploitation of game led to frequent and severe winter famines.
5. The myth reinforces the taboo against cannibalism:
“Succumbing to such a repulsive urge dooms gnawer of bones to wander as Windingo for the rest of time. It is said that the Windingo will never enter the spirit world but will suffer eternal pain of need, its essence a hunger that will never be sated. The more a Windingo eats the more ravenous it becomes.
6. The myth teaches self discipline over selfishness:
“Traditional upbringing was designed to strengthen self-discipline, to build resistance against the insidious germ of taking too much. The old teachings recognize that Windingo nature is in each of us… Anishinaabe elders like Stewart King remind us to always acknowledge the two faces – the light in the dark side of life – in order to understand ourselves. See the dark, recognize its power, but do not feed it.”
7. The Word Windingo is derived from roots meaning “fat excess” or “thinking only of oneself.”
- Basil Johnston, Ojibwe Scholar
8. “A Windingo is a human whose selfishness has overpowered their self control to the point that satisfaction is no longer possible”
- Steve Pitt
Psalm 17 (excerpts)
“My deadly enemies drawn around me their fat has covered their heart”
“And you’re protected ones—fill their bellies, let her sons be sated, and let them leave what is left for their young.”
“As for me, In justice I behold your face, I take my fill, wide awake, of your image”
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