Kitchi-Gami: Life Among the Lake Superior Ojibway

CHAPTER XXII

CANNIBALISM. 355 CHAPTER XXII. CANNDIALS-PRIVATIONS IN CANADA-LIVING ON ROAST LEATIIER-PBA.Nlt· LIN'S EXPEDITIONB-l!'ORCED ANTHROPOPHAGY-THE WINDIG08-DREAMS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES-MURDERS AND LYNCH LAW-MISSABIXONGS -HIS STRANGE VOYAGE--QUTLAWS AND THEIR l!'ATE-l!'EMALE WINDIGOS -VOYAGEUR STORIES-A WINDIGO TURNS CHRISTIAN-TRIPE DE ROCHEGIANTS AND DWARl!'S-AN INDIAN HOP·O'·MY·THUMB-l!'AIRY SPORTSMEN AND SAILORS. IT is pretty generally accepted and allowed that the Indian North American tribes are not anthropopbagists , and have never been so. Still, as I have just mentioned, owing to their barbarous war habits and wild thirst for revenge, they will sometimes sin by swallowing human flesh. It frequently happens, too, in these barren and poor countries, that men are so reduced by hunger and want, that in their despair they shoot down their fellow-men like game, and eat them in the same way. "In my utter misery," a Canadian Voyageur assured me, "I have more than once roasted and eaten my mocassins." Many educated traders also assured me that if they had to reckon up all the leather articles they have devoured in their life, they could easily make up a couple of dozen skins. 356 THE CLAIMS OF HUNGER. In a country where such scenes and events as Franklin described in such heartrending fashion in his first Arctic voyage are among the things which every man endures once or twice through life, we can easily imagine that men like that cannibal half-breed whom Franklin's companion shot, should not be a rarity. In fact, my ears still tingle with the tragic stories I heard of an Indian who killed his two squaws and then his children, in succession; of another who murdered his friend; of a third who wandered about the forests like a hungry wolf, and bunted his fellowmen ; stories, one of which happened in 1854 on Isle Royale, another on the north bank of the lak.~::, the third occurred somewhere else in the neighbourhood, and were told me in their fullest details. But even these cases ofunnatural attacks on one's own brethren, produced by unspeakable want, are only exceptions to a rule. The Indians here, on the contrary, have always returned to a state of natural repugnance against cannibalism, and they have, indeed, a decided aversion from those who have committed the crime, even when in extreme want, and almost in a state of rabid frenzy. They give them the opprobrious name of "Windigo," which is nearly synonymous with our cannibal. And it is quite certain that if a man has ever bad recourse to this last and most horrible method of saving his life, even when the circumstances are pressing and almost excusable, he is always regarded with terror and horror by the Indians. They avoid him, and he lives among the savages like a timid head of game. Any one that has once broken through the bounds does so easily again, or, at least, the supposition is rife that he can do so. Hence he becomes an object of ap- A TRAGIC STORY. 357 prehension, and must live retired from the rest of his fellow-men. He does not enjoy their fraternal assistance , and thus his hostile position towards society soon drives him back into the same difficulty and temptation . In this manner, or nearly so, a class of windigos is called into existence. I was told of a man who wandered about in the forests on the northern bank of the lake. He was known perfectly well, and his name was even mentioned to me. I learnt that during a hard winter he had killed and eaten his squaw: after that he had attacked , killed, and also devoured a girl. This man always went about hunting by himself, and whenever his canoe was seen, the sight produced terror and alarm, and all the world fled from him. He was equally a burden to himself as to the others, and, in consequence of all the agony he endured, he had fallen into a state of brooding melancholy and a fearful affection of the brain. The murder of his wife was the result of a state of delirium, produced by his sufferings; and now, report added, his brain was quite softened, and the sutures of his temple had begun to give way. He was regularly hunted down, so people said, and he would before long receive...