wendigo cultural appropriation wendigo cultural appropriation

He ultimately was granted a pardon but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon. [33], The frequency of Wendigo psychosis cases decreased sharply in the 20th century as Boreal Algonquian people came into greater and greater contact with European ideologies and more sedentary, less rural, lifestyles. I am ashamed I watched all the movies. In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo psychosis. 5. In their most recent music video for 'How You Like That', fans spotted a Ganesha idol kept on the ground, in the background of the music video. Cultural appropriation is a huge red flag that the brand has minimal diversity or representation behind the scenes," she explains. According to Professor Chris Schedler, the figure of the wendigo represents "consuming forms of exclusion and assimilation" through which groups dominate other groups. By Derrick Clifton. [5], In his 2004 treatise Revenge of the Windigo on disorders and treatments of the behavioral health industry in the United States and Canada that are peculiar to indigenous people, James B. Waldram wrote,[34]. Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe. [18], A wendigo need not lose the human's powers of cognition or speech and in some depictions may clearly communicate with its prospective victims or even threaten or taunt them. [21] The last known wendigo ceremony conducted in the United States was at Lake Windigo of Star Island of Cass Lake, within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.[when? In addition to denoting a cannibalistic monster from certain traditional folklore, some Native Americans also understand the wendigo conceptually. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. I'm all for respecting other people's cultures, but straight up trying to tell people they can't respectfully depict a fictional creature because it's ,,stealing" or ,,evoking the creature" or something is just way too overboard. I can't even think about bank without getting mad, why did she need to make them like that..EVERY name is filled with stereotypes , well every name from minority .I don't even want to talk about Fantastic Beasts problems. It turned its hunger on the Americas, a wendigo so hungry that it consumes its own lips if there is nothing else for it to eat. Mythologynote my use of the capital M to convey that it is far more than just some made-up stories; it is stories containing deeper spiritual truthsbelongs to all of humanity. wa, which may have meant "owl". Blackwood's work has influenced many of the subsequent portrayals in mainstream horror fiction,[42][43] such as August Derleth's "The Thing that Walked on the Wind" and "Ithaqua" (1933 and 1941),[41] which in turn inspired the character in Stephen King's novel Pet Sematary,[42] where it is a personification of evil, an ugly grinning creature with yellow-grey eyes, ears replaced by ram's horns, white vapor coming from its nostrils, and a pointed, decaying yellow tongue. It has become something else altogether. I agree with some of it to a point, but disagree with most of it. In my blind quest to represent everyone, all I did was reinforce the problem. As long as theyre not shoving their porn in your face let them be as Paul McCartney sung. No it isn't cultural appropriation, as long as it is researched and accurately presented in the story. We enjoy liberties today that aren't even a freckle on the face of human history, and yet some individuals would go so far as to throw them all away because something offends them. Seems to me a great deal of what people write about in fantasy stories is borrowing from other cultures & nations & communities. I don't don't value cultural pluralism. But I do notice that Eyre stopped short of saying colonialization is the origin for the Wendigo legend. That, I would affirm, is truly and literally cannibalism, and it is cannibalism accompanied by no spiritually meaningful ceremony or ritual., More than a commentary on the life of wendigo stories amongst his own people, Forbes deploys the metaphor of the wendigo to advance nothing less than a critique of civilization at large and describes the violence that he argues lies at its foundation as one driven by a kind of wendigo psychosis. Posted By : / actual instructions in flowcharting are represented in /; Under :nose exercise before and afternose exercise before and after WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but you should totally go buy my novella. "[36] Out of equilibrium and estranged by their communities, individuals thought to be afflicted by the wendigo spirit unravel and destroy the ecological balance around them. Character can be mean, evil or complete asshole but you still should be respectful while writing said character. "Why is indigenous culture suddenly more sacred than any other culture?". The Wendigo may be a figure from American Indian mythology, but it belongs to all of humankind. Just as the vampire and werewolf do not belong exclusively to people of European descent and the Mummy doesnt belong to Egyptians. Further, cultural appropriation often occurs as the backwash of colonization, and contributes to widening existing divisions and perpetuating patterns of historic dispossession and oppression. To fully understand its consequences, though, we need to make sure we have a working definition of culture itself. And I accept that the Wendigo can symbolize for them that exploitation. Chippewa author Louise Erdrich's novel The Round House, winner of the National Book Award, depicts a situation where an individual person becomes a wendigo. Mistgod Edited Oct 11, 2020 Hobbyist Traditional Artist Apparently, wendigos are sacred creatures from several indigenous cultures. teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. When first hearing this criticism, I, as a wannabe author of fiction (by the way, you can buy my debut novella here) rolled my eyes and whitesplained to myself why Rowling wasn't doing anything wrong. "Windigo Psychosis: A Study of Relationship between Belief and Behaviour among the Indians of Northeastern Canada." Far from just being a monster in an escapist horror flick, Forbes and LaDuke demonstrate that the wendigo can help us grasp the horrors of our real world so we can be here now and, ultimately, work toward solutions. Cultural appropriation is perhaps the stupidest example of the stupidest concept , political correctness , that has ever been argued. Historically, deciding exactly what culture is hasn't been easy. The idea of getting down to the nitty-gritty came from the 18th century English slave trade, when nitty-gritty referred to the worthless debris left at the ship's bottom compartment after slaves had been evacuatedand evolved to include the slaves themselves. You're absolutively spot on! Unlike cultural appropriation, strategic anti-essentialism can be practiced by both minority cultures and majority cultures. "Cultural appropriation refers to the use of objects or elements of a non-dominant culture in a way that reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression and doesn't respect their original meaning or give credit to their source. When I got over my initial bout of self-defensiveness, I realized I was totally wrong. Wendigos, teepees and cultural appropriation I read some stuff yesterday saying that teepees are cultural appropriation and there was a long post about how wendigos aren't cryptids and how stories about them are cultural appropriation. And some natives don't care at all. Creative freedom is a beautiful luxury too many do not understand; it wasn't but a hundred years ago when art was said to have an objective hierarchy, and that was how it was for thousands of years. If I don't, I'll never know what it is I'm so angry about! By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Archived post. (Anything that isnt outright vandalism isnt likely to harm the statue at all, but I wouldnt dare do anything disrespectful around it. In addition to characterizing individual people who exhibit destructive tendencies, the wendigo can also describe movements and events with similarly negative effects. New replies are no longer allowed. What lips it had were tattered and bloody Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.[15]. I know what cultural appropriation is but Ive not been as involved in social justice as I used to be and I guess its showing. He wasn't dead. appropriation, or - as I argue - misappropriation, of the Wendigo as a 1. And that's exactly the problem. Key elements of culture include: language art,. Draw/write what you want, I say. So yeah, if anyone could offer any insight/information, thatd be appreciated. It's taking those cultural. White authors should be able to write about non-white people. This was the end of this Giant Windigo. More Than Monsters: The Deeper Significance of Wendigo Stories, often presented apart from its original cultural contexts, At Facing History and Ourselves, we value conversationin classrooms, in our professional development for educators, and online. It's a term for what happens to people who for one reason or another turn to eating other people. It also seems to me to be unacceptable for authors to be unable to use one (or more) of those characters/symbols/etc. Its incredibly validating to know that other people have heard about it and enjoy the story enough to make reference to the name and concept. Most sensible thing said ever. As a creator, I believe it is my responsibility, the responsibility of any creator, if using characters that belong to a culture other than mine and exploring themes from that culture, to be accurate. This ailment attacked our deputies; and, as death is the sole remedy among those simple people for checking such acts of murder, they were slain in order to stay the course of their madness. I am so offended! to tell a new tale. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. I think she knew that her decision would be challenged and she wanted to let people know that she had valid reasons for doing what she did. The people who get offended over it, on behalf of someone else, are pathetically absurd. Now time to go back and make some changes. does not have antlers or have any wolf features. Create what you want; let the audience decide its fame. It has no place in the world of Folklore and monsters. [40][41] Joe Nazare wrote that Blackwood's "subtly-demonizing rhetoric transforms the Wendigo from a native myth into a descriptive template for the Indian savage."[42]. A specimen of folk story collected in the early 20th century by Lottie Chicogquaw Marsden, an ethnographer of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, in which a wendigo also exhibits tool use, an ability to survive partial dismemberment, and autocannibalism, reads:[19]. 1. Thats just asking for trouble.) In 1661, The Jesuit Relations reported: But overall I can't stand JKR. Theyre revered spirits to the point where people wont speak their name so it must be frustrating when people are just like Oh yeah, I saw one of those, it was so spooky or have an aesthetic called wendigocore. "[39] 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. [29], Another well-known case involving Wendigo psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and medicine man known for his powers at defeating wendigos. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson's Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children. [47], Other creatures based on the legend, or named for it, appear in various films and television shows, including Dark Was the Night, Ravenous , The Lone Ranger (2013),[48] and the 2021 film Antlers by Scott Cooper, where the wendigo is portrayed as a deer-like creature with a glowing heart that moves from person to person with a never ending hunger. Cultural appropriation consists of borrowing something from another culture in mockery or thoughtless misuse. Even before it went live, she was being criticized for her apparently blatant cultural appropriation of Native American folklore, and since publishing the criticism has only grown more pointed. The use of the creature in horror stories . The Wendigos are the ultimate antagonists of Until Dawn. Some of this critique was rightly directed at literal cultural theft . They got Thor and Loki all wrong and what the hell? The legend of the Wendigo stems from Native American folklore, primarily in Algonquian-speaking tribes located in south and southeastern Canada, the Great Lakes Region, and northeastern United States. The wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess: never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victims. It springs from the well of the collective human unconscious, the communal soul. The Cambridge Dictionary, defines it as "the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture."And a lot of times, it is marked by a dominant culture taking from one that has been colonized and oppressed . For example, dressing up as a Native American while using redface and using the gaudiest, most elaborate costume you can think of (using the stereotypical feathered headress, tribal print tan clothing, holding a spear, etc.). BTW, I love rainbow farting unicorns! Windigo is a malevolent manitou or spirit whose insatiable appetite for human flesh can never be satisfied. The Windigo had a knife and he'd cut the boy on the hand to see if he was fat enough to eat, but the boy didn't get fat. The game I will be going over in this is Until Dawn, a horror game made by Supermassive Games, made . Facing History and Ourselves invites educators to explore our case study Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools, particularly our reading "Culture, Stereotypes, and Identity" which features reflection questions surrounding some of the stereotypical media representations that we touch upon at the beginning of this essay. Truly insensitive cultural appropriation is when you're taking a part of another culture and portraying it in a deliberately insensitive or disrespectful manner. If Hello Kitty and the Minions from Dispicable Me being considered acceptable Halloween costumes wasn't the exact point I stopped taking Halloween seriously as a holiday, Wendigos being considered a form of disrespectful "cultural appropriation" was. On the other hand, "The Wendigo" is one of the first representations of the windigo by a In contrast to modern horror stories that appropriate the wendigo as a plot device, Forbes implies that what actually ought to be terrifying to us is that we live in societies enveloped in violence and exploitation that we struggle to identify as such. One recurring theme across these storytelling mediums is the use of the wendigoalso spelled wtikoa monstrous figure from Algonquian mythology who exhibits an insatiable greed along with a desire for human flesh. The Wendigo (Also known as windigo, weendigo, windago, waindigo, windiga, witiko, wihtikow, and various other names including manaha) originates from Native-American legend, and is said to be a demonic half-beast as told by the Algonquian peoples along the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada. (the proceeding statement may contain some levels of sarcasm.). Film, It shouldn't be bad thing if you don't mock culture, make sure to have all information you can ( read books from culture or ask someone who grew up with said culture if they are willing to teach you) but then again they aren't from your culture and unlike creatures like vampires they are a bit more closed i don't know is it good to use them. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the cultural appropriation of the Wendigo, likening it to the sexualization of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. And besides that, it never hurts to include your sources. No, I read your comment. It was already here. Cultural appropriation is a bullshit term made up by people who feel some bizarre psychological need to make up reasons to punish themselves. MORTUI VELOCES SUNT! Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. First, he gives definitions of the key concepts of "appropriation" and "arts," and delimits his investigation as one concerned with "cultural" appropriation. No they fucking aren't. Check it out here:https://youtu.be/fHE4fkvUpWMI really just made this video to express how I am currently feeling about the wendigo doll situation and the questions I have about it. My intentions were pure, as were Rowling's, I imagine. What makes the wendigo any different from other culturally important mythological creatures like unicorns? Cooper and del Toro made the conscious decision to tell the story of the wendigo in a way that is respectful to its Native American roots, which in turn helps make Antlers a more authentic horror film. For more information, please see our The concept of cultural appropriation began well enough, but just like everything else woke culture political correctness, it's gone way too far. The legend of the Wendigo is, in fact, one of the oldest manifestations of a taboo peculiar to most human societies, and which was already widespread among Anglophone tribes: cannibalism. . But, but, what if they're looking at something that erodes the moral fabric of civilization? That's just pulling a potential explanation out of my ass, though, I have no idea if its accurate or not. "This isn't going to be the last time a story like this emerges about cultural appropriation, and what it emphasises is how much we need more diversity, in all components of the fashion industry," says Lewis. In some artistic depictions, it looks similar to the pop-culture wendigo and even makes an appearance in The Witcher games but instead it's called a Leshen. Wendigo) from its cultural context and its movement by non-Indigenous creators (a large majority being white) into a space of the horror genre that displays negative or antagonistic qualities. wendigos originate from spiritual beliefs held by Algonquian Indigenous peoples, whom are from the north eastern part of north america. Lots of stories have aped Native American folklore before her, including some of mine. The cultural appropriation police answer the yoga and banh mi objections with a familiar counter-argument: it's about power. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. But its none of your concern what turns someone on! I have to look! iii 3 four quarters: Jack D. Forbes' concept of colonialism as a manifestation of wtiko psychosis; ethnographical works that feature fearsome figures from the stories of North American tribal Cultural appropriation by a dominant culture is harmful to underrepresented cultures because it reduces cultural significance and reinforces double standards. Halloween is literally a holiday (most Americans see it as a good excuse to dress as a sexy cat or whatever, but there are actually still people left who believe it's sacred and who perform rituals etc for the holiday). I can't say for sure how much research Rowling did when writing her series, but others have pointed out that it doesn't seem like much. This inspired an entire thread -->, Sucks to be these artists I guess. As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. Differing thinking is one of the cherished assets of democratic cultural pluralism. With the comments turned off on Dollightful's apology video, I thought that maybe we could have some discussion here(if anyone ever sees this, anyway). . Hah hah! By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. I do not know, nor can I. In theory, art and other cultural products are created for the. By Christian Chiakulas, Contributor Writer, musician, activist, single father from Chicago. I have drawn my own version of golems too, and that is Jewish mythology. In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings, a characteristic absent from myths in other Algonquian cultures. It never occurred to me that what I was doing might be offensive, because I've never even met a Native American person in real life. They are seen as malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural beings of great spiritual power . Not only is it not offensive, I LOVE seeing references to wendigos in popular culture! So it seems to me like the objection might have something to do with an inappropriate mixing of religious contexts from two different belief systems. Watch popular content from the following creators: Thorn (@shr00mermaid), Thorn (@shr00mermaid), Nuoance(@nuoance), MattHatterPlays(@matthatterplays), Aidan Mattis(@theaidanmattis) . "Today, many believe the crows to be . So some of it may be that natives don't want people to be waking this monster. PSA: These 11 Halloween "Costumes" Will Always Be Offensive. It was created by Mayuki . Their visitations speak to the inseparability of human experience National identity is irrelevant to this borderless horror. This term only applies to a . To Helheimr with it! I know people who are absolutely terrified of them, branching out from their fear of deer. In a report from the Contemporary Folklore conference covered in issue 388 of FORTEAN TIMES, the go-to magazine for all things paranormal, weird, or unexplained, a complaint is voiced about the "cultural appropriation" of the Wendigo, likening it to the "sexualization" of the Mothman statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.