I really just want to learn about how to appreciate aspects of cultures that I am not included in respectfully. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge Eat what you want to eat, tattoo yourself with whatever you want to tattoo yourself with, wear what you want to wear, and let those ove Continue Reading More answers below I'm not skilled enough to draw these (")> lolz. I wouldn't be offended if someone dressed up as a stereotypical native american even though my great grandma was half blackfoot native american. And whoever!). We have to stop guarding cultures and subcultures in efforts to preserve them.. [45] Wrist, the 2016 debut novel by First Nations horror fiction writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler (Lac Des Milles Lacs Anishinaabe),[46] combines the traditional Ojibwe legend with the author's ideas inspired by non-Indigenous writers like Anne Rice and Tim Powers. So some may be fine if you draw it but don't say its full name. After thinking about it some more, I understand that its a kind of It was okay for these kids to pretend to be Indians but not for these kids to actually be Indians thing but I saw someone claim that it was contributing to colonisation and the death of death of their culture and that felt a bit strong. This term only applies to a . I do know some natives believe you should not say or write its name because that may make it come or you may be infected and become it. [11], This was the end of the wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of a number of Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu. We do the same thing with a lot of mythological creatures. so no, if you're some white kid hearing crying in the forests of california you're not being "lured into the The "Dark Horse" singer . For Indigenous peoples in Canada, cultural appropriation is rooted in colonization and ongoing oppression. It first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #162 (April 1973), and again in the October 1974 issue. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. Idiots have just made a religion out of being racist about culture and only allowing genetic descendants to participate in cultures. No one can try to stake a singular claim to it. With teepees, Im not sure I get it. . The legend of the wendigo has long been associated with real-life problems like insatiable greed, selfishness, and violence. [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. Oh yeah, Marvel. [2], 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 novella The Wendigo. I just posted a new video talking about cultural appropriation and art! Historically, deciding exactly what culture is hasn't been easy. I am just reacting to what I read in this ridiculous PSA journal out there on Deviantart. The Wendigo is a mythical creature that has been reported in many different forms. (Anything that isnt outright vandalism isnt likely to harm the statue at all, but I wouldnt dare do anything disrespectful around it. My tongue and my brain do not speak the right language. In Algonquian traditions, the wendigo monster emerges not randomly or in violent response to colonialism as it often does in popular media but through a specific set of circumstances that are unique to different tribal groupings. If I don't, I'll never know what it is I'm so angry about! And that's exactly the problem. 1. 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. It really depends who you talk to. I am ashamed I watched all the movies. It's also linked to the many cultural taboos against these negative actions and behaviors. 5. We feed it because we don't know how else to live, and so we live disconnected lives watching the seasons change through windows . I would advise anyone, however, who feels that way about my choice to create art or literature based on a wendigo, to simply avoid my gallery and writing. Key elements of culture include: language art,. [51], Television series employing the figure include Teen Wolf, Supernatural,[52] Blood Ties,[53] Charmed,[54] Grimm,[55] and Hannibal, where an FBI profiler has recurring dreams or visions of a wendigo that symbolizes the titular cannibalistic serial killer. Now neither Christian culture is by any means endangered to become a minority (although some US Bible Belt hate preachers consistently claim so) nor is Chinese culture, so both are out of ansatz here. ][22][failed verification], In historical accounts of retroactively diagnosed Wendigo psychosis, it has been reported that humans became possessed by the wendigo spirit, after being in a situation of needing food and having no other choice besides cannibalism. We should show proper respect to our Cryptids at all times, and Im rightfully righteously indignant at the thought of anyone doing otherwise with Mothman. Native Americans, Our headquarters are located at: 89 South Street, Suite 401, Boston, MA 02111. 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. Discover short videos related to wendigo cultural appropriation on TikTok. It has become something else altogether. Marvel Comics pay tribute to classic Monsters. and our One example is Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke who has called for a decisive shift away from what she has termed Wendigo Economics for the sake of the health of the natural world. 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. He said to the boy "Hurry up. It's fine for colonized Indians to incorporate European fitness . 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. One time long ago a big Windigo stole an Indian boy, but the boy was too thin, so the Windigo didn't eat him up right away, but he travelled with the Indian boy waiting for him till he'd get fat. Windigo is a malevolent manitou or spirit whose insatiable appetite for human flesh can never be satisfied. They went back again to see if he was dead. This year's Met Gala theme China: Through the Looking Glass was just begging for cultural appropriation, which led many starlets to play it safe with minimal references to China.Emma Roberts, however, earned herself Twitter backlash for wearing chopsticks in her hair.. Chopsticks in the hair is one of many broadly "Asian" styles tried on by Western dressers (for what it's worth . BTW, I love rainbow farting unicorns! Most sensible thing said ever. Lipsitz, writing in the the 1990s, argued that cultural appreciation becomes cultural appropriation "when an element of culture is adopted from a marginalized group without respect for its . The moral lessons contained in wendigo stories are also used to support the task of social critique in the late Native American scholar Dr. Jack D. Forbes book Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wtiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism (1978). J.K. Rowling, author of the absurdly-popular Harry Potter series (of which I'm a massive fan), recently waded into controversy with her four-part "Magic in North America" series, which outlines the Potterverse's American history. 12. A nice summary is found here: The concept of cultural appropriation emerged in academia in the late 1970s and 1980s as part of the scholarly critique of colonialism. LOL. minority cultures deserve a higher level of protection from being put on display than mainstream cultures," Nah, https://forum.deviantart.com/community/complaints/2612415/, https://www.deviantart.com/comments/18/2611618/4878314665, (, literally "goat-sucker") is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas, with the first sightings reported in Puerto Rico. 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. It is unknown if it would have been an entire species or a singular creature. [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? What makes the wendigo any different from other culturally important mythological creatures like unicorns? Cookie Notice Certainly Navajo "skin walkers" are one of the more common Native American legends that non-native writers reference (the only other example I can think of that comes close is the Algonquin Wendigo), but like I said, it would be presumptuous of me to guess at Rowling's research style. "Why is indigenous culture suddenly more sacred than any other culture?". One of those advisors I just mentioned, Chris Eyre, had this to say of the Wendigo: They [meaning Native peoples] truly, truly believe in it, because it represents greed and colonialism when we first came to the shores of what is now America, and pillaged all of their resources and forced them [into] cannibalism. appropriation, or - as I argue - misappropriation, of the Wendigo as a (the proceeding statement may contain some levels of sarcasm.). My intentions were pure, as were Rowling's, I imagine. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. I don't don't value cultural pluralism. "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. 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. It's like saying vampires are sacred. Appropriating the Wendigo As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. Return to Article Details Culturally Conceptualizing Trauma: The Windigo in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road Only those entitled to them should wear them. [10], The Wechuge is a similar being that appears in the legends of the Athabaskan people of the Northwest Pacific Coast. 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. It will survive on it's own. Second, he determines the relevant issues as "aesthetic" and "moral," and then discusses the most prominent arguments that surround each type of appropriation. There, he uses the cannibalistic wendigo as a metaphor for the behaviors and attitudes central to patterns of social domination visited upon his own people in the Americas and subjugated peoples everywhere. Cultural appropriation can be defined as the "cherry picking" or selecting of certain aspects of a culture, and ignoring their original significance for the purpose of belittling it as a trend. It was already here. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. to tell a new tale. J.K. Rowling's Cultural Appropriation Should Be A Lesson To White Writers Native Americans shouldn't be a "niche," and neither should women, LGBT people, or people of color. White authors should be able to write about non-white people. It only becomes cultural appropriation when an element of culture is adopted from a marginalized group without respect for its cultural meaning or significance or with the purpose of exploiting the culture By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. What is cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation? For this screenshot controversy, I am actually going to go over a video game for this. See more. 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. .mw-parser-output .verse_translation .translated{padding-left:2em}@media only screen and (max-width:43.75em){.mw-parser-output .verse_translation.wrap_when_small td{display:block;padding-left:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .verse_translation.wrap_when_small .translated{padding-left:0.5em}}, Ce qui nous mit plus en peine, fut la nouvelle que nous apprismes ds l'entre du Lac, sauoir: que les deputez par nostre Conducteur, qui deuoient conuoquer les Nations la Mer du Nord, et leur donner le rendez-vous pour nous y attendre, auoient est tuez l'Hiuer pass, d'une faon estonnante. 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. 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. Learn how your comment data is processed. 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. How dare they? I am so offended! In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo psychosis. Even in the face of ongoing cultural appropriation and erasure, wendigo stories are but one reflection of the survivance, wisdom, and brilliance of Native peoples. 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. 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. Privacy Policy. Basically, the word wendigo can also function as a symbol for gluttony and the image of excess. And were on the right side, thats what were working on but sometimes you get that cannibal tendency. So some of it may be that natives don't want people to be waking this monster. "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. That borrowing and exchanging of cultural elements is what makes America the melting pot of the world. By Christian Chiakulas, Contributor Writer, musician, activist, single father from Chicago. While Bieber's locs may be perceived . It springs from the well of the collective human unconscious, the communal soul. 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. [43] These works set the template for later portrayals in popular culture, at times even replacing the Native American lore. Mistgod Edited Oct 11, 2020 Hobbyist Traditional Artist Apparently, wendigos are sacred creatures from several indigenous cultures. I do not know whether Algonquin People indeed consider Wendigo depictions in mainstream media so culturally sensitive or taboo as the "woke" in your lead comment implied I would somehow doubt it but do not know for sure. The book's cul-tural importance granted it not one, but two movie adaptations, the first in 1989 and the second in 2019. Guillermo del Toro, producer of the film, developed the wendigo on the basis that the more the creature eats, the more it gets hungry and the more it gets hungry, the weaker it becomes. The cultural appropriation police answer the yoga and banh mi objections with a familiar counter-argument: it's about power. The horror film Antlers adopts an old monster for its story, which serves as both a benefit and a hindrance. You're absolutively spot on! So, thanks, Dave! He ultimately was granted a pardon but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon. Appreciation is honoring and respecting another culture and its practices, as a way to gain knowledge and understanding. It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Let's stop dancing around this ugly truth: Right now, Katy Perry is pop culture's most prominent purveyor of racist cultural appropriation. Wendigo Cannibalism in Native American Folklore. A classic example is wearing a Plains Indian war bonnet (see the 80s band The Village People). America is the symbol of inclusion, so as part of the American culture we embrace foreign influences in our society. "Today, many believe the crows to be . Some of this critique was rightly directed at literal cultural theft . His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763
We should talk about how Thor and Loki are cultural appropriation of Norwegian mythology. The Wendigo, also known as the Hollowed, was a type of Creature of Grimm that was proposed to appear in the animated webseries RWBY. No cultural appropriation in it, I promise! [23], What caused us greater concern was the news that met us upon entering the Lake, namely, that the men deputed by our Conductor for the purpose of summoning the Nations to the North Sea, and assigning them a rendezvous, where they were to await our coming, had met their death the previous Winter in a very strange manner. Clunky prose aside, this is the "noble savage" trope repurposed for Rowling's universe, with just a pinch of Magical Negro thrown in for good measure. Cho isn't even only problematic character, Lavander changed her race (in movies, i'm not sure about books but still, Rowling could of said something). Ces pauures gens furent saisis, ce qu'on nous a dit, d'vn mal qui nous est inconnu, mais qui n'est pas bien extraordinaire parmy les peuples que nous cherchons: ils ne sont ny lunatiques, ny hypocondriaques, ny phrenetiques; mais ils ont vn mlange de toutes ces sortes de maladies, qui, leur blessant l'imagination, leur cause vne faim plus que canine, et les rend si affamez de chair humaine, qu'ils se iettent sur les femmes, sur les enfans, mesme sur les hommes, comme de vrais loups-garous, et les deuorent belles dents, sans se pouuoir rassasier ny saouler, cherchans tousiours nouuelle proye, et plus auidement que plus ils en ont mang. Cultural appropriation is a bullshit term made up by people who feel some bizarre psychological need to make up reasons to punish themselves. In theory, art and other cultural products are created for the. "[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. I always thought these are what cannibals are turning into. I have always felt a distinct emotional connection to it, in fact. "[37] This application allows Native Americans to describe colonialism and its agents as wendigos since the process of colonialism ejected natives from their land and threw the natural world out of balance. 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.). [24], Although in many recorded cases of Wendigo psychosis the individual has been killed to prevent cannibalism from resulting, some Cree folklore recommends treatment by ingestion of fatty animal meats or drinking animal grease; those treated may sometimes vomit ice as part of the curing process. Even in the face of ongoing cultural appropriation and erasure, wendigo stories are but one reflection of the survivance, wisdom, and brilliance of Native peoples. Sentences like "The Native American wizarding community was particularly gifted in animal and plant magic" are cringe-worthy if you give them a little thought, and the notion that only European wizards were clever enough to invent wands, which make magic "more precise and more powerful" borders on horrific levels of cluelessness. 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. As it so happens, I am currently working on a project involving a Wendigo, so this is personal to me. And they are worth considering including in ones classroom teaching. [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]. [30], Fascination with Wendigo psychosis among Western ethnographers, psychologists, and anthropologists led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980s over the historicity of this phenomenon. Exactly!! 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. So for some woke culture types it's considered a form of disrespectful cultural appropriation to make your own Halloween monster or character based on a wendigo. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. [58] Several of these creatures also appear in the game's cover art.[59]. Apparently, wendigos are sacred creatures from several indigenous cultures. 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. DeSanti points to the 1999 horror film Ravenous as an illustration of this argument equating "the cannibal monster" to "American colonialism and manifest destiny". This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. But Native Americans shouldn't be a "niche," and neither should women, LGBT people, or people of color. But I do notice that Eyre stopped short of saying colonialization is the origin for the Wendigo legend. Contents 1 History 2 Gallery 3 Trivia 4 Navigation History It's just fiction, I thought. However, PCism taken to its extreme would say that neither Cooper, nor I, should be telling stories about Wendigos at all, since were not of aboriginal descent. Cultural appropriation, feel like a real blur to me but I never worry about it I feel it can dampen the creative process. The novel describes its primary antagonist, a rapist whose violent crimes desecrate a sacred site, as a wendigo who must be killed because he threatens the reservation's safety. 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. Sacred creatures? Don't miss a beat. #QuickBooksVictoryPose #vtuber #culturalappropriation #nativeamerican #wendigo #folklore, justin bieber interview with ellen arranged marriage, Airplane ticket off at terminal five on 2023 on the 10th 2023, enriquecrespo habla de la hija de alexandra, Command too spawn in iron in a township tale. 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. As a result, in 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities for homicide. You dont have to be of Afro-Caribbean descent to talk about, write about, or make movies about zombies. In the course of the transformation from human to wendigo, the person exhibits increasing selfishness, violence, hunger, and greedparticularly for human flesh. The Indians asked the Windigo if there was any fat on them. Send them to Marvel. The appropriation, and reclamation, of Native American mythology', Journal of . My basic rule is simple: be respectful. Theres something else. Humans could also turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long. After thinking about it more, I think I get it about the wendigos. And we merely follow".[38]. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. He writes: Wtiko is a Cree termwhich refers to a cannibal or, more specifically, to an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible evil acts, including cannibalism I have come to the conclusion that imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalism and, in fact, are precisely those forms of cannibalism which are most diabolical or evil It should be understood that wtikos do not eat other humans only in a symbolic sense. First, he gives definitions of the key concepts of "appropriation" and "arts," and delimits his investigation as one concerned with "cultural" appropriation. To fully understand its consequences, though, we need to make sure we have a working definition of culture itself. That will depend on who you ask. But its none of your concern what turns someone on! And unfortunately for them, this isn't the first time. In, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 02:58. I do not know, nor can I. "To the people present, it was suspected that Moostoos was becoming a 'Whitego', an insane person capable of murdering and cannibalism.41 To the natives without jails or asylums, there was only one thing to do. Don't tell lies to those Indians." 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]. Thank god I am not from USA, where this seems to be an issue. Posted by Kaitlin Smith on November 30, 2021. These things feel formulaic, quantitative, mathematicbalancing equations and subtraction. Beyond Forbes, other Native American thinkers have also used wendigo stories to present critical perspectives on various social problems and call for their resolution. are not cryptids, and don't even traditionally have deer skulls for heads. They travelled too much. 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.