How to become a skinwalker: go through a 10 year training arc and murder your whole clan How to become a wendigo: killed Harold because you’re hungry and cold
If your clan means the most to you then yes, but it's only the closest person to you. Basically, who binds you to humanity, who, if they died, would remove your capacity to function like a human? Like forcing those stories of guys losing the wives they genuinely love so dearly, and how it completely alters them.
Jekyll aren:@@ghoulishgoober3122here your Crimson Fatalis Pizza has arrived and blue cheese ranch with it any large pomegranate lemonade mixed with Sprite is done
"If it sounds near, it's far, and if it sounds far, it's too late." I cannot possibly imagine something more horrifying to hear from an Elder around a campfire as a child.
It makes me think of some versions of the story of the tiktik, aka manananggal, from the Philippines. They have a similar ability to make it sound like they are close when far away, but far away when they are actually close by.
@@FlusteredBottom Yeah. They're the ones that are basically an upper torso with dangling entrails and bat wings, and use a sort of proboscis-like tongue to feed on the heart of an unborn fetus, though they'll also target any sleeping victims. It's also not uncommon for them to seek out newlyweds, particularly a recent groom (or groom-to-be), as they can come about from a woman who was jilted on her wedding day.
In my Navajo tradition were told not to speak of them because they are apparently attracted to the mere mention of them and we’re also told not to explain tradition to outsiders. Kinda explains the taboo around making it public knowledge and why there aren’t any hard written accounts of these stories. I’d love to go more in for about this if you want lol. I also got some stories that come from my immediate family that I’d love to share. Edit: minor spelling and grammatical corrections
Yoo when I was younger about 14-15 I used to talk about these stories to my friends.. but they would just give me a weird looks and mocked me (jokingly) , they don't believe about Walkers. That's fine but when people ask about my culture or my background I rarely tell them about these kinds of things.
@@SpiralSine6 ah yes. Every man wants inside of a crazy cannibal 10 foot tall monster with frost bite and crazy nails. Wait a minute...is this why guys want 7 foot goth girls so bad?😭
Skinwalker : Serial killers who can turn into/have the abilities of the animal that they are wearing the skin of while very high Wendigo : Jimmy was hungry and ate John
I love how you are trying you best to learn the difference between Algonquin and Anishinaabe. It means a lot to me as an Anishinaabe member. Thank you for that. But the difference between the two is pretty drastic. Algonquin is the language family that the Northern tribes speak. That cover the Ojibwe language (Ojibwemowin), the Cree language, the Blackfoot language, the Cheyenne language ect. Where and Anishinaabe is a word in the Ojibwemowin language that means an Ojibwe person. It it our word to describe us. Where other Algonquin languages will us a different word to describe themselves. Anishinaabe describes an Ojibwe person.
I absolutely love when non-Natives put in the effort to understand our culture. I am Bodwewadmi myself and it's really cool to see where other Algonquin tribes differ from us. I was taught that Anishnaabe means "First People," so it would refer to not only Bodwewadmi people or Ojibwe people, but all of the original tribes. Though, we usually refer to our personal tribal members as Pgeneniyek, or Pokagon/Rib People.
thank you for taking the time to teach anyone who wants to listen💯. yes Anishinaabe is us. the word in our language translates to the original and first people. ahoo my brother miigwech 🙌 Ojibwe is the word the French gave us so the English and French could identify us. Anishinaabe in our language, Ojibwe the French gave us (anishinaabe) Chippewa is also us but used in the United States areas. Ojibwe, Chippewa, Anishinaabe is all correct just different depending on the area and if it’s the original indigenous names or the names given from other parties (the English and french) Thank you fellow brother for teaching yk how much this means. I wish the best to you and your loved ones miigwech warrior. And for anyone who’s reading this I wish the best to you and ur loved ones aswell miigwech🤝 (thank you in Anishinaabek)
you did not just say wendussy PS. As a decendant of ojibwe algonquin tribe and as the only person in my family who still keeps up on the history of that side of the family (Outside my grandfather who is 2nd generation) thank you for mentioning that my tribe is nothing like the navajo. A great example of how different tribes are is Mohawk vs Ojibwe - we lived side by side but were so different that we had a whole ass war over beaver pelts. Also the difference between language is the same as dutch and german from what i know, both are generally the same and simply evolved along side eachother. PPS. Antlers are a specific tribal thing, My grandfathers tribe believed wendigo would wear deer skulls to trick you into thinking theyre just a deer in the woods; go 2 hours east to where his wife is from and they would laugh at that story.
As a Native American who was raised with both of these stories and others (I’m mixed my fathers parents are both different tribes and their parents were as well), before I watch this I want to say my expectations. I’m expecting half of this to be inaccurate but hopeful you’ll have more knowledge on it than the vast majority. *edit* Consider me extremely pleasantly surprised! I wasn’t expecting so much of a good dive into the old lore.
@@TheLoreLodge omg I totally forgot to give my edited opinion. It was super good!! This might’ve been the first time somebody did some really good research! Super sorry for leaving this hanging so hard.
As much as i hate that people get folklore windigos and Hollywood windigos confused i do absolutely love the design of Hollywood windigos they just look really cool
I think maybe we should rename the pop wendigo to something else, like, maybe wynterghoul, which sounds vaguely the same, but is different enough spelling that the difference get more pronounced. Also winter (wynter) and ghoul pretty much describes the wendigo pretty well, so thats pretty pog too-
Anishnabe here🙋♂️ thank you for your research and respect when discussing these topics. We have so much folklore that can be hard to find online since most of everything was passed down through stories and words, and those words are so hard to learn and translate completely to English. You did a fantastic job making the differences between all the different groups 5:08 The difference between Algonquin and ojibwe for the most part is traditions. Ojibwe, Mohawk, Algonquin can be considered very similar, but even within fire keeping, each group holds their own values. Algonquins also lived/settled very close to the ojibwe (today it would be considered southern Frontenac , and the ojibwe were more around Kingston ontario. Also the algonquins came up from southern America with the Mohawks so that is also a little bit of information. My father taught global studies, indigenous studies, and has been in many protests and even been in jail for standing up against the uranium mining going on in ardoch Ontario. He finished his teachings at queens last year and works from home to educate people. I admit I don’t know nearly as much as he does, but he posts some videos here on RUclips. His channel is called Mino Kamig, and if you would like to look him up at all, his name is Robert Lovelace (Queens Professor) PS: Algonquins are also more know for adopting and accepting outside people into their traditions. This can very rarely happen but is a possibility. Robert Lovelace is one of these cases, because while he may not have direct native blood in him, he grew up, and got his teachings, from native friends and chiefs in his area. And has grown up to teach, and fight for native pride more than some natives I know. So I know hearing this many people may not accept him as “true native” but I’ll tell ya, the Ardoch Algonquins certainly consider him a pure native.
It's really interesting how skinwalkers have many similarities with Mexican nahuales 🤔 Being Mexican and having grew up listening to stories from my grandparents, I couldn't help but compare these two creatures, both of them are black wizard who can change into an animal. Have you ever heard of nahuales before? Here at Mexico there thousands of stories about them all around the country.
One time when I was about 17, I was hanging out with a few buddy’s who were big into this stuff, they got me into it a week prior to us hanging out. One of them lived in a heavily wooded area and claimed the creatures lived in the woods near his family home, so we all decided to investigate these woods to see what we could find. For about 2 hours prior to us starting, we talked a lot about them, even using the native name for them, afterwards we grabbed purr machetes and headed into the woods. Thirty minutes into our investigation, we were walking along the edge of the property and we all stopped at the same time, and all shined our lights too the same spot across the barbed wire fence. What we saw had us froze in fear. Across the fence, we would see 2 brightly glowing eyes, they glowed a red and orange hue, the part that got us was they looked evil. There was probably 5 inches of space between the eyes, and they were sitting atleast 7 feet off the ground, and it was just outside the illumination range of our lights, we could only see the eyes and darkness. We stood there staring for a moment before one of my buddy’s were able to let out a scream, which snapped us out of our trance, after that we all ran and didn’t stop until we made it home. The next day we went back to see what we could find, and we found nothing, no indication a creature was there, it was just a cleared out area. Never went back.
Yall weren’t there so you’ll never actually know, you can only make assumptions. But if it makes you feel better then go ahead, not like you have any way of knowing if it actually happened, it could have been an animal, bugs, anything, or it could have been something evil. Either way, don’t act so sure of yourself with no way too prove it. Makes you look dumb.
I had the coolest history professor in college who assigned a book on the Navajo code talkers, they essentially turned the tide of the war! Completely underrepresented part of history!
@@hollyjollyxmas sure, I can share! (Hope this doesn’t come off as weird) So my dad was watching someone play Until Dawn, or something like that. I had come into his room and watched for a bit. I questioned the game and what was going on, and my dad answered. This went on for a bit and I can’t exactly remember the details, but he eventually told me I was wendigo. I ask more questions, like why I didn’t look like the ones on the screen, y’know, stuff like that. He answered it all. I was 9 or 10. The reason this got so bad was because I am very afraid of judgment. It is practically a phobia at this point. (On a unrelated note, this is also why I’m scared of zombies, because I’m afraid of if I ever turn back, people will judge me for what i did as a zombie. That and I was told I would go to hell if I ever became one.) Anyways, that’s my story, I guess.
I've herd that Wendigos can silence the Forrest making all the animals quiet.. I've also herd that if you look a wendigo in the eye, it will follow and hunt you forever....
Generally staring down predators is a good idea. Except for brown bears, that take it as a personal challenge. Probably to teach you how not to get mauled.
I want to talk about the jaw as you guys talked about the smile in the past. The bite force of an animal is telling of it's neck and especially chest strength, people talk about jaws decreasing to increase brain size in man but a limited neck carrying capacity hinders your mass of the upper skull, gorillas have tall heads to accompany a jaw to open up further so it wasn't necessary to limit jaw size, making humans vulnerable to others in the neck to increase brain mass. it's pretty obvious that in the case of the skinwalkers as they are conscious they deliberately mess with their structure of their shoulder and hip girdle to walk like beasts, and especially their skulls and how they look in the face to do that if you just believe they're good mimics. a bipedal monster is scary not just because it's weird but because an animal can't just stroll up and bite your neck on all fours, a human with two arms and a wide jaw can just wrestle your arms and bite you. they can just be emaciated in the body but have a strong neck, upper chest, back and bite. a human also is the only one to have a chin which is meant for a balance to keep you upright by distributing force and endurance in taking blows and staying upright as if you can distribute a blow evenly it's that much easier to take one. literally no other animals punches, gorillas can't make fists
@@CasualDoomer897 darkness is a place of infinite depth, wrinkled, wicked and jagged at it's being. demons want to pull themselves into our world up as they're dimensionally dark and need rips in fabrics to get up and in which is why they're hellbent on getting people to tear wormholes so they can slither in their whole being. but in reality light makes darkness scatter it makes and reveals the incompleteness it was hiding. it's obvious that these beings are demons but looking mathematically light is never losing to darkness and if that's true in this world it's infinitely more true in all of creation. Christ with his blood mended the rips in space from beginning to end caused by sin that allowed all these ogres, demons, wicked things to come in and do what they did to pagan cultures. it takes a work with no end to command the space from the beginning of time to the end, a tear, a crack is nothing before an infinitely high, righteous and substantive all encompassing work and it's worker purifying the darkness inside out.
Most things can't walk upright because of their feet. You need large enough feet to stand on. Kangaroos have massive feet. So do humans. Some apes aswell.
In the case of skinwalker ranch it wasn't just a war between the utes and the navajo. The utes were enslaving the Navajo and selling them to the US government for labor.
There was a show called Grimm which came out when I was around 7 years old and I loved it. It had “Wessen” which could shift from human to a “monster” form and gain the creatures abilities and what have you. Through that show is how I learnt about a lot things such as the Wendigo, chupacabra and things along those lines. I miss that show but I am so happy it made me research so many mythologies and religions
Oh my gosh u guys!! As a Native American, I gotta say kudos 👍💯 much respect, love your explanation!!! I'm just into the beginning, but as an Anishnaabe, I'll explain later the difference from Algonquin, as I was taught anyway
1:30 It's also important to mention that prior to romanized unification (or, subjugation) Europe was populated by tribal cultures not completely unlike the native American tribes as well. Each European country had many tribal based cultures and unfortunately a lot of that was lost in the waves of history
I live, and have always lived, in Norway, and the plot I've grown up on has a few (cough 60 acres cough) of pretty dense forest, with a few streams and small lakes. I because of this grew up with a not in any way scared view of the forest, because I would spend days on end just walking in there alone. From I was barely 5 I would often walk different trails out in my forest to fish or just watch birds. And then this one time... I had taken a midnight stroll by myself up to a lake maybe 1 or 2 miles away from the main house. (if you're wondering the plot is not square) on my way back, at around 2 in the night I hear a scream from somewhere to the right of the trail. The funny thing is, I have this tic where I will say sort of like a catch phrase whenever startled. Now, that catch phrase changes often, but at the time it was "not in the mood". So because I was startled the first thing my brain came up with was to have me shout back "not in the mood"... Anyway, I use a cane so it sure was fun to not be able to run back home after I had shouted at someone or something screaming in the forest...
So when you described the wendigo. I thought of the ghoul from DnD, everything about it fits and my mind is spinning with ideas. That’s super interesting. As well as skinwalkers to Druids. Wild stuff. Great video!
22:41 in one edition of Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, the Wendigo is purely a spirit. This man goes out to camp with a native guide, and hears the man running off into the cold on bare feet, screaming about his "burning feet of fire". The wendigo makes you run until the flesh of your feet burn off, and then it lifts you into the sky. When the man is at a post after the incident he finds the man, clothes as if a man were wearing them and walking around, but his head is a pile of ash.
I was on the rez herding sheep and saw a figure about 4 miles away and it looked huge. Ignored it and herded the sheep away from it. Then that night i had a dream about a wendigo that it attacked me and the house.
7:28 My father is from the Cherokee tribe of northern Georgia. In Cherokee beliefs, there is a creature called the "Raven Mocker". The Raven Mocker is a corrupt medicine man, or practitioner of magic who astral projects their soul out of the body, and preys on the sick and dying. When a victim is identified and located, the Raven Mocker will eat the heart of said victim.
The fact that native language has helped defeat the Axis powers is such a satisfying fact. But at the same time it's heartbreaking that they never got credit for it.
I was told when I was a kid that one of the things one had to do to become a skin walker was kill everyone that knows you. Friends, family, everybody. This was because you can destroy a skinwaller by saying it's name
Coming from a family that shares folk stories to children through generations, ive got a bit of knowledge of both. Native stories came down from my mothers side, and it was always a warning tale about skin walkers. Its bad juju just to mention them, and my great grandma always called them "shifters", though that seemed to worry her just as much. You have to seek help from an elder to perform a ritual to "banish" their ill will from you. The only way to actually be rid of it is to kill it. Removing the heart and either burning it or burying it. As for wendigos, i live in Michigan. We are almost ALWAYS outdoors. My grandfather would always warn us to avoid the deeper parts of the woods, the parts that give you the instinct to turn and run. The parts that just feel down right bad. If you hear someone from your group or family calling to you from outside of the camp, dont listen. On a side note, love your videos! You guys do a great job! Keep the videos coming!
So the, this area gives bad vibes thing is a anti predator flight response. It's nothing to worry about. But many animals make very human sounding calls, and you could get lost trying to follow one. Many people have drowned trying to save a kid from drowning at night, when they were just hearing a loon. Tragic, but now people know, loons sound like people screaming for help.
In so far as I understand things, the secrecy is similar to a lot of cultures with concepts of evil "Don't speak their name or you will draw their attention", even I'm skittish living up northern Canada. But I do feel like I need to make a point about that. Northern Canadian Winter is a monster of a thing to experience. While your summary of the motivation for the feral northern category of beastie, the concept of freezing and starvation is the kind of thing that is 5-8 months of snow and wind and ice and sparse food and barely any sunlight. any community is at a point where working together is deeply important, you have to be able to trust the people around you because you'd be in a constantly hazardous environment for months and months. you're getting close to days like 4-6 hours of sunlight. Winter in the North is something that could wipe out communities because nature is one of those things that has no pity. So that paranoia and fear and anger and even petty gripes and fear of isolation and cold and the hunger digging deep deep deep in your body. Part of it is the manifestation of a communal fear, as the ultimate breach of taboo. To be the person breaks and betrays and lets the desperation beat the temperance. And the 'it could be anyone' angle is more along the lines of how everyone is in a high stress situation? Apologies if I've spoken out of turn. It's been very very cold this week and I've been very very on edge about that I suppose.
Thank you! This video was really helpful. It seems a LOT of people don't actually know what the hell a Skinwalker is. It was good that the Wendigo information came from actual people of the tribe.
I often consider the antlered beast as an older and more powerful Wendigo, where the skeletal humanoid is in the process of becoming the more infamous antlered beast. Interesting take you have though, I’d wonder if a Skinwalker and Wendigo would fight if they crossed paths?
@@williamafton348 perhaps the Wendigo with antlers is actually an older (and thus smarter) Wendigo that wears a deer skull as a form of ritual, or something similar. That's just my take
I love not only Native American mytholgy but listening to videos like this because It’s not only intriguing but I’m trying to make a series with as close/accurate information of these creatures as I can find. I was drawing different variations of wendigo, from the actual traditional gaunt, hungry corpse like man, to the Hollywood cervid headed antlers beast and then you brought up the movie ‘Antlers’ and slandering it. I just burst out into laughter because even tho it’s not accurate at all, I still love that movie 😭😭 I’m black but have native heritage and ancestry (not of which I’ve actually met a family member with) but these mythologies intrigue me so intensely. And I was surprised that I knew much of what you said
Clarification for people: Algonquin is NOT a single tribe, Algonquin is a root language for several tribes. As far as the difference - bro youre doing your best. Much of native language is entirely contextual
Antlers was a wechuge if I remember correctly... A person possessed by an enraged animal spirit... usually depicted with deer antlers, bear claws, and wolf teeth. There is some overlap with wendigo since both consume human flesh.
I'm just curious, given your knowledge around folklore, what are your thoughts on the many similarities between Norse culture and Native American culture? I've always found it really interesting how similar they are, and given how the vikings were travelling to and from North America well before Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, I wonder if the vikings heavily influenced Native culture, or vice versa. The similarities in belief and traditions revolving around animal spirits is one aspect that really intrigues me (wolves and bears specifically), especially now that you've pointed out how Skinwalkers are very similar to Berserkers.
@ReallyBurntToast that settlement lasted a few hundred years, vikings were in America for a long time and met several tribes both friendly and hostile, stones have been found with obvious Viking symbols carved into them. Either being from vikings themselves, natives(friendly ones to them I'd figure to be most likely), or perhaps their half native/Scandinavian offspring.
it's interesting when you said when the voice is near it's far, when it's far it's too late. in southeast asia or Indonesia we have similar sayings but for a completely different creature called Kuntilanak or Pontianak who is a little similar to banshees in appearance. they often lets out this eerie laugh. when it's near it's far. when it's far it's behind you. I wonder which culture from these two adapts this saying
I remember when I was little my dad telling me all about the Navajo entities on the reservation. He had a lot of personal stories of seeing weird things there. My aunt actually was hunted by a skinwalker and my other aunt was targeted by a Navajo witch. When I went to the Navajo reservation to visit my grandma I will say that it has a different energy to it than anywhere I've ever been.
Pamunkey (Virginia Algonquin) here! Kenah (thank you) for explaining the differences between these two unrelated legends! You guys were super respectful about everything and more knowledgeable than most other videos I've seen on these two! Can't wait to go down the rabbit hole and binge all your other videos 😅 And your merch cracks me up! Please tell me you're going to make other "Windussy Hunter" items? I'd love to have that on a cropped hoodie!! (Also, noticed you guys were from PA! Hello from Johnstown!)
I clicked on this video expecting something COMPLETELY different than was presented. This is amazing dude, I love the research you did and the care you gave to the topic, as well as some of the other really cool little factoids you threw in. You're amazing, earned my sub on one video, great job!
Metis person here, so Anishinaabe adjacent. Basically Algonquin people ARE Anishinaabe, and their language is considered a dialect of Ojibwe (albeit with *significant* differences). They call themselves Omàmiwinini or Ancinape interchangeably. Anthropologists refer to the people groups as a whole as Algonquian, which isn't really preferred by most of us because it lends to that confusion between Algonquin, a tribal grouping, and Anishinaabe, the cultural and language group. The Algonquin also differed somewhat from other Anishinaabe historically because they led a more sedentary, agrarian lifestyle. But, I grew up on Ojibwe territory and honestly I kind of get it? Southern Ontario and Quebec, Algonquin territory, has some of the most fertile farmland in the world, whereas you go further north into the Canadian shield and you're lucky to dig half a foot without hitting bedrock. Anyways, hope that helps.
I've heard descriptions of the wendigo with a deer skull and I have a wierd theory. What if they eat deer since they can't find humans as easily as they used to and eating deer has somehow altered their appearance.
17:55 that sounds a lot like the witch in Hänsel und Gretel. She would squish Hänsels Finger to checke if he was fat yet. It does make me wonder how german, baltic, welsh etc. myths compare to native american ones. (This is a hint at the fact that I'd like to see you go across continents with this stuff. Its fascinating to see the paralles and divergences.)
Oh my gosh thank you for this!!! I can’t believe I just now realized they aren’t the same thing with a different name and that I should look it up lol. I LOVE your videos and this one was SO needed❤
Fun fact the wendigo you see with antlers is actually a similar but different monster from alguanquon lore the wechuge which has a lot of the same weaknesses but much bigger and twice as aggressive
About the presence of astral projection and even skinwalkers in other cultures : I cannot talk for the entire continent (that is composed itself of multiple different cultures and even among them there can be vivid differences) but in Gabon, country localized in central Africa, we have it. Since the country itself is subdivided into quite a lot of tribes, each has a name for it, sometimes close to each other, but in general close to the term of « wizard ». The term itself refers to a multitude of people, from the « medecine man » that is here to supposedly cure untreatable diseases, help you find love and money to the dangerous psycho cursing people and eating children flesh deep in the forest. As the main language of the country is French, the word we now use to describe astral projection is « vampire ». Yes, vampire. The term is here used not as denomination for a being but for the practice of making one’s spirit travel outside of the body, mostly to accomplish terrible things. When it comes to skinwalkers, we do have an equivalent but I do not think there’s a specific name. There’s not skin part however as our folklore tells that the transformation into an animal is complete, and it goes from the spider to the leopard. Those able to do it are called « wizard » as well but they don’t have to actively practice occult shit. Sometimes you come from a family that has a particular totem representing an animal and after initiation - which is far from being given access to everyone - you can acquire the ability. There’s is this particular story of an oversized leopard that terrorized the small town of Mbigou, killing people and not dying to regular bullet until a priest blessed a silver one that managed to end the beast. The leopard was said to be one of those. We also have what we call a « night gun ». Basically it’s a curse thrown at you and you can sometimes know you’ve been targeted if you randomly hear a loud bang on your ceiling during the night and can give you bad luck, make you enthralled with someone you had no feelings for prior, make you stupid, make you sick, or kill you. Consider coming here for holidays, it’s great. Edit : I cannot confirm it but I heard in Congo (the country next to us) and going west, there WERE people wearing lion skins and going through a transformation (not a complete one this time) and ripping people in villages into shreds.
How am I only just finding this channel?! I've not finished this video quite yet but I've already learned so much and I've had to subscribe, your way of presenting information is great, so easy to follow.
Always liked the Wendigo. One of my favs is that it is an evil spirit who mimics the voice of a loved one to draw them into the forest. It would then manipulate the weather to snow them in, and when one his starved enough to kill and eat the other person, would possess that person. Others I've heard is with just a lone person being driven made and becoming possessed by the Wendigo. Even ones with the Wendigo physically impersonating a friend or a loved one you went camping with and would come right into the camp.
News: a local found dead and robbed of their jacket reported by a family member today police a little confused of the situation I think the corporates are caught on camera
As a northern Canadian metis the stories of windigo (windego, wheetago, ect ect) are of someone being sick spiritually and mentally (depression, greed, avarice, hate) YES absolutely committing cannibalism is the fast track to becoming one, though not always the just that way. Skin walkers are again from what I've been told from northern elders is a bad medicine man, and pretty much are as you said in your video. Great research great video. And I can't be sure if you're trying to say Dene (den-nay) tribe? The vernacular is different for everyone lol
Skinwalkers are very similar if not the same thing as the lachuza...main difference seems to be the animals of choice (Owls seem to be the lachuza's main option) and that the lachuza are normally female
The hulicinicgenic was probably fly agaric and reindeer piss. The Vikings were able to reduce if not eliminate the toxins that sometimes would kill the imbiber by feeding the mushrooms to the reindeer and drinking their piss to trip.
Very interesting to hear about the astral projection thing. I'm researching world folklore and my expertise is in Filipino Folklore. I've had this theory that all kinds of non-human transformations in supernatural lore are more like astral projections or some kind of spiritual cloaking, and finding out that such is also a perspective about the Skinwalkers greatly supports my theory.
Navajo tradition has a lot of taboos behind it Not shared with outsiders Bad medicine not spoken about since it manifests & gains power if you believe in it Aldo non of our tradition & arts were written down it's all oral
This video was unbelievably difficult to put together as a result of all that. Literally 17 months of research went into it, and I’m trying my best to adequately describe this stuff so it doesn’t continue to be misrepresented in media. I hope it came across properly and not as a hack job.
A wendigo’s description and the way they hunt when they sounded near they are far and when the wounded far it’s too late seems like an Aswang from the Philippines.
@@BillyBlendsBluebs in around March back in 2020 I was having a hard time sleeping, decided I'd go downstairs and have a snack and play doom 2016. I heard scratching on the windows even though the branches of nearby trees had been cut recently, I was about 13 then and I was super paranoid, so I put my snack away and when I went into the kitchen I heard scratches on the basement door, I left quickly, I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a deep scream in the distance, almost a roar. I ran to the top of the stairs as fast as I could and hid in my room with a bb gun. I must have sat there for an hour before I felt safe enough to go to sleep. If it wanted to kill me, it would have.
I was hoping for a mention of your theory about Wendigo being Nephilim but I understand wanting to stay on topic. I love all your lore. I wish I could get your help look at the Book of Revelation. I want to start a D&D campaign set somewhere in the End Times but the book threw me for a loop!
Probably completely wrong about this, but does the sacrifice to become a skinwalker have to be human? Cause to lots of people pets are also family members
Hey, yes the "sacrifice" does need to be a person. I think it mainly has to do with you making sure you want to do this. Cause killing a person I harder to than an animal. Sorry animal lovers.
@@0cedced although some people may view animals as "people" with say personalities and emotions, however humans are on a whole another level, especially if you consider the human soul which is unique.
I think it would be weird if Navaho Nation , that was traditionally the Diné Nation, came from the Naha Valley , and that was how the name travelled, because I understand that "Navajo" is a Pueblo word for "valley farmer". It's not a Diné word. Much like indigenous cultures all over the world, the self-name of a people is usually "the people". Diné is the "Navajo" word for "the people". The Spanish picked up the Puebloan term Navajo, as "Apache de Navajo", "Apache that farm the valley". So....a Pueblo and Spanish term. Maybe the Diné did come from there, idk, I wasn't alive then. I have no idea. Athabaskan does seem to line up with ancestry as far as DNA maps go. America seems to have been colonized in waves by a few different groups over time. I do live in the former territory of Ojibwe/Anishinabe. Most of what people know is a little bit sketch. The wendigo lore is old time campfire stuff here in the Great Lakes region. I heard it first in pre-internet days. It's thought that Algonquin people came here at some point, they controlled this region, but sort of drifted back and the Ojibwe were remnants. Ojibwe supposedly is another tribe's word for Anishinabe that probably means red legs, having to do with knee high boots or leg coverings that were worn by them. It's thought that Anishinabe/Algonquin were relatively recent to this area (Cuyahoga River) and they likely erased the previous culture rather thoroughly. In any event, its butt breaking cold in the winters here, and I could easily see how a bad winter could come along and starve people. It's easy to see why a Wendigo might need to be invented if it didn't exist, because there's nothing quite so insanity inducing as being cold AND hungry, and then alleviating that feeling by eating your cousin. I imagine Wendigo was very real to these people here then.
Not necessarily certain on the naming issue, but the fact that a tribe disappeared from a Dine region and then a Dine tribe popped up far off seems simple enough.
I was taught that the wendigo is a spirit that takes control of human during a dire situation and has to eat someone usually during the winter months or taking control of a willing cannibal. Almost like a curse but the wedigo is a spirit. That possesses people turning them into the pale and gaunt being that we see im anishinaabe by the way im not completely sure but this is what my Ojibwa teacher taught us during our story and traditions parts of our class
My grandmother always said not to speak of them. Which made it even scarier. My cousins are I spent many sleepless nights after hearing one story told about it just one. It still scares me to this day
For those who may be interested, I know some coffee companies may add things with gluten in them to help flavor coffee. I contacted Tablow roasting Co. and they informed me all of their coffee is Gluten Free including The Lore Lodge blend!💖
How to become a skinwalker: go through a 10 year training arc and murder your whole clan
How to become a wendigo: killed Harold because you’re hungry and cold
If your clan means the most to you then yes, but it's only the closest person to you. Basically, who binds you to humanity, who, if they died, would remove your capacity to function like a human? Like forcing those stories of guys losing the wives they genuinely love so dearly, and how it completely alters them.
Jekyll aren:@@ghoulishgoober3122here your Crimson Fatalis Pizza has arrived and blue cheese ranch with it any large pomegranate lemonade mixed with Sprite is done
Plus, Harold kinda had it coming... never did like that guy.
@@justsomemincedgarlic Tasted strangely of pickerel too. Weird feller.
So can you do both?
"If it sounds near, it's far, and if it sounds far, it's too late." I cannot possibly imagine something more horrifying to hear from an Elder around a campfire as a child.
It makes me think of some versions of the story of the tiktik, aka manananggal, from the Philippines. They have a similar ability to make it sound like they are close when far away, but far away when they are actually close by.
@@Mokiefraggle they targeted pregnant women, right?
@@FlusteredBottom Yeah. They're the ones that are basically an upper torso with dangling entrails and bat wings, and use a sort of proboscis-like tongue to feed on the heart of an unborn fetus, though they'll also target any sleeping victims. It's also not uncommon for them to seek out newlyweds, particularly a recent groom (or groom-to-be), as they can come about from a woman who was jilted on her wedding day.
@@Mokiefraggle tiktik: **hears clapping**
Also tiktik: nice, time for dinner
And than you hear a far away sound, a-kin to coyote, or a wolf...
And thus, the Skindago was born. Now my therapist can EARN her pay.
Hotel? Skindago
Hello, my name is Wendy Walker, the therapist.
Ninjago 💀
Boneago 💀
Bahaha! Nice dude
In my Navajo tradition were told not to speak of them because they are apparently attracted to the mere mention of them and we’re also told not to explain tradition to outsiders. Kinda explains the taboo around making it public knowledge and why there aren’t any hard written accounts of these stories. I’d love to go more in for about this if you want lol. I also got some stories that come from my immediate family that I’d love to share.
Edit: minor spelling and grammatical corrections
God tell us please. I am native as well and I love hearing about tribe's stories.
Boozhoo Niichii! (Hello friend) I have some stories too
I’d love to hear them !
hey uhh, i think this voldemort guy ripped them off!
no but seriously, both cant be named and look similar to eachother
Yoo when I was younger about 14-15 I used to talk about these stories to my friends.. but they would just give me a weird looks and mocked me (jokingly) , they don't believe about Walkers. That's fine but when people ask about my culture or my background I rarely tell them about these kinds of things.
Anyone who can incorporate "Wendussy" into a sentence with a straight face has my vote for the presidency: AKA you.
It’s the fundamental drive for all of humanity. The ultimate prize to search for.
@@SpiralSine6 ah yes. Every man wants inside of a crazy cannibal 10 foot tall monster with frost bite and crazy nails.
Wait a minute...is this why guys want 7 foot goth girls so bad?😭
If one takes all Ls and never be drippen, then one becomes a wendussy.
@@Night60700 I cannot describe how funny this comment is.
@@thezucclord-3738 I stole it from here.
ruclips.net/user/shortsjPMnG18eZZ8?feature=share
Skinwalker : Serial killers who can turn into/have the abilities of the animal that they are wearing the skin of while very high
Wendigo : Jimmy was hungry and ate John
and Jimmy is still hungry and knows where you live
@@HappyBeezerStudioshell, warm this time of year don't think Jimmy would like it.
@@HappyBeezerStudios and now he controls the weather
@@Wyi-the-rogue all that rain has to come from somewhere
@@HappyBeezerStudiosjimmy needs to pay tickets to fly to asia
I love how you are trying you best to learn the difference between Algonquin and Anishinaabe. It means a lot to me as an Anishinaabe member. Thank you for that.
But the difference between the two is pretty drastic. Algonquin is the language family that the Northern tribes speak. That cover the Ojibwe language (Ojibwemowin), the Cree language, the Blackfoot language, the Cheyenne language ect. Where and Anishinaabe is a word in the Ojibwemowin language that means an Ojibwe person. It it our word to describe us. Where other Algonquin languages will us a different word to describe themselves. Anishinaabe describes an Ojibwe person.
Ojibwe sounds like a West African name/word, a Nigerian name/word to be precise. Interesting…
@@willsmackyahsmith9796 huh, cool fact. The ojibwe peoples I've been taught about exist up here in Canada, in mid to southern ontario.
I absolutely love when non-Natives put in the effort to understand our culture. I am Bodwewadmi myself and it's really cool to see where other Algonquin tribes differ from us. I was taught that Anishnaabe means "First People," so it would refer to not only Bodwewadmi people or Ojibwe people, but all of the original tribes. Though, we usually refer to our personal tribal members as Pgeneniyek, or Pokagon/Rib People.
TIL Thank you!
thank you for taking the time to teach anyone who wants to listen💯. yes Anishinaabe is us. the word in our language translates to the original and first people. ahoo my brother miigwech 🙌 Ojibwe is the word the French gave us so the English and French could identify us. Anishinaabe in our language, Ojibwe the French gave us (anishinaabe) Chippewa is also us but used in the United States areas. Ojibwe, Chippewa, Anishinaabe is all correct just different depending on the area and if it’s the original indigenous names or the names given from other parties (the English and french) Thank you fellow brother for teaching yk how much this means. I wish the best to you and your loved ones miigwech warrior. And for anyone who’s reading this I wish the best to you and ur loved ones aswell miigwech🤝 (thank you in Anishinaabek)
This guy really started his video off with "It's time to skinwalk your way into the woods and hunt yourself some wen-dussy" this guy deserves an oscar
you did not just say wendussy
PS. As a decendant of ojibwe algonquin tribe and as the only person in my family who still keeps up on the history of that side of the family (Outside my grandfather who is 2nd generation) thank you for mentioning that my tribe is nothing like the navajo. A great example of how different tribes are is Mohawk vs Ojibwe - we lived side by side but were so different that we had a whole ass war over beaver pelts. Also the difference between language is the same as dutch and german from what i know, both are generally the same and simply evolved along side eachother.
PPS. Antlers are a specific tribal thing, My grandfathers tribe believed wendigo would wear deer skulls to trick you into thinking theyre just a deer in the woods; go 2 hours east to where his wife is from and they would laugh at that story.
Thank you for clarification on this
As a Native American who was raised with both of these stories and others (I’m mixed my fathers parents are both different tribes and their parents were as well), before I watch this I want to say my expectations. I’m expecting half of this to be inaccurate but hopeful you’ll have more knowledge on it than the vast majority. *edit* Consider me extremely pleasantly surprised! I wasn’t expecting so much of a good dive into the old lore.
And?
@@TheLoreLodge *native crickets*
@@TheLoreLodge omg I totally forgot to give my edited opinion. It was super good!! This might’ve been the first time somebody did some really good research! Super sorry for leaving this hanging so hard.
@@divvu1014 lmao for real dude.
@@Smoke-by-the-Shadow an innocent jest, Merry Christmas my dude and thx for getting back with an answer.
As much as i hate that people get folklore windigos and Hollywood windigos confused i do absolutely love the design of Hollywood windigos they just look really cool
I think maybe we should rename the pop wendigo to something else, like, maybe wynterghoul, which sounds vaguely the same, but is different enough spelling that the difference get more pronounced. Also winter (wynter) and ghoul pretty much describes the wendigo pretty well, so thats pretty pog too-
Exactly. I love the whole deer skull design, but it just isn't a Wendigo
@@tikimillieor just stop using it as a pop culture thing and as something that has been stolen from a indigenous group
I say we oughta rename the Hollywood wendigo and give it an identity of its own instead of incorrectly naming it after something it isn’t
Anishnabe here🙋♂️ thank you for your research and respect when discussing these topics. We have so much folklore that can be hard to find online since most of everything was passed down through stories and words, and those words are so hard to learn and translate completely to English. You did a fantastic job making the differences between all the different groups
5:08 The difference between Algonquin and ojibwe for the most part is traditions. Ojibwe, Mohawk, Algonquin can be considered very similar, but even within fire keeping, each group holds their own values.
Algonquins also lived/settled very close to the ojibwe (today it would be considered southern Frontenac , and the ojibwe were more around Kingston ontario. Also the algonquins came up from southern America with the Mohawks so that is also a little bit of information.
My father taught global studies, indigenous studies, and has been in many protests and even been in jail for standing up against the uranium mining going on in ardoch Ontario. He finished his teachings at queens last year and works from home to educate people. I admit I don’t know nearly as much as he does, but he posts some videos here on RUclips. His channel is called Mino Kamig, and if you would like to look him up at all, his name is Robert Lovelace (Queens Professor)
PS: Algonquins are also more know for adopting and accepting outside people into their traditions. This can very rarely happen but is a possibility. Robert Lovelace is one of these cases, because while he may not have direct native blood in him, he grew up, and got his teachings, from native friends and chiefs in his area. And has grown up to teach, and fight for native pride more than some natives I know. So I know hearing this many people may not accept him as “true native” but I’ll tell ya, the Ardoch Algonquins certainly consider him a pure native.
hi ^^
sorry to be a bother, but i can't seem to find your fathers channel
could you possibly give a link ?
i'd love to watch his videos :>
@@harvey9588 yes! It’s @minokamig or “Robert Lovelace”
maybe the real skinwalkers were the friemds we made along the way
Friemds
Friemds
Technically wouldn't "the wendigo" itself be the evil spirit that overtakes the person as well as the person after possession?
Varies from tribe to tribe
Yes
@SilverTube skinwalker is najavo witch
It's really interesting how skinwalkers have many similarities with Mexican nahuales 🤔 Being Mexican and having grew up listening to stories from my grandparents, I couldn't help but compare these two creatures, both of them are black wizard who can change into an animal.
Have you ever heard of nahuales before? Here at Mexico there thousands of stories about them all around the country.
Aztec's and many native tribes are similar in some ways
I mean there would have been an overlap because of the area so same concept different story
You know you found a great video when the first line is, “It’s time to skinwalk your way into the woods and hunt yourself some wendussy”
One time when I was about 17, I was hanging out with a few buddy’s who were big into this stuff, they got me into it a week prior to us hanging out. One of them lived in a heavily wooded area and claimed the creatures lived in the woods near his family home, so we all decided to investigate these woods to see what we could find. For about 2 hours prior to us starting, we talked a lot about them, even using the native name for them, afterwards we grabbed purr machetes and headed into the woods. Thirty minutes into our investigation, we were walking along the edge of the property and we all stopped at the same time, and all shined our lights too the same spot across the barbed wire fence. What we saw had us froze in fear. Across the fence, we would see 2 brightly glowing eyes, they glowed a red and orange hue, the part that got us was they looked evil. There was probably 5 inches of space between the eyes, and they were sitting atleast 7 feet off the ground, and it was just outside the illumination range of our lights, we could only see the eyes and darkness. We stood there staring for a moment before one of my buddy’s were able to let out a scream, which snapped us out of our trance, after that we all ran and didn’t stop until we made it home. The next day we went back to see what we could find, and we found nothing, no indication a creature was there, it was just a cleared out area. Never went back.
I'll take "Things that didn't happen" for 500, Alex.
Cap
Yall weren’t there so you’ll never actually know, you can only make assumptions. But if it makes you feel better then go ahead, not like you have any way of knowing if it actually happened, it could have been an animal, bugs, anything, or it could have been something evil. Either way, don’t act so sure of yourself with no way too prove it. Makes you look dumb.
yeah that happened
I was the 7 feet thing with the eyes, can confirm
Even though the wendigo from Antlers wasn't very accurate at all, I like it a lot cause it looks so badass. Like a metal, mutated demon deerman.
“It’s time to skinwalk your way into the woods and hunt yourself some wendussy” 💀
*trying to hear the video*
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I had the coolest history professor in college who assigned a book on the Navajo code talkers, they essentially turned the tide of the war! Completely underrepresented part of history!
Native American lore has always been really interesting. Especially skinwalkers. These videos are really good !
I could have lived a long and happy life without hearing the word "Wendussy" D:
Yup. That's gonna stain the soul for eternity.
Some things can’t be unheard
Ya you could have, you could have
Honestly, Wendigos traumatized me when I was younger. If you wanna know why, it’s because my dad told me I was one. That messed with me for a while.
Would love to hear your story if you felt like sharing. I’m so sorry
@@hollyjollyxmas sure, I can share! (Hope this doesn’t come off as weird)
So my dad was watching someone play Until Dawn, or something like that. I had come into his room and watched for a bit. I questioned the game and what was going on, and my dad answered. This went on for a bit and I can’t exactly remember the details, but he eventually told me I was wendigo. I ask more questions, like why I didn’t look like the ones on the screen, y’know, stuff like that. He answered it all. I was 9 or 10. The reason this got so bad was because I am very afraid of judgment. It is practically a phobia at this point. (On a unrelated note, this is also why I’m scared of zombies, because I’m afraid of if I ever turn back, people will judge me for what i did as a zombie. That and I was told I would go to hell if I ever became one.) Anyways, that’s my story, I guess.
W Dad
I call my Granddaughter a Cucuy...🤣
So your dad say you are a Cannibal??? That doesn't make sense cause Wendigo are essentially that.
I've herd that Wendigos can silence the Forrest making all the animals quiet.. I've also herd that if you look a wendigo in the eye, it will follow and hunt you forever....
Will def keep that in mind😱
Not really... Crickets and cicadas and most birds are not disturbed by cougars and bears...
@Chandler Burse wouldnt the forest always be quite then?
Generally staring down predators is a good idea. Except for brown bears, that take it as a personal challenge. Probably to teach you how not to get mauled.
The first one is generally true for large predatory animals
I want to talk about the jaw as you guys talked about the smile in the past. The bite force of an animal is telling of it's neck and especially chest strength, people talk about jaws decreasing to increase brain size in man but a limited neck carrying capacity hinders your mass of the upper skull, gorillas have tall heads to accompany a jaw to open up further so it wasn't necessary to limit jaw size, making humans vulnerable to others in the neck to increase brain mass.
it's pretty obvious that in the case of the skinwalkers as they are conscious they deliberately mess with their structure of their shoulder and hip girdle to walk like beasts, and especially their skulls and how they look in the face to do that if you just believe they're good mimics.
a bipedal monster is scary not just because it's weird but because an animal can't just stroll up and bite your neck on all fours, a human with two arms and a wide jaw can just wrestle your arms and bite you.
they can just be emaciated in the body but have a strong neck, upper chest, back and bite.
a human also is the only one to have a chin which is meant for a balance to keep you upright by distributing force and endurance in taking blows and staying upright as if you can distribute a blow evenly it's that much easier to take one.
literally no other animals punches, gorillas can't make fists
Kangaroos, bro.
Good info, though. Well thought out.
@@CasualDoomer897 darkness is a place of infinite depth, wrinkled, wicked and jagged at it's being. demons want to pull themselves into our world up as they're dimensionally dark and need rips in fabrics to get up and in which is why they're hellbent on getting people to tear wormholes so they can slither in their whole being.
but in reality light makes darkness scatter it makes and reveals the incompleteness it was hiding.
it's obvious that these beings are demons but looking mathematically light is never losing to darkness and if that's true in this world it's infinitely more true in all of creation.
Christ with his blood mended the rips in space from beginning to end caused by sin that allowed all these ogres, demons, wicked things to come in and do what they did to pagan cultures.
it takes a work with no end to command the space from the beginning of time to the end, a tear, a crack is nothing before an infinitely high, righteous and substantive all encompassing work and it's worker purifying the darkness inside out.
Most things can't walk upright because of their feet. You need large enough feet to stand on. Kangaroos have massive feet. So do humans. Some apes aswell.
Gives whole new meaning to expression 'taking it on the chin'
In the case of skinwalker ranch it wasn't just a war between the utes and the navajo. The utes were enslaving the Navajo and selling them to the US government for labor.
There was a show called Grimm which came out when I was around 7 years old and I loved it. It had “Wessen” which could shift from human to a “monster” form and gain the creatures abilities and what have you. Through that show is how I learnt about a lot things such as the Wendigo, chupacabra and things along those lines. I miss that show but I am so happy it made me research so many mythologies and religions
Oh my gosh u guys!! As a Native American, I gotta say kudos 👍💯 much respect, love your explanation!!! I'm just into the beginning, but as an Anishnaabe, I'll explain later the difference from Algonquin, as I was taught anyway
You’re as white as white gets
1:30 It's also important to mention that prior to romanized unification (or, subjugation) Europe was populated by tribal cultures not completely unlike the native American tribes as well. Each European country had many tribal based cultures and unfortunately a lot of that was lost in the waves of history
I live, and have always lived, in Norway, and the plot I've grown up on has a few (cough 60 acres cough) of pretty dense forest, with a few streams and small lakes. I because of this grew up with a not in any way scared view of the forest, because I would spend days on end just walking in there alone. From I was barely 5 I would often walk different trails out in my forest to fish or just watch birds.
And then this one time... I had taken a midnight stroll by myself up to a lake maybe 1 or 2 miles away from the main house. (if you're wondering the plot is not square) on my way back, at around 2 in the night I hear a scream from somewhere to the right of the trail. The funny thing is, I have this tic where I will say sort of like a catch phrase whenever startled. Now, that catch phrase changes often, but at the time it was "not in the mood". So because I was startled the first thing my brain came up with was to have me shout back "not in the mood"...
Anyway, I use a cane so it sure was fun to not be able to run back home after I had shouted at someone or something screaming in the forest...
Loons, they sound like a child drowning and calling for help. Very common in NY. Maybe you heard a bird.
The sound could've been a lynx, if you listen to them interacting with other lynx they sound like a woman screaming
So when you described the wendigo. I thought of the ghoul from DnD, everything about it fits and my mind is spinning with ideas. That’s super interesting. As well as skinwalkers to Druids. Wild stuff. Great video!
Sounds like vampires, bloated, shrunken eyes, bone tight skin, longer nails longer hair. Basically a decaying body.
22:41 in one edition of Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, the Wendigo is purely a spirit. This man goes out to camp with a native guide, and hears the man running off into the cold on bare feet, screaming about his "burning feet of fire". The wendigo makes you run until the flesh of your feet burn off, and then it lifts you into the sky. When the man is at a post after the incident he finds the man, clothes as if a man were wearing them and walking around, but his head is a pile of ash.
That's blatantly stolen from Algernon Blackwood.
@@MySerpentine Yes a Lovecraft fan, met Lovecraft apparently.
I was on the rez herding sheep and saw a figure about 4 miles away and it looked huge. Ignored it and herded the sheep away from it. Then that night i had a dream about a wendigo that it attacked me and the house.
if you wouldn't mind, could you give a more detailed description?
7:28 My father is from the Cherokee tribe of northern Georgia. In Cherokee beliefs, there is a creature called the "Raven Mocker". The Raven Mocker is a corrupt medicine man, or practitioner of magic who astral projects their soul out of the body, and preys on the sick and dying. When a victim is identified and located, the Raven Mocker will eat the heart of said victim.
The fact that native language has helped defeat the Axis powers is such a satisfying fact. But at the same time it's heartbreaking that they never got credit for it.
I was told when I was a kid that one of the things one had to do to become a skin walker was kill everyone that knows you. Friends, family, everybody. This was because you can destroy a skinwaller by saying it's name
Coming from a family that shares folk stories to children through generations, ive got a bit of knowledge of both.
Native stories came down from my mothers side, and it was always a warning tale about skin walkers. Its bad juju just to mention them, and my great grandma always called them "shifters", though that seemed to worry her just as much. You have to seek help from an elder to perform a ritual to "banish" their ill will from you. The only way to actually be rid of it is to kill it. Removing the heart and either burning it or burying it.
As for wendigos, i live in Michigan. We are almost ALWAYS outdoors. My grandfather would always warn us to avoid the deeper parts of the woods, the parts that give you the instinct to turn and run. The parts that just feel down right bad. If you hear someone from your group or family calling to you from outside of the camp, dont listen.
On a side note, love your videos! You guys do a great job! Keep the videos coming!
Thank you for this! I always love hearing how the stories are passed down :)
So the, this area gives bad vibes thing is a anti predator flight response. It's nothing to worry about. But many animals make very human sounding calls, and you could get lost trying to follow one. Many people have drowned trying to save a kid from drowning at night, when they were just hearing a loon. Tragic, but now people know, loons sound like people screaming for help.
in the words of bobby singer, "woodchipper always works"
Skinwalker: I become animals and stuff
Wendigo: they didn’t have psychiatric hospitals back then
In so far as I understand things, the secrecy is similar to a lot of cultures with concepts of evil "Don't speak their name or you will draw their attention", even I'm skittish living up northern Canada. But I do feel like I need to make a point about that. Northern Canadian Winter is a monster of a thing to experience. While your summary of the motivation for the feral northern category of beastie, the concept of freezing and starvation is the kind of thing that is 5-8 months of snow and wind and ice and sparse food and barely any sunlight. any community is at a point where working together is deeply important, you have to be able to trust the people around you because you'd be in a constantly hazardous environment for months and months. you're getting close to days like 4-6 hours of sunlight. Winter in the North is something that could wipe out communities because nature is one of those things that has no pity. So that paranoia and fear and anger and even petty gripes and fear of isolation and cold and the hunger digging deep deep deep in your body. Part of it is the manifestation of a communal fear, as the ultimate breach of taboo. To be the person breaks and betrays and lets the desperation beat the temperance. And the 'it could be anyone' angle is more along the lines of how everyone is in a high stress situation?
Apologies if I've spoken out of turn. It's been very very cold this week and I've been very very on edge about that I suppose.
This is actually where the term, speak of the devil comes from. People used to believe, speaking about the devil attracted him.
Nah you right its like the storys told to kids today you know be good and all that jazz.
Thank you! This video was really helpful. It seems a LOT of people don't actually know what the hell a Skinwalker is. It was good that the Wendigo information came from actual people of the tribe.
I love how at 10:06 he basically calls out Wendigoon 😂
I feel like the antlered wendigo could be a possible mix of when a skinwalker gets possessed by an evil spirit
I often consider the antlered beast as an older and more powerful Wendigo, where the skeletal humanoid is in the process of becoming the more infamous antlered beast. Interesting take you have though, I’d wonder if a Skinwalker and Wendigo would fight if they crossed paths?
@@williamafton348 perhaps the Wendigo with antlers is actually an older (and thus smarter) Wendigo that wears a deer skull as a form of ritual, or something similar. That's just my take
@@lucifermagne7458 like a helmet to be extra spooky?
@@HappyBeezerStudios yeah sure
I love not only Native American mytholgy but listening to videos like this because It’s not only intriguing but I’m trying to make a series with as close/accurate information of these creatures as I can find. I was drawing different variations of wendigo, from the actual traditional gaunt, hungry corpse like man, to the Hollywood cervid headed antlers beast and then you brought up the movie ‘Antlers’ and slandering it. I just burst out into laughter because even tho it’s not accurate at all, I still love that movie 😭😭
I’m black but have native heritage and ancestry (not of which I’ve actually met a family member with) but these mythologies intrigue me so intensely. And I was surprised that I knew much of what you said
Yay, I love these videos! Always good stuff to listen to through these winters
Hard to believe it's been less then two years, you guys came such a long way in so little time. Love to see it
Clarification for people: Algonquin is NOT a single tribe, Algonquin is a root language for several tribes.
As far as the difference - bro youre doing your best. Much of native language is entirely contextual
Oh shoot I hope it didn’t come across that I was trying to say they were one tribe, I meant they were a linguistic and cultural group
@@TheLoreLodge the wording was a touch confusing at the beginning but i got it by the end
"Skinwalk your way into them woods and hunt yourself some Wendussy" has now permanently entered into my personal lexicon lmfao
Wendigos are really powerful creatures, and basically immortal. The only things able to kill it is another Wendigo, fire, and iron.
Antlers was a wechuge if I remember correctly... A person possessed by an enraged animal spirit... usually depicted with deer antlers, bear claws, and wolf teeth. There is some overlap with wendigo since both consume human flesh.
I'm just curious, given your knowledge around folklore, what are your thoughts on the many similarities between Norse culture and Native American culture?
I've always found it really interesting how similar they are, and given how the vikings were travelling to and from North America well before Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, I wonder if the vikings heavily influenced Native culture, or vice versa.
The similarities in belief and traditions revolving around animal spirits is one aspect that really intrigues me (wolves and bears specifically), especially now that you've pointed out how Skinwalkers are very similar to Berserkers.
Native American beat the Viking in North America and most likely conquered them.
@@gamervox1707 That doesn't necessarily mean that there was no transfer of culture
Animism and the believe in animal spirits and guides is found across most indigenous/pagan people across the world. Animism was the first religion
@@gamervox1707 no
@ReallyBurntToast that settlement lasted a few hundred years, vikings were in America for a long time and met several tribes both friendly and hostile, stones have been found with obvious Viking symbols carved into them. Either being from vikings themselves, natives(friendly ones to them I'd figure to be most likely), or perhaps their half native/Scandinavian offspring.
My great grandmother was Algonquin, I could barely find anything about her ancestors culture before this video, thanks man!
it's interesting when you said when the voice is near it's far, when it's far it's too late. in southeast asia or Indonesia we have similar sayings but for a completely different creature called Kuntilanak or Pontianak who is a little similar to banshees in appearance. they often lets out this eerie laugh. when it's near it's far. when it's far it's behind you. I wonder which culture from these two adapts this saying
So in Indonesia there's a type of monkey that does this. It sounds like a person and can imitate names. Freaky AF if you don't know what it is.
I remember when I was little my dad telling me all about the Navajo entities on the reservation. He had a lot of personal stories of seeing weird things there. My aunt actually was hunted by a skinwalker and my other aunt was targeted by a Navajo witch. When I went to the Navajo reservation to visit my grandma I will say that it has a different energy to it than anywhere I've ever been.
The wendigo eating its own bone marrow after getting its legs cut off and then laughing at the villagers is incredibly based. What a chad.
Pamunkey (Virginia Algonquin) here! Kenah (thank you) for explaining the differences between these two unrelated legends! You guys were super respectful about everything and more knowledgeable than most other videos I've seen on these two! Can't wait to go down the rabbit hole and binge all your other videos 😅 And your merch cracks me up! Please tell me you're going to make other "Windussy Hunter" items? I'd love to have that on a cropped hoodie!!
(Also, noticed you guys were from PA! Hello from Johnstown!)
Easy wendi goes and skin walks
I clicked on this video expecting something COMPLETELY different than was presented. This is amazing dude, I love the research you did and the care you gave to the topic, as well as some of the other really cool little factoids you threw in. You're amazing, earned my sub on one video, great job!
Metis person here, so Anishinaabe adjacent.
Basically Algonquin people ARE Anishinaabe, and their language is considered a dialect of Ojibwe (albeit with *significant* differences). They call themselves Omàmiwinini or Ancinape interchangeably. Anthropologists refer to the people groups as a whole as Algonquian, which isn't really preferred by most of us because it lends to that confusion between Algonquin, a tribal grouping, and Anishinaabe, the cultural and language group. The Algonquin also differed somewhat from other Anishinaabe historically because they led a more sedentary, agrarian lifestyle. But, I grew up on Ojibwe territory and honestly I kind of get it? Southern Ontario and Quebec, Algonquin territory, has some of the most fertile farmland in the world, whereas you go further north into the Canadian shield and you're lucky to dig half a foot without hitting bedrock.
Anyways, hope that helps.
I've heard descriptions of the wendigo with a deer skull and I have a wierd theory. What if they eat deer since they can't find humans as easily as they used to and eating deer has somehow altered their appearance.
17:55 that sounds a lot like the witch in Hänsel und Gretel. She would squish Hänsels Finger to checke if he was fat yet. It does make me wonder how german, baltic, welsh etc. myths compare to native american ones.
(This is a hint at the fact that I'd like to see you go across continents with this stuff. Its fascinating to see the paralles and divergences.)
Oh my gosh thank you for this!!! I can’t believe I just now realized they aren’t the same thing with a different name and that I should look it up lol. I LOVE your videos and this one was SO needed❤
Fun fact the wendigo you see with antlers is actually a similar but different monster from alguanquon lore the wechuge which has a lot of the same weaknesses but much bigger and twice as aggressive
Is there any reliable/accurate site that I can read about the Wechuge on? Because it sounds interesting
@@lucifermagne7458 Algonquin lore is always hard to find most of the info I got on the wechuge came from youtube
20:32 that transition to an add. Splendid.
About the presence of astral projection and even skinwalkers in other cultures :
I cannot talk for the entire continent (that is composed itself of multiple different cultures and even among them there can be vivid differences) but in Gabon, country localized in central Africa, we have it. Since the country itself is subdivided into quite a lot of tribes, each has a name for it, sometimes close to each other, but in general close to the term of « wizard ». The term itself refers to a multitude of people, from the « medecine man » that is here to supposedly cure untreatable diseases, help you find love and money to the dangerous psycho cursing people and eating children flesh deep in the forest.
As the main language of the country is French, the word we now use to describe astral projection is « vampire ». Yes, vampire. The term is here used not as denomination for a being but for the practice of making one’s spirit travel outside of the body, mostly to accomplish terrible things.
When it comes to skinwalkers, we do have an equivalent but I do not think there’s a specific name. There’s not skin part however as our folklore tells that the transformation into an animal is complete, and it goes from the spider to the leopard. Those able to do it are called « wizard » as well but they don’t have to actively practice occult shit. Sometimes you come from a family that has a particular totem representing an animal and after initiation - which is far from being given access to everyone - you can acquire the ability. There’s is this particular story of an oversized leopard that terrorized the small town of Mbigou, killing people and not dying to regular bullet until a priest blessed a silver one that managed to end the beast. The leopard was said to be one of those.
We also have what we call a « night gun ». Basically it’s a curse thrown at you and you can sometimes know you’ve been targeted if you randomly hear a loud bang on your ceiling during the night and can give you bad luck, make you enthralled with someone you had no feelings for prior, make you stupid, make you sick, or kill you.
Consider coming here for holidays, it’s great.
Edit : I cannot confirm it but I heard in Congo (the country next to us) and going west, there WERE people wearing lion skins and going through a transformation (not a complete one this time) and ripping people in villages into shreds.
How am I only just finding this channel?! I've not finished this video quite yet but I've already learned so much and I've had to subscribe, your way of presenting information is great, so easy to follow.
Welcome aboard!
Target is budget stuff? My guy, I'm sitting here watching this video in a $3 Wal-Mart t-shirt!
those $3 walmart shirts will last till the end of time tho!
Thanks!
Always liked the Wendigo. One of my favs is that it is an evil spirit who mimics the voice of a loved one to draw them into the forest. It would then manipulate the weather to snow them in, and when one his starved enough to kill and eat the other person, would possess that person. Others I've heard is with just a lone person being driven made and becoming possessed by the Wendigo. Even ones with the Wendigo physically impersonating a friend or a loved one you went camping with and would come right into the camp.
Girl came home and heard her mother calling from the basement. But before she went downstairs, the mother ran up and said, don't go down there.
Aww, I like you too!
The skinwalker stole my leather jacket where as the wendigoon stole my heart
News: a local found dead and robbed of their jacket reported by a family member today police a little confused of the situation I think the corporates are caught on camera
My man just opened with “wendussy” and I was hooked
That intro forced me to subscribe, I also hunt wendussy
Now we need a video on the differences between a Wendigo and a Wendigoon
As a northern Canadian metis the stories of windigo (windego, wheetago, ect ect) are of someone being sick spiritually and mentally (depression, greed, avarice, hate) YES absolutely committing cannibalism is the fast track to becoming one, though not always the just that way. Skin walkers are again from what I've been told from northern elders is a bad medicine man, and pretty much are as you said in your video. Great research great video. And I can't be sure if you're trying to say Dene (den-nay) tribe? The vernacular is different for everyone lol
Skinwalkers are very similar if not the same thing as the lachuza...main difference seems to be the animals of choice (Owls seem to be the lachuza's main option) and that the lachuza are normally female
Ngl that intro set the tone so much better than it had any right to.
The hulicinicgenic was probably fly agaric and reindeer piss.
The Vikings were able to reduce if not eliminate the toxins that sometimes would kill the imbiber by feeding the mushrooms to the reindeer and drinking their piss to trip.
"But you know what else is fire?"
Me: *Here comes the coffee*
So a skinwalker is a sociopath, and a wendigo is a psychopath
Very interesting to hear about the astral projection thing. I'm researching world folklore and my expertise is in Filipino Folklore. I've had this theory that all kinds of non-human transformations in supernatural lore are more like astral projections or some kind of spiritual cloaking, and finding out that such is also a perspective about the Skinwalkers greatly supports my theory.
Navajo tradition has a lot of taboos behind it
Not shared with outsiders
Bad medicine not spoken about since it manifests & gains power if you believe in it
Aldo non of our tradition & arts were written down it's all oral
This video was unbelievably difficult to put together as a result of all that. Literally 17 months of research went into it, and I’m trying my best to adequately describe this stuff so it doesn’t continue to be misrepresented in media. I hope it came across properly and not as a hack job.
I am a Navajo and Skin-walkers were healers and medicine man during the long walk to survive. But we got jealous of each other.
Interesting, by “the long walk” you mean the 19th century event? Or are you talking about the journey from the far north?
A wendigo’s description and the way they hunt when they sounded near they are far and when the wounded far it’s too late seems like an Aswang from the Philippines.
I found out about them through the TV show Grimm (highly recommend) and it was intensely chilling. I hate it XD
"If it sounds near, it's far. If it sounds far, it's too late." Isn't always the case, I survived a wendigo once, but I think it was toying with me.
Just gonna drop that in there w no elaboration pal???
@@BillyBlendsBluebs in around March back in 2020 I was having a hard time sleeping, decided I'd go downstairs and have a snack and play doom 2016. I heard scratching on the windows even though the branches of nearby trees had been cut recently, I was about 13 then and I was super paranoid, so I put my snack away and when I went into the kitchen I heard scratches on the basement door, I left quickly, I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a deep scream in the distance, almost a roar. I ran to the top of the stairs as fast as I could and hid in my room with a bb gun. I must have sat there for an hour before I felt safe enough to go to sleep. If it wanted to kill me, it would have.
Also I would love to talk to you about my grandfather was a code talker and I grew up around the ceremonies and culture.
wendussy is an amazing word
Love your content, never stop doing it!
That intro was a psychological flashbang, and ill be sending the therapy bills to your PO box
I was hoping for a mention of your theory about Wendigo being Nephilim but I understand wanting to stay on topic. I love all your lore.
I wish I could get your help look at the Book of Revelation. I want to start a D&D campaign set somewhere in the End Times but the book threw me for a loop!
I’d honestly loved to play it, I’m not a dbd person myself but just the thought of it has great appeal
10:55 that saying is chilling! The ability to cast it's voice from a location that it's not is a scary notion
Probably completely wrong about this, but does the sacrifice to become a skinwalker have to be human? Cause to lots of people pets are also family members
My understanding is that it would need to be human
Hey, yes the "sacrifice" does need to be a person. I think it mainly has to do with you making sure you want to do this. Cause killing a person I harder to than an animal. Sorry animal lovers.
@@bashingdragon6585 It's more that person feels way too vague in the context of a culture that respected nature that much more than people do today.
@@0cedced although some people may view animals as "people" with say personalities and emotions, however humans are on a whole another level, especially if you consider the human soul which is unique.
Traditional Navajos don’t really consider pets as family. There’s taboos about personifying animals, especially dogs.
Has RUclips had an uptick in ad amounts all of a sudden?
Dude yeah I got hit w 3 fucking ads in a row on a different video
Second, and I'm so excited to get to watch another video after getting home from school
So it's like: Skinwalker= controlled and deliberate, wendigo= rabid animal.
I think it would be weird if Navaho Nation , that was traditionally the Diné Nation, came from the Naha Valley , and that was how the name travelled, because I understand that "Navajo" is a Pueblo word for "valley farmer". It's not a Diné word. Much like indigenous cultures all over the world, the self-name of a people is usually "the people". Diné is the "Navajo" word for "the people". The Spanish picked up the Puebloan term Navajo, as "Apache de Navajo", "Apache that farm the valley". So....a Pueblo and Spanish term. Maybe the Diné did come from there, idk, I wasn't alive then. I have no idea. Athabaskan does seem to line up with ancestry as far as DNA maps go. America seems to have been colonized in waves by a few different groups over time.
I do live in the former territory of Ojibwe/Anishinabe. Most of what people know is a little bit sketch. The wendigo lore is old time campfire stuff here in the Great Lakes region. I heard it first in pre-internet days. It's thought that Algonquin people came here at some point, they controlled this region, but sort of drifted back and the Ojibwe were remnants. Ojibwe supposedly is another tribe's word for Anishinabe that probably means red legs, having to do with knee high boots or leg coverings that were worn by them.
It's thought that Anishinabe/Algonquin were relatively recent to this area (Cuyahoga River) and they likely erased the previous culture rather thoroughly. In any event, its butt breaking cold in the winters here, and I could easily see how a bad winter could come along and starve people. It's easy to see why a Wendigo might need to be invented if it didn't exist, because there's nothing quite so insanity inducing as being cold AND hungry, and then alleviating that feeling by eating your cousin. I imagine Wendigo was very real to these people here then.
Not necessarily certain on the naming issue, but the fact that a tribe disappeared from a Dine region and then a Dine tribe popped up far off seems simple enough.
I was taught that the wendigo is a spirit that takes control of human during a dire situation and has to eat someone usually during the winter months or taking control of a willing cannibal. Almost like a curse but the wedigo is a spirit. That possesses people turning them into the pale and gaunt being that we see im anishinaabe by the way im not completely sure but this is what my Ojibwa teacher taught us during our story and traditions parts of our class
Ones a witch, one is the spirit of greed
My grandmother always said not to speak of them. Which made it even scarier. My cousins are I spent many sleepless nights after hearing one story told about it just one. It still scares me to this day
Lol. Catholics used to say the same thing about the devil. Hence the term.
For those who may be interested, I know some coffee companies may add things with gluten in them to help flavor coffee. I contacted Tablow roasting Co. and they informed me all of their coffee is Gluten Free including The Lore Lodge blend!💖
Never seen this guy before but that opening made me subscribe, well done.