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The Windigo almost becomes another character. Does this story and tradition increase the suspense of the mystery and the tension amongst the characters? How did you react to hearing the story of the Windigo?
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When Sam Winter Moon introduces the Windigo as “giant, an ogre with a heart of ice. A cannibal, a cold and hungry thing. It comes out of the woods to eat the flesh of men and women. Children, too. It doesn’t care.” Well, it certainly created suspense and rachetted up the fear for me. It’s like the tales of the bogeyman under the bed or the ogre under the bridge fairy tale I was told as a kid. It also sets up suspense (and foreboding) because Sam tells Cork that a man will know “when the Windigo’s coming for him.” I immediately took that as foreshadowing. WKK goes into further foreshadowing by Sam revealing that Henry Meloux has the answers. It involves magic and there’s a danger that if you kill it, you become the Windigo yourself. The prologue ends with the kicker that Cork waited 30 years before he heard the Windigo call his name. Consider me intrigued! It doesn’t take long for Henry to show up and tell Cork he’s heard the Windigo calling names in Chapter 3. More foreshadowing! The Windigo makes several other timely visits in the book and every time raises the level of suspense for me.
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It does increase the suspense! Throughout the book there are the people who believe in the Windigo (Sam, Henry, Cork) and those that don’t (Sandy, Wally, Russell Blackwater). People like Sandy scoff at it, but Cork and Henry respect and fear it. I took the Windigo story to be an allegory, a warning to that person they are not on a good path, that their inner demons are getting the better of them. That’s why I think the tale talks about the WIndigo consuming the person and eating human flesh. It’s the dark spirit of human beings that not only devours others but themselves. That’s why when you stand up to fight the Windigo you risk being swallowed up by it and becoming it. At least that was my takeaway.
What I had difficulty understanding was how to defeat the Windigo. Henry’s advice to Cork is that a man “must have a heart of ice. There must be no hesitation.” So to conquer the Windigo a person must have resolve and stone cold courage. But how does that work exactly? I am a bit confused by this piece of advice, this notion of hardening your heart and becoming what you fear. Does anyone have ideas about why this is?
My notion is that it’s a man’s imagination (and him confronting his inner demons) that ultimately can lead to a true transformation and conquering of the Windigo. When Cork confronts the Windigo/Sandy Cork thinks, “To kill the Windigo, Meloux had said, you must become a Windigo, too. A man was never just a man. A man was endless possibility waiting to become.” What does that mean exactly? Maybe Krueger is keeping it purposefully vague and mysterious?
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Whether one regards the Windigo as a myth, an allegorical figure or is open to its existence as a separate entity, the Windigo is truly a character in this story. I agree with Nancy Herrington that Harlan Lytton, Russell Blackwater and Sandy Parrant were personifications of the Windigo and the greed and cold heartedness it represents. Unnerved by hearing what he thought was an unseen person calling his name the previous night, Harlan Lytton sics Jack on Cork and Tom Griffin. Russell Blackwater may have been a “modern Shinnob” but he began carrying a gun. And it was probably Henry who called Sandy Parrant’s name as he threatened Jo and Cork, but the effect was the same. They are not the only characters who experience a sense of foreboding, an inexplicable feeling or experience including Henry, Jo and Cork and Molly watches the tea kettle jump with no human hand evident. I am certain there are other examples I have not located. The Windigo story added to the suspense of the story for me and helped pull together the different pieces of the story. For me, the Windigo is an allegorical figure. That is my way of looking at life, my Western cultural experience. People are analytical and look at the evidence of their eyes for an explanation. But, I also believe that Sam Winter Moon is correct, there is more than a person can ever hope to truly see. I admire Cork and Henry’s acceptance that forces can exist which one may not see and be open to pursuing those.
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