Carolyn Podruchny

Werewolves and Windigos: Narratives of cannibal monsters in French-Canadian voyageur oral tradition

While traveling around Lake Superior in the 1850s, German explorer JohannGeorg Kohl met many retired and elderly French-Canadian voyageurs and their Aboriginal wives and families. A constant theme in his discussions with them was privation. ‘‘ ‘In my utter misery,’ a CanadianVoyageur assured me, ‘I have more than once roasted and eaten my mocassins.’ ’’1 Stories about starvation often led to stories about cannibals, such as the tale of a man who killed and ate his two wives and all his children in succession, another who turned on his friend, and a third who wandered about the forests like a hungry wolf, preying on unsuspecting humans (ibid., 355– 7). Much like stories of werewolves in Euro-American communities, cannibals were frequently portrayed as humans transformed into monsters in voyageur lore terrorizing any that crossed their paths. Kohl reported that in 1854, on Île Royale, close to the north bank of Lake Superior, a ‘‘wild man’’ hunted humans and was thought to be a windigo.Windigos were specifically Algonquian monsters who ate human flesh and had hearts of ice.2 Human beings could be transformed intowindigos by witchcraft or famine cannibalism.3 In one story told to Kohl,

Baptizing Novices: Ritual Moments among French Canadian Voyageurs in the Montreal Fur Trade, 1780–1821

A series of geographical passages on fur trade routes in northwestern North America marked important cultural boundaries for French Canadian voyageurs. Mock baptism ceremonies were performed at ‘points of baptism’ at the edge of regions defined by physical and cultural characteristics. The mock baptisms marked passage not only into new physical and cultural spaces but also into new states of occupation and manhood. Those who worked in the farthest corners of the fur-trading territories were considered to be the best voyageurs and the toughest men.