Guest star
The Wendigo: A Note on the Legend and Our Folk Horror Design
Tall, silent and waiting between the pines.
The legend
The wendigo comes from the oral traditions of Algonquian-speaking peoples of the northern forests of North America, including the Ojibwe, Cree and Innu. In those traditions it is tied to winter, starvation and greed, a being that is never satisfied, and for many communities it remains a serious subject rather than a costume.
The tall, antlered, skull-faced figure most people now picture is a much newer image, shaped by horror fiction, films and games rather than by the original stories.
In the RaccoonVerse
Our design borrows that newer pop-culture image the way campfire stories do. The Raccoon, as a camp counselor, leads his group through the pines, and he has not noticed the tall shape waiting between the trees. Drawn in a linocut style, it is folk horror without the gore.