The windigo figure is one from First Nation mythology which represents the utmost crime against nature and the madness takes over a human should they become one of these monsters. Windigos come from oral stories Native people shared to teach children about the boundary they must not cross for it is a sign of loss of humanity. To become a windigo, a person must consume human flesh, or resort to cannibalism, and slowly a change would take place which would drastically alter a human’s physical and mental structures. Boyden describes the windigo as, “... people who eat other people’s flesh and grow into wild beasts twenty feet tall whose hunger can be satisfied only by more human flesh and then the hunger turns worse.” (Boyden 41). This description
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I realized then that the sadness was at the heart of the windigo, a sadness so pure that it shriveled the human heart and let something else grow in its place. To know that you have desecrated the ones you love, that you have done something so damning out of greed for life that you have been exiled from your people forever in is a hard meal to swallow, much harder than that first bite of human flesh. (Boyden 261)
This passage of Niska’s commentary adds a bit of humanity to the already damned windigo; that even though they have become a monster, they still hold a little remorse for what they have done with little regard for another …show more content…
The battlegrounds pressured men to become expert killers in order to survive. Xavier narrates his experience and witnessing this behaviour at Vimy Ridge saying, “... all I can see in my mind are men crawling in and out of the tunnels in these hills like angry and tired ants, thinking of new ways to kill the other.” (Boyden 205). This account of Xavier’s ties with the idea of the windigo that when a person’s life is on the line, they would do anything to save themselves even if it means ending the lives of many to do so. Actively participating in warfare and dealing with the emotional shock that comes with it is enough to drive many soldiers psychotic during the Great War. Once this has happened, men can become desensitized with killing and may begin to crave it. Boyden portrays this slow progression into turning windigo through the character of Elijah. At the beginning of the war, Elijah was like Xavier in the sense that survival was the reason behind killing enemies. However, as the war went on, there was an obvious shift in Elijah’s mentality. As Xavier points out, “Elijah has learned to take pleasure in killing.” (Boyden 283). This quotation is very important because it confirms that Elijah is gaining his energy from killing Huns and Fritz much like the windigo fills its hunger with human flesh. The war affects soldiers in a way that they slowly lose their sense
I realized then that the sadness was at the heart of the windigo, a sadness so pure that it shriveled the human heart and let something else grow in its place. To know that you have desecrated the ones you love, that you have done something so damning out of greed for life that you have been exiled from your people forever in is a hard meal to swallow, much harder than that first bite of human flesh. (Boyden 261)
This passage of Niska’s commentary adds a bit of humanity to the already damned windigo; that even though they have become a monster, they still hold a little remorse for what they have done with little regard for another …show more content…
The battlegrounds pressured men to become expert killers in order to survive. Xavier narrates his experience and witnessing this behaviour at Vimy Ridge saying, “... all I can see in my mind are men crawling in and out of the tunnels in these hills like angry and tired ants, thinking of new ways to kill the other.” (Boyden 205). This account of Xavier’s ties with the idea of the windigo that when a person’s life is on the line, they would do anything to save themselves even if it means ending the lives of many to do so. Actively participating in warfare and dealing with the emotional shock that comes with it is enough to drive many soldiers psychotic during the Great War. Once this has happened, men can become desensitized with killing and may begin to crave it. Boyden portrays this slow progression into turning windigo through the character of Elijah. At the beginning of the war, Elijah was like Xavier in the sense that survival was the reason behind killing enemies. However, as the war went on, there was an obvious shift in Elijah’s mentality. As Xavier points out, “Elijah has learned to take pleasure in killing.” (Boyden 283). This quotation is very important because it confirms that Elijah is gaining his energy from killing Huns and Fritz much like the windigo fills its hunger with human flesh. The war affects soldiers in a way that they slowly lose their sense