Windigo psychosis is a type of mental disorder that occurred between the Cree, Innu, Ojibwa and Saulteaux tribes of Canada and Alaska. The person who suffered it stopped eating, having nausea, vomiting and discomfort with normal food. Episodes of insomnia or hallucinations could also occur. If this state did not stop the person began to express the fear that the wendigo (a spirit) possessed him, causing this to end up becoming a cannibal. Before this happened they asked the members of their tribe to kill them.
Most cases date back to the nineteenth century, though there is controversy about whether they actually came into existence. Marvin Harris argues that these episodes only respond to a system of homicide by priority in extreme environmental situations, since the fear of the wendigo was used as justification to break the taboo of killing a companion. This would eliminate problematic elements and increase the chances of survival of the rest of the group. Marvin Harris also adds the importance that in these cases only the testimony of the surviving members and not of the supposed Wendigo. For Seymour Parker these environmental explanations are not credible, since not always that the psychosis was given was in situations of hunger and in addition there are no known cases in other towns that live in similar extreme situations, as Eskimos. Parker gives a more psychoanalytic explanation that would have to do with frustrated dependency needs in childhood. He also states that cases of windigo psychosis occur mainly in men who have experienced failures in hunting, feeling abandoned, useless and powerless and rarely in women.
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