So the only agents of change that are legit are from the cultures that spawn those ideas? Let alone where those ideas come in contact with other cultures? Puh-LEESE.

Have you ever tried reading D&D in Old English? Or does that not matter - because English is European and they don't count for the purposes of illustrating such concerns?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066757The only time that Euro-American pop-culture came remotely close to capturing the cultural significance of the Algonquin wendigo was in an episode of My Little Pony.

You might have missed my mention of it earlier, but have you seen the 1999 horror/western film Ravenous, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle?  It really does seem to capture that theme of the wendigo as the embodiment of selfish greed that you were looking for, or at least it always seemed so to me.

It's still "appropriative" in a sense in that the horror all happens to Euro-American people (there are only two native characters, one of whom dies and the other is only there for exposition purposes), but it's always been difficult to get production budgets without recognizeable audience-draw stars.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066272So the wendigo is a nebulous winter demon of Algonquin religion that drives people to cannibalism, and much like Satan in Christianity it exists to illustrate all-important moral lessons. The tribe is all and greed leads to demonic possession, murder and cannibalism.

So why is it when the wendigo is misappropriated by non-Algonquin writers (and it IS misappropriation because for a century or so they were banned from practicing their own religion, so this is part of the many racist issues that first nations peoples still have to deal with today, but that's neither here nor there) it ends up not resembling the original myth at all?

There are two things here: The poor rendition of the Wendigo and the Cultural Misappropriation of the Wendigo.

The poor rendition of the Wendigo is because most of us are not Algonquin and have only read about a Wendigo or seen on on TV or in films. This means that we use what we remember, what we have seen or written, and base out interpretation on that.

In the same way that I have not seen a Flying horse, I might base it on Pegasus or, more likely for me, Turkic/Bashkort Winged Horses. I write what I have read or seen.

If you want a better rendition of a Wendigo, then educate us and provide myths of the Wendigo, local descriptions of the Wendigo, pictures of a Wendigo and so on. Then, we can use those to build our own versions, that would be more true to your myth. However, someone else might produce different descriptions, different myths and so on, which would mean a different type of Wendigo.

Now, for the Cultural Misappropriation, I am afraid this will happen.

Winged horses come from Greek or Turkic Mythology. Giant Black Dogs come from Celtic Mythology. Lamias come from Middle Eastern Mythology. Leprechauns come from Irish Mythology. All have been embraced and have become generic monsters.

As soon as a culture's myths and religion is exposed, the creatures from that myth and religion become fair game.

As a GM, if I wanted to run a game set in Algonquin territory then I might want to use a Wendigo. Do I use it properly? Probably not. But, what I would do is to check Wikipedia and various other sources, to find out about mythical creatures and work them into the setting.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066272Google searches are flooded with an absurd zombie weredeer meme that has nothing to do with the Algonquin religion. No joke, I see people conflating the wendigo with Celtic hunter gods and other stupidity.

There is an element of Anthropology that seeks to compare and contrast different religions, heroes, mythical creatures and so on, to establish a baseline of myth. I can see people drawing parallels with how a Wendigo works with how similar things work in different cultures and mythology. This is almost certainly not meant to offend, but is a kind of analysis where you break things down into their mythical components and compare. If the Wendigo and certain Celtic Hunter Gods each have 10 base components and they share 7 of them, for example, then there is a good case for arguing that they both reflect an underlying mythical reality.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066272Seriously, what gives? The original wendigo was awesome specifically because of its status as a Satan-figure within the context of the Algonquin culture and life, but modern writers have turned it into a generic monster devoid of meaning.

People write what they want to write.

Robin Hood has been butchered for years, but it still makes a good story.

If you want to bring back the meaning, then write something about the Wendigo. I, for one, would love to read it.

Quote from: tenbones;1066774So the only agents of change that are legit are from the cultures that spawn those ideas? Let alone where those ideas come in contact with other cultures? Puh-LEESE.

I do not believe that to be the case and was not trying to convey that impression.

The American "wendigo" and the Algonquin wendigo are completely different, unrelated entities that happen to share a name in common. The Algonquin wendigo is Greed, the American "wendigo" is the Wild Hunt repackaged.

Quote from: tenbones;1066774Have you ever tried reading D&D in Old English? Or does that not matter - because English is European and they don't count for the purposes of illustrating such concerns?

Is there a translation into Old English? I would like to read it, but I do not know Old English.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1066778You might have missed my mention of it earlier, but have you seen the 1999 horror/western film Ravenous, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle?  It really does seem to capture that theme of the wendigo as the embodiment of selfish greed that you were looking for, or at least it always seemed so to me.

It's still "appropriative" in a sense in that the horror all happens to Euro-American people (there are only two native characters, one of whom dies and the other is only there for exposition purposes), but it's always been difficult to get production budgets without recognizeable audience-draw stars.

I have not seen that, at least not fully. I give it credit for being creative by invoking the colonialism metaphor.

Quote from: soltakss;1066782*stuff*

I think that's been the general reaction, well put.

Quote from: soltakss;1066782There are two things here: The poor rendition of the Wendigo and the Cultural Misappropriation of the Wendigo.

The poor rendition of the Wendigo is because most of us are not Algonquin and have only read about a Wendigo or seen on on TV or in films. This means that we use what we remember, what we have seen or written, and base out interpretation on that.

Yep. This really the root of all the problems I have.

It doesn't help that outsiders never learn much of anything about the wendigo in the first place. Whenever a "wendigo" appears in Western media, it typically is just familiar Western tropes repackaged and given a cosmetic coat of Indian-sounding woo woo.

Algernon's wendigo is actually a hodgepodge of familiar evil fairy tropes. It taunts its victims with a voice on the wind, it flies, and eats moss. Then the story adds elements of punishment because, according to the text, it gouges out its victims eye to punish them for the lust of beauty and burns away their feet through friction for wanderlust. Then it wears their face to further mock them. Pretty freaky, but not a wendigo.

Roosevelt's wendigo is a simple bigfoot who kills intruders in its territory. If you squint you might see a repudiation of colonialism, but I think that might be reaching.

King's wendigo is the Kandarian demon again plus a bunch of other familiar tropes. The burial ground is cursed because an evil spirit is trapped there (where have we seen that before?), so do not bury your dead there because it will possess them! Also, the white man is an idiot for staying there because the oh so superior natives left when the monster arrived.

The word "wendigo" has lost all meaning in these contexts beyond a generic monster.

It's just so boring and overused. I'd be much more interested in seeing someone use the peryton unironically. If you read the tales associated with it, it becomes really tragic. They lived on Atlantis until it sank, and now they are cursed with immortality unless they eat a fresh human heart. Also, they are transmuted from the souls of people who got lost or died while traveling. How terrible an existence is that?

Plus, the peryton was made up by a dude in the 1950s as a joke.

What about the fearsome critters of lumberjack lore? Does anybody remember those? They're uniquely American but are absent from modern popular culture.

There are so many more monsters deserving of our attention than a name co-opted from another culture to be applied to our own ancient myth memes.

Quote from: soltakss;1066782There is an element of Anthropology that seeks to compare and contrast different religions, heroes, mythical creatures and so on, to establish a baseline of myth. I can see people drawing parallels with how a Wendigo works with how similar things work in different cultures and mythology. This is almost certainly not meant to offend, but is a kind of analysis where you break things down into their mythical components and compare. If the Wendigo and certain Celtic Hunter Gods each have 10 base components and they share 7 of them, for example, then there is a good case for arguing that they both reflect an underlying mythical reality.

That is just it. The wendigo myth has nothing in common with the horned hunter god meme. That is entirely the result of an image published in a 1950s magazine in which the artist depicted Blackwood's monster as a variation of the old Wild Hunt meme.

Which illustrates that we outsiders never really understood the wendigo. We got a name and a very basic description from the Algonquin, but all the rest we made up on our own.

Quote from: soltakss;1066782If you want to bring back the meaning, then write something about the Wendigo. I, for one, would love to read it.

Without being a communist I cannot really understand the cultural significance of the wendigo's greed. The closest that I can come is Satan and his legions, but that's almost the exact opposite because the Christian God is pretty malevolent already.

That is my personal tragedy as a creative content creator. Even if I wanted to capture the significance of the wendigo, all I can ever do is just remix elements of my own cultural myths. I can more or less easily understand Greek and Ancient Egyptian cultural memes because my own culture descends from them. The Greek gods are omnipotent psychopaths, so is the Abrahamic God. The Ancient Egyptians gave offerings to their dead to help them in the afterlife, I visit graves to present flowers. Even the symbolism that the heart is the seat of emotion comes from Ancient Egyptian beliefs.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066791Without being a communist I cannot really understand the cultural significance of the wendigo's greed. The closest that I can come is Satan and his legions, but that's almost the exact opposite because the Christian God is pretty malevolent already.

That is my personal tragedy as a creative content creator. Even if I wanted to capture the significance of the wendigo, all I can ever do is just remix elements of my own cultural myths. I can more or less easily understand Greek and Ancient Egyptian cultural memes because my own culture descends from them. The Greek gods are omnipotent psychopaths, so is the Abrahamic God. The Ancient Egyptians gave offerings to their dead to help them in the afterlife, I visit graves to present flowers. Even the symbolism that the heart is the seat of emotion comes from Ancient Egyptian beliefs.

If so, then what was this all about? There's no way a bunch of RPG writers in Seattle sipping lattes and looking up Wendigo on Wikipedia are going to to a better job than you can.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066791There are so many more monsters deserving of our attention than a name co-opted from another culture to be applied to our own ancient myth memes.

Then fix it. Either write the book yourself or find somebody interested in writing such a book and support them with the skills you do have. It seems at the very least you have decent research skills considering what you wrote about various specifics. Write a monograph to be used as a research aide for those interested in adhering to the original myths and legends.

Complaining that others have to fix it is not going to work where there creative freedom.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066791That is my personal tragedy as a creative content creator. Even if I wanted to capture the significance of the wendigo, all I can ever do is just remix elements of my own cultural myths.

You are overthinking it by ignoring the fact that despite the different circumstances they are still human beings with the same needs and wants as any other arbitrary group of human beings. How those needs, and wants, are expressed and dealt with is what different. Those differences can be understood through discussion, study, observation, and research. And that understanding can be communicated to others.

It may be hard work for a specific individual to understand another culture or time but if one is willing to put the work in and make an honest effort than it can be done.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066797If so, then what was this all about? There's no way a bunch of RPG writers in Seattle sipping lattes and looking up Wendigo on Wikipedia are going to to a better job than you can.

I never expected otherwise.

Paizo just grinds my gears because they claim to be accurate to myths when all they are really doing is plundering world mythology for ideas. If they just said they were very loosely inspired, I would not have a problem. But no, they have to be pretentious about how accurate they are.

I do a lot of research on Google books going back as far as it will go, but I can never claim that anything I write would be accurate to some arbitrary platonic ideal. I fully accept that myths are moving targets to begin with and that all I can ever do is make up myths.

Although that still does not stop me from criticizing Disney for turning Hades into a Satan analogue when in the original myths all he did was sit on his throne while Zeus was out raping people and destroying cities.

He abducted his niece and tricked her into marrying him, in a story that is literally titled "Rape of Persephone," but for whatever reason romance novelists and artists decided to spin doctor that into some kind of star-crossed lovers narrative. I cannot really criticize that since the myths were contradictory to begin with due to the oral history thing.

Quote from: estar;1066799Then fix it. Either write the book yourself or find somebody interested in writing such a book and support them with the skills you do have. It seems at the very least you have decent research skills considering what you wrote about various specifics. Write a monograph to be used as a research aide for those interested in adhering to the original myths and legends.

Complaining that others have to fix it is not going to work where there creative freedom.

There are a bazillion myths across dozens of cultures. Even within cultures different stories depict the monsters in wildly different fashions. The spirits that possess people become most powerful when they possess grandmothers, and one old variation of the stories tells that wendigo have their own hidden culture similar to fairies or genies and sometimes visit human communities to find spouses. The article I just linked says this (in a list of ideas for being more "accurate"): "What if the missing brother had been persuaded to wed Grandmother Wendigo's granddaughter, either due to her tricking him into cannibalism in a dream, or in a bid to protect his community?"

Fantasy games where you kill an endless conveyor belt of targets do not seem like the best spot to explore that diversity. The monster books give a couple pages at most for the wendigo monster, but the wendigo stories are a huge umbrella that a fantasy game could only approximate with a dozen different monsters for all of the different roles that have been imagined for them. Of course, considering that the monster books already include dozens of man-eating whatever...

Hags, frost giants, vampires, everything we need seems to be there.

Quote from: estar;1066805You are overthinking it by ignoring the fact that despite the different circumstances they are still human beings with the same needs and wants as any other arbitrary group of human beings. How those needs, and wants, are expressed and dealt with is what different. Those differences can be understood through discussion, study, observation, and research. And that understanding can be communicated to others.

It may be hard work for a specific individual to understand another culture or time but if one is willing to put the work in and make an honest effort than it can be done.

There's a book that articulates how modern indigenous cultures tell stories about the Wendigo. Here's a quote:

QuoteIn contemporary Indigenous traditions, the windigo has become associated with the danger of greed, capitalism, and Western excess, while in European and Canadian imagery, it is the symbol of evil, wilderness, and madness....
In Euro-Canadian novels and films, the windigo is largely separate from Aboriginal culture, in that there is little meaningful discussion of Native beliefs. Instead, Aboriginal peoples are often associated with a simplified version of the past, in which discussions of colonialism are avoided. In contrast, Native works focus on the traumas associated with colonialism, such as residential schools, sexual abuse, and cultural loss, which are equated with the windigo spirit. Indigenous books, plays, and films draw on a vision of the windigo articulated by Ojibwa scholar Basil Johnston, who described it as being the spirit of selfishness, as epitomized by the Euro-Canadian culture of extraction and environmental destruction: 'These new weendigoes are no different from their forebears. In fact, they are even more omnivorous than their old ancestors. The only difference is that the modern Weendigoes wear elegant clothes and comport themselves with an air of cultured and dignified respectability.'

What does that last part remind you of?

The closest analogue I can think of in my culture would be the "vampire counts" that sometimes appear, being an exaggeration of the metaphorically blood-sucking nobility and rich folks in the past and present. This is not a direct correspondence. The indigenous tribes were communist and thus the conflict was greed versus the community, whereas in my capitalist culture the conflict is between the haves and have-nots.

It seems to me like we never needed wendigos since all the baggage we use them to represent are already present in copious amounts already. At this point we are just co-opting the name and basic description to give a false veneer of foreignness, originality and generally magical Indian woo-woo.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066812What does that last part remind you of?

That chapter one is about more recent times and the stuff that you need to focus on is in chapter two and chapter three that describes what was recorded about the original myths.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066812The closest analogue I can think of in my culture would be the "vampire counts" that sometimes appear, being an exaggeration of the metaphorically blood-sucking nobility and rich folks in the past and present. This is not a direct correspondence. The indigenous tribes were communist and thus the conflict was greed versus the community, whereas in my capitalist culture the conflict is between the haves and have-nots.

You are bring in your cultural baggage by describing indigenous tribes as communist. They were their own thing where some featured communal ownership as part of their culture. But it is not communism in the sense normally used as that was a philosophy first put into modern form by Karl Mark in 1848. Nor you are correct that greed doesn't exist in societies that practice communal ownership.

The desire for more doesn't go away in a society where there is communal ownership, it get transferred to other status symbols. And those status symbols are not always tied to material possessions either.

For example how was decided how food is allocated? Not matter how it is labeled it comes down to a decision made by human beings who have feeling, likes, and dislikes especially when it comes to other people. A successful greedy person in a society who desired more food that has a system of communal food storage would be an expert at persuasion and social manipulation. While in another society a successful greedy person because they control the most armed warrior. And in a later time a greedy person is successful because of their intellectual prowess at manipulating a system of numbers.

In all of these societies greed remains. Although how it manifests and the means by which it is checked to restore  what the culture considers acceptable differs. Because greed is about taking more than one's fair share.

To relate to other culture's myths and legends one need to understand common elements of our shared humanity. And there are many common elements that cuts across time and geography. They exist because of the same physical and emotional needs of all humans. In the latter half of the 20th century there are numerous works that looked at this issue if you want to develop an understanding of it.

However until you do, you will have a tough related the specific to your own experiences. Because the form of the myth includes cultural specifics that represent layers of interpretations across generations. Something that it illustrated in Chapter 1 of the book you referenced. That show how the myth has changed post-contact and adapted to the needs and wants of succeeding generations of that indigenous culture.

The issue here is adapting a decent version, by your criteria, the original myth. Do that you will to do the work in reading the primary material as the authors of the book did in chapter two and three.

Quote from: estar;1066799Then fix it. Either write the book yourself or find somebody interested in writing such a book and support them with the skills you do have. It seems at the very least you have decent research skills considering what you wrote about various specifics. Write a monograph to be used as a research aide for those interested in adhering to the original myths and legends.

Complaining that others have to fix it is not going to work where there creative freedom.

Bingo is your name-o.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066812I never expected otherwise.

Paizo just grinds my gears because they claim to be accurate to myths when all they are really doing is plundering world mythology for ideas.

I'm not familiar with everything Paizo has written. When did they claim to be accurate to myths?

Quote from: estar;1066823That chapter one is about more recent times and the stuff that you need to focus on is in chapter two and chapter three that describes what was recorded about the original myths.





You are bring in your cultural baggage by describing indigenous tribes as communist. They were their own thing where some featured communal ownership as part of their culture. But it is not communism in the sense normally used as that was a philosophy first put into modern form by Karl Mark in 1848. Nor you are correct that greed doesn't exist in societies that practice communal ownership.

The desire for more doesn't go away in a society where there is communal ownership, it get transferred to other status symbols. And those status symbols are not always tied to material possessions either.

For example how was decided how food is allocated? Not matter how it is labeled it comes down to a decision made by human beings who have feeling, likes, and dislikes especially when it comes to other people. A successful greedy person in a society who desired more food that has a system of communal food storage would be an expert at persuasion and social manipulation. While in another society a successful greedy person because they control the most armed warrior. And in a later time a greedy person is successful because of their intellectual prowess at manipulating a system of numbers.

In all of these societies greed remains. Although how it manifests and the means by which it is checked to restore  what the culture considers acceptable differs. Because greed is about taking more than one's fair share.

To relate to other culture's myths and legends one need to understand common elements of our shared humanity. And there are many common elements that cuts across time and geography. They exist because of the same physical and emotional needs of all humans. In the latter half of the 20th century there are numerous works that looked at this issue if you want to develop an understanding of it.

However until you do, you will have a tough related the specific to your own experiences. Because the form of the myth includes cultural specifics that represent layers of interpretations across generations. Something that it illustrated in Chapter 1 of the book you referenced. That show how the myth has changed post-contact and adapted to the needs and wants of succeeding generations of that indigenous culture.

The issue here is adapting a decent version, by your criteria, the original myth. Do that you will to do the work in reading the primary material as the authors of the book did in chapter two and three.

That is precisely the reason why I do not think myself or anyone else outside the Algonquin culture can do the wendigo justice. The wendigo is a cultural bogeyman without similar relevance to those outside said culture. I cannot stop myself from bringing my own cultural baggage with me. You demonstrated this perfectly when you pointed out that my appellation of "communism" is wrong. As I said, if I was trying to communicate a moral message about the evils of greed, I would probably have the most success using vampire counts due to my culture's history of evil rich people.

 I could certainly take inspiration from particular stories about wendigo, like writing a story about a ogress' granddaughter looking for a human husband and trying to make him an ogre through dreams, but I would not use the name "wendigo" because I do not understand its significance. I know that literally it derives from a word for owls and refers to an ice cannibal that features in many stories, but I do not understand it beyond those superficial features.

To a degree, this issue afflicts a lot of fairy tales simply due to their age. If you read through fairy tales, particularly those from non-European cultures, you will notice characters engaging in acts that apparently have a lot of importance but you do not understand the why. The cultural relevance is absent for you, so the reference goes over your head.

Quote from: tenbones;1066828Bingo is your name-o.

Myths are wildly diverse. Fantasy monsters are one-note. If people want to adhere to the original myths, they first need to learn that. Until it is possible for fantasy monsters to be more than just duplication of the same short block of text, showing people how to adhere more closely to myths is pointless because they have been trained to falsely believe that everything fits into neat tiny boxes. Myths do not fit into neat tiny boxes like monster manual entries do.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066831I'm not familiar with everything Paizo has written. When did they claim to be accurate to myths?

It has been so long since I have visited their forums, but I remember that they used this as a talking point in their advertising and hypocritically criticized D&D for inaccuracies. I cannot remember any specific examples that I could link here. I do remember that they released "Monsters Revisited" books which included sections recounting the original myths if any and how to be more "accurate" or whatever.

I am honestly quite sick of the entire concept behind monster manuals and bestiaries. I would prefer to organize monsters by archetypes in order to cut down on the huge problem with filler and redundancy afflicting the books.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066832That is precisely the reason why I do not think myself or anyone else outside the Algonquin culture can do the wendigo justice. The wendigo is a cultural bogeyman without similar relevance to those outside said culture. I cannot stop myself from bringing my own cultural baggage with me. You demonstrated this perfectly when you pointed out that my appellation of "communism" is wrong. As I said, if I was trying to communicate a moral message about the evils of greed, I would probably have the most success using vampire counts due to my culture's history of evil rich people.

Out of curiosity, which culture are you referring to?