The Myth Of The Terrifying Beasts Explained

In 2021, the success of the horror hit, "Antlers," has helped considerably in making Wendigos more widespread in popular culture. However, the creature feature is also responsible in a massive way for perpetuating a false interpretation of what the legendary monster looked like. According to the PBS series "Monstrum," there is not a single Algonquian myth that ever describes the Wendigo with antlers, horns, or any other trait like that.

Instead, the depiction of Wendigos with stag-like features is purely a modern creation. On top of the early 20th-century novella "The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood, the far more recent film — 2001's "Wendigo" — was one of the first to show the creature in that inaccurate form nearly 100 years later. Ever since then, Hollywood has run wild with the concept and depicted Wendigos with antlers in several other horror productions like the remake of "Pet Semetary" and in the series "Hannibal" (above).

On the other hand, the Native American tales did associate their nightmarish fiend with an animal — it just wasn't stags. In fact, while the indigenous term, "Windigo," often meant "cannibal," there were also dialects in which the word was more accurately translated as "owl," a creature of the night.

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