Wendigo Psychosis

Wendigo psychosis is a culture-bound syndrome described among Algonquian-speaking peoples of Canada and the northern United States, including the Cree and Ojibwe, marked by an intense craving to eat human flesh and a fear of turning into a cannibal. Historical accounts link it to periods of extreme starvation, framing the affected person as possessed by the wendigo, a cannibal spirit of Algonquian folklore. The syndromes legitimacy as an actual clinical condition, rather than a colonial-era misinterpretation of folklore and famine narratives, is disputed among anthropologists and psychiatrists, and modern sources describe it as controversial rather than settled.