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pluralstoriesFull title: Searching for Catherine Auger: The Forgotten Wife of the Wîhtikôw (Windigo)
"Whatever else happened during the course of her life, Catherine Auger was a woman who witnessed the foretold arrival of 'flesh eaters'; literally, in the form of her own husband, who proclaimed himself a cannibal, and metaphorically, in the form of people who symbolically consumed of the blood and body of a Jewish prophet each Sunday. She had beheld the arrival of cannibals."
Blurb: A scholarly history of the life story of Catherine Auger, a Métis woman in Alberta, Canada who in 1896 watched her husband lose himself to a wîhtikôw, which compelled him to devour his own children. She protected both them and herself, and witnessed his murder by the local medicine man.
Why is it worth your time?: This is possibly the most negative possible form of spirit possession, covered in scholarly detail by Carlson, who is an academic and a distant relation of Auger, but also a solid writer. The story is riveting and tragic. He uses sources ranging from oral history, witness journal entries, and government records about how an apocalyptic wîhtikôw prophecy, the Augers, and religious and racial tensions between Europeans, Métis, the Cree, and Salteaux, led to tragedy. Give it a shot; it's academic but very readable.
Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (wîhtikôw, more commonly known as witiko/wendigo), enmity, spiritual
Content Warnings: Violence, threats of cannibalism of children and loved ones, murder, racism, apocalyptic religious prophecies and religious tension. Also a tragic ending for Felix Auger, AKA Napanin. Due to the academic style of writing, though, it's not as horrifying as you might think with those warnings.
Access Notes: This is a 20-page chapter in the anthology Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands, edited by Sarah Carter and Patricia A. McCormack. The anthology is available on archive.org (well, if/when archive.org recovers from the mass attack on it), and also as a paperback and ebook.
Misc Notes: Nathan D. Carlson has previously written "Reviving Witiko (Windigo): An Ethnohistory of 'Cannibal Monsters' in the Athabasca District of Northern Alberta, 1878–1910" in Ethnohistory (2009) 56 (3): 355–394, which is available at https://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article/56/3/355/8822/Reviving-Witiko-Windigo-An-Ethnohistory-of It is not a story, so does not qualify for this catalog, but if you want to learn more about the wîhtikôw, check that out too!
"Whatever else happened during the course of her life, Catherine Auger was a woman who witnessed the foretold arrival of 'flesh eaters'; literally, in the form of her own husband, who proclaimed himself a cannibal, and metaphorically, in the form of people who symbolically consumed of the blood and body of a Jewish prophet each Sunday. She had beheld the arrival of cannibals."
Blurb: A scholarly history of the life story of Catherine Auger, a Métis woman in Alberta, Canada who in 1896 watched her husband lose himself to a wîhtikôw, which compelled him to devour his own children. She protected both them and herself, and witnessed his murder by the local medicine man.
Why is it worth your time?: This is possibly the most negative possible form of spirit possession, covered in scholarly detail by Carlson, who is an academic and a distant relation of Auger, but also a solid writer. The story is riveting and tragic. He uses sources ranging from oral history, witness journal entries, and government records about how an apocalyptic wîhtikôw prophecy, the Augers, and religious and racial tensions between Europeans, Métis, the Cree, and Salteaux, led to tragedy. Give it a shot; it's academic but very readable.
Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (wîhtikôw, more commonly known as witiko/wendigo), enmity, spiritual
Content Warnings: Violence, threats of cannibalism of children and loved ones, murder, racism, apocalyptic religious prophecies and religious tension. Also a tragic ending for Felix Auger, AKA Napanin. Due to the academic style of writing, though, it's not as horrifying as you might think with those warnings.
Access Notes: This is a 20-page chapter in the anthology Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands, edited by Sarah Carter and Patricia A. McCormack. The anthology is available on archive.org (well, if/when archive.org recovers from the mass attack on it), and also as a paperback and ebook.
Misc Notes: Nathan D. Carlson has previously written "Reviving Witiko (Windigo): An Ethnohistory of 'Cannibal Monsters' in the Athabasca District of Northern Alberta, 1878–1910" in Ethnohistory (2009) 56 (3): 355–394, which is available at https://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article/56/3/355/8822/Reviving-Witiko-Windigo-An-Ethnohistory-of It is not a story, so does not qualify for this catalog, but if you want to learn more about the wîhtikôw, check that out too!
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