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Wemistikoshiw
A legend in Anishnabe culture of an evil spirit, or manitou, that is usually depicted as a large beast. The windigo eats only human flesh, and its spirit can infect others and quickly spread to an entire community. Micah’s wife “goes windigo” in Three Day Road, as does Elijah, and they are both killed by a “windigo killer.” The clan’s hookimaw is responsible for killing members of the tribe that “go windigo” and consume human flesh, and Niska’s father, Niska, and Xavier each must kill windigos. The legend of the windigo represents an imbalance between the spiritual and physical self, but it is also a powerful cautionary tale against the dangers of isolation. Only those who leave their tribal community, either literally or metaphorically, are infected by the windigo, which underscores Boyden’s central argument of the importance of community within Indigenous culture.
Windigo Quotes in Three Day Road
The Three Day Road quotes below are all either spoken by Windigo or refer to Windigo. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Takoshininaaniwan: Arrival
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Where is he? We spent the whole war together only to lose each other in the last days. A shell landed too close to me. It threw me into the air so that suddenly I was a bird. When I came down I no longer had my left leg. I've always known men aren't meant to fly
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Noohtaawiy: My Father
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The world is a different place in this new century, Nephew. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. In my early visions, numbers of men, higher than any of us could count, were cut down. They lived in the mud like rats and lived only to think of new ways to kill one another. No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.
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Ka Nipihat Windigowa: Windigo Killer
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I made Xavier smile with my story of smacking the nun with my paddle, and this gives me hope. Steering the canoe slow through the afternoon I watch him drift into sleep. It is a restless time for him, and his face looks like a scared child's when he cries out. To try and ease him a little, I start talking again. The story is not a happy one, but something in me has to tell it. There is truth in this story that Xavier needs to hear, and maybe it is best that he hears it in sleep so that the medicine in the tale can slip into him unnoticed.
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Tapakwewin: Snaring
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I remember when he began to explore the places that aren't safe to explore. I remember him learning to love killing rather than simply killing to survive. Even when he went so far into that other place that I worried for him constantly, he still loved to tell me stories. He never lost his ability to talk. I think it was this ability that fooled the others around us into believing he hadn't gone mad. But I knew.
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Weesageechak: Hero
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Elijah kicks at the ground. "Listen to me, X," he says. "l should never have gotten in that aeroplane. Before that I believed nothing could hurt me over here. But I lost something up there is what it feels like. I need to get it back." Elijah reaches his hand out to a horse. It shies away. "I can see that I went too far into a dangerous place for a while. But I see that." He stops talking, then starts again. "Does that mean something?"
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Get the entire Three Day Road LitChart as a printable PDF.
Windigo Term Timeline in Three Day Road
The timeline below shows where the term Windigo appears in Three Day Road. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Noohtaawiy: My Father
...night, like “groaning and shrieking,” and in the morning she found the “tracks of the windigo” outside their lodge. Soon, the baby’s cries of hunger stopped, and Micah became “desperate.” He...
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...my fault,” Micah’s wife cried. “Don’t you see?” Micah’s wife and baby were both “turning windigo,” Niska says.
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Niska’s mother and father had told her of the windigo—people who turn into “wild beasts twenty feet tall” and eat the flesh of humans—and Niska’s...
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...Niska—something Niska innately knew. “I am the second to last in a long line of windigo killers,” Niska says. “There is still one more.”
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Mamishihiwewin: Betrayal
...a hookimaw, from a strong family. Happiness is not yours to have. You are a windigo killer.” When Niska left the old woman, she couldn’t believe what she had heard. The...
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Pahkonikewin: Skinning
...their faces, and he thinks about the Frenchman, Francis. Xavier shudders. He thinks Francis is “windigo.” When Elijah and the others return, Elijah is eager to tell Xavier his story.
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Ka Nipihat Windigowa: Windigo Killer
...day the “awawatuk from the turtle clan” came to visit. “One of us has gone windigo this winter,” the awawatuk said immediately. He told Niska his nephew went into the woods...
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...camp. The man’s story was much like Micah’s, only it was the man that went windigo and ate his wife. Niska was nervous as they approached the camp. She feared the...
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Niska did not have a plan as she approached the windigo. He remained calm as she slipped the rope around his neck. All she had to...
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