The Lansdowne Letters: The Wintigo Is Coming!

It's amazing the predicament a teacher can get into
when he tries to communicate 
with Ojibway words he doesn't understand.

Such was the case on Halloween, 1960,
when my father tried to explain Halloween to his Ojibwa children 
in the heart of wintigo territory in Northern Ontario.

A Halloween Moon

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On Monday, October 31, 1960
My Father Wrote  
(Stag Party letter continued):

Oh yes, we also had our Halloween party 
at school this afternoon, 
and it was also a great success.

 My Father's Ojibwa Children

Anglican Day School,

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

I can’t remember when I have ever seen children 
enjoying themselves like my Indians did.  
Bill Mitchell told me that they never had parties 
in the school, till I came.  

All the white people think it is wonderful of me 
to go to the trouble and expense to treat the Indians.
  
Bill told me also that if I had 
let him know about the party earlier, 
he would have donated quite a bit of candy and gum, etc., 
but that by the time he found out about it, 
he had already given all that he could afford 
to the Indians for the month 
and had exhausted the amount 
that the Bay allows him to spend on welfare.

Bill Mitchell Talks with an Ojibwa Man

Mitchell was the Manager of the Hudson's Bay Post

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Bill and I are planning a whale 
of a Christmas party for them though.  
He is going to donate $20.00 himself 
and seventy dollars on behalf of the Bay.  

Harry Evans, the pilot for Superior Airways, 
is going to fly a Santa Claus in from Armstrong for the party.  
This Santa will also visit the out-lying settlements 
at Summer Beaver, Big Beaver House, and Webique.  
Bill is trying to talk me into going along to help Santa out 
and see that everything is distributed evenly.

All the Protestant white people will also be helping out with the party, 
and the Anglican Bishop will be good for a donation.  
We are not going to have any sort of a concert though,
just a nice party with Santa.  

So Donnie and Barbara won’t be confused and disillusioned, 
tell them that it will be so near Christmas 
that Santa is saving his reindeer for the big night.  
That is why he has to fly in with Harry Evans.

Waiting for Santa the Previous Year

Barb, Roy, Me, Donnie, and Little Gretchen ~

No Bertie Yet!

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

But to get back to the party we had this afternoon, 
we played all the traditional Halloween games 
such as dunking for apples, eating apples on an string, 
and many others too numerous to mention.  
The Indian children don’t celebrate Halloween, 
and they had never dunked for apples before.

  Dunking for Apples at the Party

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Of course, there were no masks in the Bay, 
so I had them all make masks.  
Of course they didn’t have the slightest idea how to do this, 
so I had to make one first, and pass it about 
the classroom for them to examine.  

Then I had to draw about ten different faces 
on the blackboard to give them some ideas.  
I drew a clown, a fat blond woman, a baldheaded man, 
a devil, an Indian in war paint, a skull, a witch, 
and some others that I can’t recall right now.  
Some of the masks turned out pretty good.

The Children in Their Halloween Masks

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

I ran into quite a problem in communications 
when I tried to explain just what Halloween was.  
The Indians just don’t have any words for goblin, elf, 
little people, or anything like these words, 
and consequently they had no conception 
of what I was talking about at first.
  
I was just getting nowhere at first with my explanations.  
Then I thought of the Ojibway word Wintigo, 
so I introduced this into my explanations.  
All this was taking place in the morning of Halloween.  

Then I got a reaction from them.  
They all looked startled and scared; 
and I thought good, 
now they’re getting in the proper spirit 
to talk about ghosts, goblins, etc.  

I thought that the word Wintigo was ghost, 
so I started talking about how on Halloween 
all the wintigos go out on the prowl.  

Well, all of a sudden, all the little children were crying, 
and even my teenagers were looking damned scared.  

Then, I realized that wintigo 
evidentially had a different meaning than that 
that I was trying to put across to them.  

I tried to get myself out of the mix-up, 
but only succeeded in getting myself in deeper.  
The more I talked about the Wintigo, 
the more scared they got.  

Well, then, I tried the word Manito which means spirit, 
but this means nothing to the Indians, 
unless you talk about 
the Matche Manito, which means bad spirit, 
or Mino Manito, which means good spirit.  
Unfortunately the Matche Manito now means the Devil, 
and that only made them worse than ever.  

When I tried Mino Manito, 
I just added confusion to my other difficulties, 
because with the advent of Christianity, 
Mino Manito has come to mean the Holy Ghost.  
I could have used a little help from him about then, 
or even from Kishe Manito, which means Chief Spirit or God.

Well, finally I started to get alarmed 
about how scared they were. 

I was frightened that if I didn’t get things straightened out, 
they might be too scared to go home for dinner; 
and certainly, they would be too scared 
to come back for the party in the afternoon.  

I told them to stay in the class, and 
I went over to the nursing station 
after Anne Flaherty and told her my troubles.  

I needn’t have worried about the children 
leaving the school while I was gone.  
At this stage of the game, they were so scared 
that it would have taken a bomb to get them out.  

Anne is part Ojibway and speaks the language, 
so she came over to the school; 
and after about fifteen minutes of rapid-fire, 
two-way conversation with the Indians in Ojibway 
(none of which I could follow,) 
she had things straightened out for me.

It was just about dinnertime by then, 
so I let the children go home, 
and I accepted Anne’s invitation 
to stay for dinner at the nursing station.

  The Children in Their Halloween Masks

Photo by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

From Anne, I found out just what a Wintigo is.  
We have no word for it.  
A Wintigo is the very personification 
of all things evil and horrible.  

It is far worse than our devil. 
It is a combination of a devil, ghost, ghoul, werewolf, 
and anything else you can think of.  
Wintigos are supposed to eat women and children.  

If a wintigo visits the community, 
all sort of horrible things can happen.  
No wonder the poor kids were terrified.

In spite of their acceptance of Christianity and everything, 
they all believe firmly in wintigos.  
Wintigos are as real to them as God is to us.  

I have decided to leave Ojibway out of my explanations 
till I am a whole lot more proficient in the language.  

Well that winds up the page, and the day, so I will sign off.
Bye now,
Love,
Don.

I sympathize with my father and any teacher

who has gotten into difficulty trying to explain things

to students who speak a different language.

Obviously he had not heard of the psychological problem

known as windigo psychosis.

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

In Honor of Canada's
New Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau:
The four MacBeath Girls supporting 
Justin Trudeau's father,
Pierre Elliot Trudeau,
when he ran successfully to become
Prime Minister of Canada in 1968.




Donnie, Bertie, Louise, and Barb  Freeport, on the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
Photo Copy by Roberta MacBeath Heembrock
© All Rights Reserved

Links to Earlier Posts:

TLL: Grounded

TLL: The Order of Good Cheer


Notes:
1.  Wintigo: 
     Father Ouimet was giving my father lessons in the local Ojibway language.
     Apparently wintigo was the spelling used there.
     The word has many spellings, windigo being a more common one.

2.  A Great Book: 

This is my favorite novel (so far)
written about the Oji-Cree in Northwestern Ontario.
It gives a chilling account of the experiences
of two young Cree fighting in WWI
and of the Wintigo
in Ojibwa and Cree cultures.

Joseph Boyden, its author, has written
two more memorable books about First Nations peoples:
Through Black Spruce and The Orenda.

Amazon




And for Map Lovers Like Me

Territories of the Ojibwa Groups

Lansdowne House is on the Attawipiskat River (by #15),
The river wasn't sketched as far as Lansdowne House
(a little to the right of the first O in Ontario). 

Wikimedia