40 
in itself necessarily evil, or the embodiment of evil. One old man, John 
Manatuwaba, even identified it with the earth-momdo of the mede society, 
Nokomis (“ grandmother,” a title that to Georgian Bay Ojibwa outside 
the Midewiwin society signifies the moon) ; for he claimed that the serpent 
manido lived under the earth, and through the many subordinate manidos 
at its command controlled or guarded all the trees and plants. The 
majority of the Parry Islanders, however, have never seen the Midewiwin 
rites. They believe that the society existed primarily for witchcraft and 
that the mede was above all else a sorcerer. Any manido , therefore, that 
the mede claimed to employ was by that very fact evil. Then Christian- 
ity, with its teaching of the “ fall of man ” through the serpent, put its 
seal on this interpretation, which is the one most prevalent today on 
Parry island. 
Until quite recently, and perhaps even now in certain families, 
adolescent boys and girls were compelled to fast for a period in order 
to obtain a vision and blessing from some manido. Parents gave their 
children special warning against a visitation from the great serpent, w'hich 
might appear to them in the form of a man and offer its aid and blessing. 
A boy (or girl) who dreamed he received a visit from a snake should 
reject its blessing and inform his father, who would bid him return and 
seek a second visitation, since the evil serpent never repeats its overtures 
once they have been rejected. If then a snake appears in another dream 
the boy may safely accept its blessing. But if he incautiously accepts a 
blessing from the evil serpent he will deeply rue it afterwards, for sooner 
or later he or his family will have to feed it with their souls and die. 
“A Parry Island couple had three children, two boys who died very young and 
a child that died at birth. Two years ago the serpent swallowed the man’s soul 
also, and after declining from what the white doctor called tuberculosis he too died. 
The woman then confessed that in her girlhood she had accepted a blessing from 
the evil serpent” (John Manatuwaba ). 1 
W indigo 
The most dreaded of all the supernatural beings that are evil or 
hostile to man is the Windigo, a personification of the starvation and 
craving for flesh that so often befell the Ojibwa in the later months of 
winter. The windigo is a human being transformed by cannibalism into 
a monstrous giant with supranormal powers. A sorcerer through witch- 
craft may prevent a hunter from killing any game, and reduce his family 
to such straits that one member, crazed by hunger, kills and eats a 
brother or a sister. Then the appetite for human flesh becomes insatiable. 
The cannibal’s body swells to the size of a pine tree and becomes hard 
like stone, impenetrable to arrow or bullet and insensible to cold. Naked 
save for a loin-cloth the monster roves the countryside seeking more 
victims to devour. Its breathing is like the whistle of a train, audible 
for miles; and its shouting weakens the limbs of the Indian it pursues. It 
haunts the country only in winter, when it attacks its victims during 
snowstorms or unusually cold weather; with the first melting of the 
* Pegahmagabow, who listened to Manatuwaba when he narrated this story, could not understand how the 
man had been able to survive the loss of his soul for more than four days (See p. 86). Yet he did not question 
Manatuwaba’s assertion that the serpent had swallowed it. 
