turned cartwheels 'cross the floor.....

There are some similarities such as the ability to shape shift. There are more differences though, the main one being that a skinwalker or witch in the southwest is usually a person who has chosen the path of dark magic. A wendigo is often believed to be a dark spirit that takes over a weak human being. The craving for human flesh is uncontrolable. The wendigo's heart is made of ice or stone.

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Thanks for the insight TwoCrows. I didn't want to say too much because this in not my forte. I had a feeling you would be pretty knowledgeable in this area. /wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':rolleyes:' />

This sounds a lot like the skinwalker of Hopi and Navajo lore. This is a very real entity to these people. Seems like most native North American tribes had a similar being in their history.

There are some similarities such as the ability to shape shift. There are more differences though, the main one being that a skinwalker or witch in the southwest is usually a person who has chosen the path of dark magic. A wendigo is often believed to be a dark spirit that takes over a weak human being. The craving for human flesh is uncontrolable. The wendigo's heart is made of ice or stone.

There are also some commonalities with european werewolves. Legend says that being bitten by a wendigo will cause you to become one.

The wendigo shows up in the media on occassion. President Theodore Roosevelt told a wendigo story in his book "The Wilderness Hunter" and moving forward there was an X-Files episode about the creature.

The wendigo was especially common amoung the Ojibway, the Blackfoot and the Cree.

Writer Margaret Atwood did a lecture on the wendigo which I have somewhere, but I don't believe it's in print.

Has I recall, there's some information on the wendigo in Basil Johnston's book "The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway."

The Wendigo (also Windigo, Weendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants)[1] is a mythical creature appearing in the mythology of the Algonquian people. It is a malevolent cannibalistic spirit into which humans could transform, or which could possess humans. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk,[2] and the legend appears to have reinforced this practice as taboo.

Wendigo psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. This once occurred frequently among Algonquian Native cultures, though has declined with the Native American urbanization.[3]

Recently the Wendigo has also become a horror entity of contemporary literature and film, much like the vampire, werewolf, or zombie, although these fictional depictions often bear little resemblance to the original entity.