In The Devil Pulls the Strings, the wendigo is an evil spirit that’s Baba Yaga’s sister’s pet. Boone Daniels (22) lost his parents to the wendigo when he was six years old, and the wendigo continues to haunt Boone. How can a person become a wendigo in The Devil Pulls the Strings? A person consumes human flesh, an evil shaman uses dark magic, or you lose a bet with Baba Yaga, the mother of all witches, or one of her sisters.

Allthatsinteresting.com claims the wendigo was once a lost hunter, and during a brutally cold winter, the man’s intense hunger drove him to cannibalism. After feasting on another human’s flesh, he transformed into a crazed man-beast, roaming the forest in search of more people to eat.

Wikipedia claims a wendigo is a malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being strongly associated with winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation. This mythological creature or evil spirit comes from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes based in the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the East Coast of Canada, and Great Lakes Region of Canada and the United States. Described as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, insatiable greed, cannibalism and the cultural taboos against such behaviors.      

Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a description of a wendigo: “The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption. According to legend, it’s nearly impossible to escape a wendigo. Hunters by nature, wendigos are extremely fast and allow nothing to get in the way of their never-ending hunger. Even if you could avoid physical damage (which is unlikely), the very fact that you’d encountered an otherworldly wendigo would leave you mentally vacant. Wendigos hibernate for months or years but will attack when they awaken. Wendigos can stealthily stalk victims for extended periods, thanks to supernatural speed, endurance, and heightened senses, such as hearing so profound they can pick up on panicked heartbeats from miles away. This skill comes in quite handy in the woods, no doubt. Once the chase begins, wendigos engage in a torturous game. They bait their prey, release shrieks or growls, and sometimes mimic human voices calling for help. When the hunt begins in earnest, a wendigo becomes all business. It will race after its prey, upending trees, creating animal stampedes (and thus more famine), and stirring up ice storms and tornadoes. Don’t be fooled into believing you’re safe indoors. The wendigo can unlock doors and enter homes, where it will kill and eat the inhabitants before converting the cabins into wendigo domiciles for hibernation.”

Monstropedia claims it’s not easy to kill because wendigos regenerate. But you might be able to destroy a wendigo following the following elaborate steps: The trick is to employ silver bullets, or a pure silver blade or stake, and strike right through the wendigo’s ice-cold heart. (Note: It’s widely believed a silver-covered steel blade could work if you’re in a pinch.) Upon wounding the wendigo’s heart, you must take care to shatter it into pieces, then lock the shattered heart in a silver box and bury it in a church cemetery. Not one to seek a simple end, the rest of the wendigo must be dismembered with a silver-plated ax so you can salt and burn the body, and then scatter its ashes to the winds. Or, as a second option, bury the pieces in a remote location (a la Harry Potter’s attempt to reclaim Salazar Slytherin’s locket from the subterranean lake). Skip a step, and the wendigo may be able to resurrect itself, hunt you down, and inflict a slow and agonizing death.