A Northwest Michigan resident discusses his encounter with a Dogman as a child. The massive, upright beast was peering through his bedroom window. He is a believer.
I received the following account:
"I live in the Northwestern side of Michigan, and we have this legend called the Dogman. It's basically like a werewolf-type thing.
I was nine years old when this happened. At that point, I still shared a room with my sister, and so my bed was on one wall with a big window on the opposite side. My sister's bed was right underneath that window. We were on the first floor of the house, but we live on a hill so it's slanted and so it's still a pretty high window (nine feet off the ground maybe.)
Anyway, I woke up one Saturday night feeling really thirsty. It was about two in the morning, and everyone else in my family was asleep. I was about to crawl out of my bed to go to the bathroom just down the hall when I looked out the window and froze.
At the very bottom of the window, there was a really dark shape. It looked kind of like the top part of a Siberian Husky's head. It was a big thing, with two points that looked like ears on the top. I couldn't make out any other features, so while I was still scared, at first I just thought it was a reflection of the pillows at the end of my sister's bed.
And then it moved. You know how dogs kind of twitch their ears and perk them up when they're trying to hear better? That's what this shape did. The two points that I took for ears twitched and then came back into place, and it wasn't a subtle movement at all so I knew it wasn't just a reflection.
The Dogman story is really big here, and we live right in the woods, so I immediately thought of that. I got really scared then, so I did the typical kid thing, pulled the covers over my head, and went back to sleep without getting my water. In the morning there was nothing outside the window, and no marks on the side of the house or anything. No evidence that there had been something there at all. The thing that really stumps me is wondering how anything would manage to stay up by a window that's nine feet off the ground in the first place.
Since I was nine, I have accepted that it was possible I just imagined it. I already knew the Dogman story, so maybe I was just scared, to begin with and that fear kind of manifested itself like that. At the same time, I really do believe that there was something outside the window, Dogman or not." T
WEIRDEST OF THE WEIRD! | Join Us For LIVE CHAT | Questions & Answers #Wolfman #DeerMan #Bigfoot
Have you had a sighting or encounter?
Contact me by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974 Thanks. Lon
HAVE A COMMENT? GO TO OUR SUBREDDIT AND POST YOUR THOUGHTS
-----
YOUR SUPPORT IS APPRECIATED! THANKS
-----
WENDIGO MYTHOLOGY - WHAT ARE THEY? | Join Us For LIVE CHAT | Questions & Answers #Wendigo #Cannibal
The wendigo has been misappropriated from its original context in Algonquin folklore. The word "Wendigo" roughly means “The Evil Spirit Who Devours Mankind.” Originally it was depicted as a cannibal ice giant and cautionary tale relevant to the realities of Algonquin life. Euro-American popular culture mutilated it into what may only be described as a "zombie-were-deer."
First, the Algonquin monster has relevance to their traditional way of life. Their culture was reliant on teamwork, so selfishness is a deadly sin to them, and the wendigo is the ultimate embodiment of that.
Secondly, wendigo psychosis is a real mental illness and was historically used as a justification to destroy the Algonquin culture. There are written accounts in the last two centuries of people suffering from this illness being murdered by their peers.
So then, how was the Wendigo tale altered? This goes back over a century to Algernon Blackwood's story "The Wendigo." The story does not depict a Wendigo but seems to get it confused with the Inuit (not Algonquin) creature Ijiraq and possibly the Tariaksuq. In the story, the monster burns away a victim's feet with friction, while in myth the Ijiraq is sometimes described as stripping the flesh off its victim's shins and if it survives then it becomes a faster runner. The Ijiraq is otherwise described as a trickster who kidnaps children or lures hunters by pretending to be caribou. So, it is easy to assume Blackwood read about the Ijiraq and then twisted the details for his own story.
Now Euro-American popular culture takes the name of an Algonquin cannibal ice giant and applies it to a zombie-were-deer; it has been utterly stripped of its original context and symbolism. I doubt there will ever be much push-back against the zombie-wear-deer version since it has been burned into popular culture at this point.
Now, that being stated, I'm going to present several modern-day accounts that some of the witnesses described as the ‘Wendigo.' Then you can determine what the creature in the report is. Is it an original folktale of the cannibal ice giant or something a bit more contemporary?
-----
Your financial support of Phantoms & Monsters and our other pursuits is much appreciated. Please click the banner above. Thanks.
Have you had a sighting or encounter?
Contact us by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974 Thanks. Lon
Contact us by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974
This blog and newsletter are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 United States License.
Registered trademark PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS ® / PHANTOMS & MONSTERS ® - USPTO #90902480 - Lon D. Strickler
© 2005-2024 Phantoms & Monsters - All Rights Reserved
.jpg)
.jpg)
