Some Thoughts on the Snow Moon

Well, the weather forecast says Boston may get another 12 to 24 inches of snow in the next couple days. I do like snow but I suppose you can have too much of a good thing.

I shouldn't be surprised that we're getting heavy snow. The moon in February is traditionally called the Snow Moon and there's a reason: February is the snowiest month in New England. In December we're all dreaming of a white Christmas but really we should all be anticipating a white Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day and Presidents Day. Note that I said anticipating, not dreading.

I don't know when the tradition of naming the different month's moons started. It's generally attributed to Native Americans but I think there have been additions and changes over time. There are multiple moon naming systems out there, but I like the one used by the The Old Farmer's Almanac:

January - Wolf Moon
February - Snow Moon
March - Worm Moon
April - Pink Moon
May - Flower Moon
June - Strawberry Moon
July - Buck Moon, also called Thunder Moon
August - Sturgeon Moon
September - Harvest Moon
October - Hunter's Moon
November - Beaver Moon
December - Cold Moon

Each name describes what is happening in the world during that particular lunar cycle. Flowers are blooming, the sturgeon are running in the rives, hunters are stalking game, etc. Or it's snowing like heck. Usually you see the name applied to the full moon (i.e. Full Snow Moon) but each moon rules over a full 28 day cycle. So according to this system we should expect snow at least through February 18.

Some moons sound charming, like the Pink, Flower and Strawberry Moons. Some sound ominous, like the Hunter's, Cold and Wolf moons. The Snow Moon is sometimes ominously called the Hunger Moon, which relates directly to the seasonal subsistence pattern of the Algonquians who first lived in New England. With heavy snow on the ground it was often difficult for hunters to find game in the forest, even when traveling by snowshoe, and the food from the fall harvest might start to run low as February wore on.

Folklore from the Northern New England tribes reflect this fear of starvation. Stories from Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire tell of sorcerers who are transformed into perpetually hungry giants with an appetite for human flesh. The giants are known by several names, including chenoo, kiwakwa, or giwakwa, and are similar to the more widely known Abenaki wendigo. The cannibal giants are so hungry that they chew off their own lips, quite happily devour their own family, and have hearts made of ice. The stories about the chenoo, etc. reflect fears of starvation and cabin fever.

Other folk stories tell of hunters lost in the winter woods who are eaten by animated corpses in an abandoned hut, or of a monstrous giant hare who rules a wintry Netherworld where the dead go when they die. Clearly the Algonquians weren't walking in a winter wonderland. The Snow Moon was a scary time.

When the English settled arrive here they were at first overwhelmed by the intensity of the winters, which were much harsher than those in England. Cold, snow and starvation killed large numbers of the first settlers, and even once the colonies were well-established people would often die when they were trapped away from home during a blizzard.

But as time went on the cold and snow became less daunting, and oddly snow became something that many people looked forward to. The reason? Sleigh rides. During the winter people were able to travel quickly and smoothly between farmsteads and into towns. Winter sleigh rides were actually preferable to summer wagon trips, because snow provided a smoother traveling surface than the pitted and often muddy dirt roads that crossed New England.

I'm sure you've seen those Currier and Ives prints of people riding and even racing sleighs in charming winter landscapes. There is some truth in those images. People did race sleighs for sport, something they couldn't do with wagons in the summer. Snow could be fun.

Ironically, transportation is the reason some modern New Englanders hate snow. We have cars rather than sleighs and driving through snow can be treacherous. This year even the subway system in Boston is breaking down because there's been so much snow, ice and cold. Maybe the MBTA should buy some sleighs.

The moon in March is the Worm Moon. I look forward to the activities of the worms in the thawing soil but fervently hope we don't get as many worms as we've had snow.

Cabin Fever, Wendigo Psychosis, and a Chenoo Story from Maine

This winter drags on and continues to be cold and snowy. Some of us might be suffering from a little cabin fever by now, but I hope no one is suffering from wendigo psychosis.

Before you can diagnose someone with that particular mental illness, you need to know what a wendigo is. The wendigo is a mythical monster found in the folklore of some Indian groups from the Northeast and Midwest. Generally pictured as huge, emaciated giants with an insatiable desire for human flesh, wendigos are humans who have been transformed into ravenous cannibals. The mechanism for this transformation varies. Some tribes claim it is done through magic (whether purposefully or as an attack by an enemy), while others claim just one taste of human flesh will transform anyone into a wendigo.

Which leads us to wendigo psychosis. Psychologists and anthropologists coined this term in the early 20th century as they studied native societies with wendigo myths and found that some individuals had a fear of becoming a wendigo. This psychosis was particularly prevalent during the long cold winter months when food was scarce, and family and friends started to look very tasty...

Wendigo psychosis could be cured through rituals, but in extreme cases people claiming to be nascent wendigos were killed. That seems quite harsh, but I suppose you might do the same if someone you knew was threatening to eat you.

The Indians in northern New England believed in similar creatures, although they didn't call them wendigos. Instead they were called chenoos, giwakwa, or kiwakwa, but I'm just going to use chenoo for simplicity. Like wendigos chenoos are gigantic and emaciated, but they are also lipless because they hungrily chew them off. Their screams will kill anyone who hears them, and chenoos get their power from a human-shaped lump of ice that has replaced their heart.

There are lots of gruesome chenoo stories, but because winter is almost over (I hope), here's one that is not too nasty from the Passamaquoddy of Maine.

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Many years ago a young newlywed couple set off to spend the winter in the woods. They were following the traditional pattern of their people, where the tribe would come together in the summer and fall when food was plentiful, then split into smaller units during the winter when food was scarcer.

The couple set up camp by a river deep in the forest. One day while her husband was out hunting the wife heard something large stomping around outside her tent. It was a chenoo. He stuck his head into the tent and glowered at her hungrily.

Thinking quickly, the woman said, "Welcome father!" The chenoo had been planning to eat her, but was surprised at being addressed so politely. She invited the monster to come sit by the fire.

When she heard her husband approaching she went outside and explained that a chenoo was inside their home. He too addressed it as father. The chenoo was so pleased that it declared it would not eat them (at least not immediately) and moved in with them.

The chenoo lived with them for many weeks. In some ways it was quite helpful. For example, since it was so tall the husband would ride upon its back while hunting game. It also offered protection against the other chenoos that roamed through the woods. The young couple once watched in amazement as their chenoo killed a rival chenoo that wanted to eat them. Then they watched in horror as their "father" ate the corpse. Despite the benefits, they realized that at some point they too would anger the chenoo and it would eat them. 

The next day the woman made a mixture of water and salt and offered it to the chenoo as a beverage. The chenoo greedily drank it down and almost immediately vomited up a human-shaped lump of ice. This was the heart of the dead rival it had recently eaten, and the woman threw it on the fire. The chenoo shrank in size, and vomited up another human-shaped ice lump. Clearly her "father" had been busy eating other chenoos, and the woman tossed this on the fire as well.

Finally, the chenoo vomited up a third icy lump and transformed into a little old man. As the woman went to toss the ice onto the fire, the former chenoo grabbed her hand. "Daughter wait!" he cried. "That is my heart! I will die if it melts." He took it from her and swallowed it down.

Due to the efforts of the woman, the chenoo was cured. Well, at least mostly.

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I found this story in Charles Godfrey Leland's 1884 book The Algonquin Legends of New England.  There are other legends where the chenoo is cured completely or destroyed, but I like the ambivalent ending of this one. Even if you get rid of one monster you know another one will just show up next winter.

Cannibal Giants of the Snowy Northern Forest

A wendigo from a BPRD comic.

The holiday season has come and gone, but we still have two months of winter to get through. What better symbol of the coming cold months than the cannibal giants of Algonquin mythology?

Many people have heard of the wendigo, the cannibal monster found in American Indian folklore across much of the northern US and Canada. Wendigos have been featured in movies, comic books and TV shows. In northern New England, the five Wabanaki tribes talk about a similar creature, known either as the chenoo, the giwakwa, or the kiwakwa. You should avoid it no matter what it's called!

According to Frank Speck's 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in The Journal of American Folklore, the word "kiwakwa" means "going about in the woods." If you don't want to see one of these monsters stay out of the woods during the winter.

The chenoo/giwakwa/kiwakwa is a human being who has been transformed through dark magic into a cannibalistic giant. Much like the Incredible Hulk, they get larger as they get angrier, and often tower above the tallest tree. Unlike the Hulk, they are emaciated, have enormous fangs, and often have eaten their own lips in hunger. They are always hungry, and their scream will kill any human who hears it. Sometimes, a dead shaman of great power may return from his grave as a chenoo. Chenoos usually appear in the winter.

Chenoo get their evil powers from a lump of human-shaped ice in their stomach. There are several tales where clever people make a chenoo vomit up the ice lump, which returns it to human form. In some stories, making a chenoo eat salt will melt the lump.

Chopping a chenoo into many small pieces is the only way to be certain it won't regenerate, and even after it's killed people will avoid the spot where it died.

There are many chenoo legends online. The Girl Chenoo tells how a young woman is turned into a monster by a rejected suitor; it's a downer! A story with a similar title but happier outcome is The Girl and the Chenoo, which tells how a wife saved her family from being eaten.