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Swift Runner / Stylish Man

from RECLAMATION by Praying Gods

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One of the more famous cases of Wendigo Psychosis involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named "Swift Runner." During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson's Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children.

Swift Runner was arrested the following year for murder and cannibalism. He eventually confessed and was hanged in December of 1879 at Fort Saskatchewan - the first legal execution in Alberta.

Another well-known case involving Wendigo Psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler (also known as Maisaninnine or Mesnawetheno - Swampy Cree for "Stylish Man"), chief and shaman of the Sucker doodem in what is now northwestern Ontario. In his life, Jack Fiddler claimed to have killed fourteen wendigos. Apparently some were sent against his people by enemy shamans, and others were members of his own band who were taken with an insatiable, incurable desire to eat human flesh.

As Fiddler's reputation grew he was approached multiple times by Cree ministers at Island Lake and asked to bring Christianity to his people. Fiddler refused to convert. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Sucker people were among the last indigenous people in North America living in a traditional manner, completely under their own law and customs.

In early 1907, two members of the North-West Mounted Police went to the Sucker camp at Deer Lake and arrested Jack, and his brother Joseph Fiddler, for the murder of Wahsakapeequay, Joseph's daughter-in-law, the year before. They were held at Norway House to await trial. Meanwhile, newspapers across Canada picked up the story and printed sensational headlines of murder and devil-worship. On September 30, Jack Fiddler escaped captivity and hanged himself in the nearby wilderness.

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from RECLAMATION, released July 1, 2012

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Praying Gods Toronto, Ontario

BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION FOUNDED IN 1997 TO RECORD, STUDY, AND PROMOTE AWARENESS OF THE PRAYER OF GODS.

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