Claim: The wendigo is indigenous to the United States.

In Algonquian folklore , the wendigo or windigo is a cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada . The wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human , or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous . It is historically associated with cannibalism , murder , insatiable greed , and the cultural taboos against such behaviours . The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo psychosis , which is considered by psychiatrists to be a form of culture-bound syndrome with symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal . In some Indigenous communities , environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of Wendigo Psychosis .