https://openjournals.bsu.edu/dlr/article/download/DLR.7.0.101-112/1771/5267

While the spirit itself comes from Native American beliefs, the common visual depiction of the windigo does not. In most Native American beliefs, the windigo greatly resembles the human being it used to be except for tiny features that give it away as a shell of what it once was.

None of these representations, however, reflect the true nature of windigo myths. In the recreating of spirits that do not belong to them, Euro-American writers warp and decontextualize the windigo from its original contexts. The windigo is an important symbol in the many Native beliefs it inhabits, but the decontextualized Western windigo does not tell you what it symbolizes. Severing the windigo from its context allows Western authors to create a literary way of invoking spirituality and magic by drawing on their created stereotypical Native American themes: antlers, wilderness, spirits, and other aspects created to “other” Native American communities and create a marketable genre of Native American spirituality