American Horror Story

Although most of my work over the last 15 years has focused on public policy and epidemic disease, I’ve also written a book about Indigenous religion amongst Algonquian peoples, in particular one evil and old spirit called the Windigo. I recently did an interview for the public radio program Backstory, which is part of their Halloween podcast episode, “American Horror Story.” You can listen to the full episode here, if you are interested in monsters in American culture and history. If you just want to listen to my interview, it is available at the link “Where the windigos are.” Elizabeth McCauley also wrote blog post about the windigo, which has both the interview and a clip from the TV episode of Supernatural that dealt with the windigo. I thought that her blog post did an excellent job discussing media depictions of the windigo, and the issue of cultural appropriation. If you are curious to read more, you might want to look at my book, Dangerous Spirits. Or for an entirely different mystery, please read my account of the ghost ship called the Baltimore, which was found with only a single person left alive aboard. And she was not whom she said. Have a good Halloween everyone.

Shawn Smallman, Halloween 2016

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