Skeleton Man

Throughout the novel, no character looms larger than the monstrous figure of the Skeleton Man, who symbolizes pure evil and clearly wants nothing more than to harm humans. Many Indigenous cultures have legends featuring monsters who take human form in order to hunt humans. For example, the Wendigo (or Windigo) figures in the religious beliefs of Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe)and the Cree. Nearly always portrayed as a giant, the Wendigo is an evil spirit. Basil H. Johnston, a noted Anishinaabe scholar and enrolled member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation in Ontario, describes the Wendigo in great detail, stating:

The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep in their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave (Johnston, Basil H. The Manitous. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001, p. 221).

The novel’s descriptions of the Skeleton Man resemble this rendition closely, suggesting that Bruchac may have drawn on the Algonquian story when creating the villain for Skeleton Man. Because