Reddit reviews When the Chenoo Howls: Native American Tales of Terror

When the Chenoo Howls is a really great kids book featuring all the most frightening monsters of Northeastern Native American tribes (Iroquois, Algonquin, Mohawk, etc). Scared the shit out of me when I was in the fourth grade. Looks like you can find a lot of the same legends told there online as well. There's the Chenoo, a man-eating ogre with a heart made of ice, the Flying Head monster, and Toad Woman. Lots of man-eaters in general: one big recurring theme is human beings who become monsters after tasting human flesh, even their own flesh (that's where wendigos come from too). The Mohawk have a Skeleton Man character who ate his own flesh off, and one of the stories in the book I linked to above had an ogre who was so hungry she ate off her lips.

I've never heard of a wendigo being depicted with the head of an elk or deer, looks like there are a few movies and games that show it as such so I think that might be more of a modern interpretation. Traditionally the appearance of wendigo varies, but their main physical characteristic is that they're emaciated from starvation. Having tasted human flesh they develop an insatiable hunger for it. "Wendigo Psychosis" is a term for a controversial "culture-bound" medical condition in which people actually develop this obsessive craving for human flesh even when there's other food available.