A creature born of winter starvation. A figure that appeared on a forum post. Both haunt the dark woods of the internet, but they come from different centuries. The Wendigo is a cannibalistic spirit from Algonquian folklore, ancient and tied to a specific cultural worldview. The Rake is a modern creepypasta, born in 2005 and shaped by anonymous online storytelling. Their similarities are superficial: both are humanoid predators. Their differences reveal how fear changes when it moves from oral tradition to a screen.
Definition
The Wendigo is a malevolent spirit of Algonquian mythology, described as a gaunt, giant being with a heart of ice, driven by an insatiable hunger for human flesh. It is not simply a monster; it is a symbol of the moral and physical dangers of winter, starvation, and selfishness. The Rake is a fictional creature from internet folklore, first described in 2005 as a pale, emaciated humanoid with long limbs and claws, known for silently watching or scratching at doors. Both are predators, but the Wendigo carries centuries of cultural weight, while the Rake carries a single forum thread.
Where Did the Wendigo Come From? A History Rooted in the Land
The Wendigo originated among Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Great Lakes and Atlantic Canada: the Ojibwe, Cree, Naskapi, and Innu. Its earliest written description comes from the missionary Paul Le Jeune in the 1630s, who reported that the “Wendigo” was a giant that ate humans. But the oral tradition is far older. The first systematic collection of Wendigo stories was made by ethnographer Henry Schoolcraft in the 1830s, in his Algic Researches. Schoolcraft recorded tales of a creature that grew larger with every human it consumed, its heart turning to ice.
The Wendigo is not just a monster story. It functioned as a cautionary tale against cannibalism, which was a real temptation during harsh winters. Among the Cree, the term Wendigo also described a person who had turned to cannibalism and become possessed by the spirit. This condition, now called Wendigo psychosis, was documented by early 20th-century anthropologists like John M. Cooper in 1933. A person showing symptoms – withdrawal, an overwhelming craving for raw human flesh – was sometimes executed or driven away by the community. The fear was not abstract. It was a practical response to a collapse of social bonds.
The Rake: Born on a Screen, 2005
The Rake has no elders, no land, no oral tradition. Its earliest known appearance is a post on the Something Awful forums on October 2, 2005, in a thread called “Worst nightmares? Describe them.” An anonymous user submitted a short story about a pale, hairless creature that visited a man’s cabin, scratching at the door and staring silently from the treeline. The thread, part of a series that later produced the Slender Man, gave the creature its name: the Rake.
The story spread to 4chan, then to YouTube, then to Creepypasta Wiki. By 2009 it had been retold hundreds of times, each version adding details (long claws, a childlike voice, appearing in photographs). Unlike the Wendigo, the Rake has no fixed characteristics. Some versions say it is a cryptid, others a government experiment, others a demon. Its origin is not a culture but a collection of anonymous edits.
That matters. The Rake is the product of what folklorists call ostension – acting out a legend – but done entirely online. There is no community that believes in it beyond the thrill of a good scare. The Wendigo, by contrast, is still feared by some Indigenous families who will not speak its name aloud after dark.
Symbolism: What Each Creature Represents
The Wendigo embodies greed and ecological imbalance. In Ojibwe tradition, the Wendigo is the result of a person who took more than they needed, who ignored the communal rule that one must share game during winter. Its insatiable hunger is a metaphor for consumption without limit. Some stories say the Wendigo can never be satisfied, no matter how much it eats. This is a direct warning against hoarding and a reminder that starvation is a communal crisis.
The Rake, by contrast, symbolizes the unknown intruder. It lacks any moral lesson. It is a figure of pure surveillance: it watches, it waits, it scratches. Its pale skin and lack of eyes or mouth in some versions erase all humanity. It is not greedy. It is simply there. Modern horror scholars like Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock argue that the Rake reflects a contemporary anxiety about being watched in the digital age, where anyone can become the object of anonymous attention.
Practices: How People Have Dealt with Each
We do not treat the Wendigo and the Rake the same way, because they belong to different domains.
Warding the Wendigo is a matter of community and fire. Traditional Algonquian practices include burning certain herbs – sage, sweetgrass, cedar – and keeping the central fire high and bright. The Wendigo is said to fear fire. In some Cree communities, hunters carried a piece of dried beaver tail or wore a necklace of animal teeth as protection. The most important practice was to avoid any act of greed: a person who hoarded food was believed to attract the Wendigo’s spirit. Ceremonies conducted by a medicine person, such as the Shaking Tent ritual, were used to drive out the spirit if it had possessed someone. These are living traditions, still practiced in some communities today.
The Rake has no tradition. No one smudges their house against it. No ceremony exists. The only “practice” is telling the story or, in some online groups, attempting to summon it through roleplay or rituals. The most famous of these is the “Rake Ritual” found on early creepypasta sites: light a candle at midnight, call its name three times, and wait. We do not recommend it. These rituals are invented by fans, not rooted in any occult system. The Rake has no power beyond the story. If we treat it as a thoughtform – a being created by collective attention – then it gains reality by being written about and feared. That is a modern development, and some occultists in the Chaos Magic tradition have experimented with treating creepypasta entities as servitors. But that is a fringe practice, not a tradition.
Comparisons: Where They Overlap and Diverge
| Aspect | Wendigo | Rake |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Algonquian oral tradition, pre-Columbian | Internet forum, 2005 |
| Appearance | Gaunt, giant, sometimes antlered, often skeletal, heart of ice | Pale, hairless, long limbs, no face detail in earliest versions |
| Behavior | Cannibalistic, lures victims, can possess humans | Watches, stalks, scratches, rarely attacks directly in original stories |
| Weakness | Fire, iron, community ritual | No fixed weakness; often disappears at dawn |
| Cultural role | Cautionary tale against greed, communal ethic | Modern horror: fear of the unknown, surveillance |
| Real-world practice | Protection rituals, seasonal observances still observed | Rituals invented by fans, no continuous tradition |
The most common confusion is that the Wendigo has antlers. This depiction comes from the 2001 film Wendigo and subsequent pop culture. In original lore, the Wendigo is not a deer creature. It is a gaunt humanoid, sometimes described with a skull-like face and gray skin, but the antlers are a borrowing from the krampus or other horned figures. The Rake, meanwhile, is often depicted with a noseless face and a wide grin – again, a later addition. The earliest Rake stories describe a “face with only dark sockets for eyes and a lipless mouth.”
Another key difference: the Wendigo is a spirit that can possess people. The Rake is only ever a physical entity. A person cannot become a Rake. But a person can become a Wendigo by committing cannibalism. That is a fundamental distinction: one is a state of being, the other is a creature.
Common Misconceptions
“The Wendigo and the Rake are the same thing.” No. The Rake is a modern invention, and conflating them disrespects the cultural origin of the Wendigo. Many Indigenous writers have pointed out that treating the Wendigo as just another internet monster erases its living significance.
“The Wendigo is a deer-headed creature.” This image is from film and art, not folklore. The original descriptions emphasize emaciation and ice, not antlers.
“The Rake is based on a real cryptid.” There is no evidence of sightings before 2005. It is entirely a product of internet creativity.
“Both can be summoned with rituals.” For the Wendigo, that is offensive and dangerous to attempt. For the Rake, it is not dangerous – because the Rake is not real. We say that with care: we do not mock believers, but we must state the facts. The Rake has no independent existence; its reality is the story.
FAQ
Are the Wendigo and Rake related in any way? Not directly. Some fans have argued that the Rake borrows physical features from the Wendigo (gauntness, paleness), but there is no intentional connection. The Rake is a product of 2000s internet culture.
Which is older? The Wendigo is centuries, possibly millennia old. The Rake appeared in 2005.
Can either be defeated? In traditional tales, the Wendigo can be defeated by fire, by a medicine person’s ritual, or by being melted by heat. The Rake has no consistent defeat mechanism; some stories say it retreats at sunrise or can be killed with salt and silver, but these are fan additions.
Are they considered demons in any occult system? The Wendigo is not a demon in the Christian sense; it is a spirit from Algonquian cosmology, distinct from European demonology. The Rake has no place in any traditional occult system, though some modern practitioners incorporate it into chaos magic as a thoughtform.
The Wendigo and the Rake show us how fear adapts to its container. One is rooted in the land, in winter, and in a community’s survival. The other is rooted in a dark room, a glowing screen, and a story that refuses to stop spreading. If you want to understand what each says about the people who tell them, look at the differences first. Then look at what they share: a hunger that cannot be satisfied, and a shape that looks just human enough to make us look away.
For more on the boundary between folklore and internet horror, see our guide to Slender Man and the Birth of the Digital Creature. Explore the full bestiary of mythical creatures, where the old and the new meet. And if you are curious about the real cultural context of the Wendigo, read our entry on Algonquian spirit traditions.