Three Day Road

Windigos are people who have eaten human flesh, and have, as a result, become monstrous. They are an abomination, and are feared by the Cree Indians. Niska, like her father before her, is known as a windigo killer, and is tasked with dispatching these monsters before their hunger for human flesh infects other Indians. Though being a windigo killer is a solemn and important position for the Cree Indians, the wemistikoshiw, which is the Cree word for the white man, do not see it as such. This is evident when the people at Moose Factory imprison Niska’s father for murder after he kills a windigo and her child.

The windigo is a beast that not only kills humans, but eats their flesh. This concept provides an apt metaphor for what men are doing to one another on the battlefields in France during the Great War. It is telling in that war dehumanizes men, and in this sense, makes soldiers into windigos. Elijah takes his love of killing too far, and in the end, is killed by Xavier for becoming a windigo.

Morphine is a drug that helps to alleviate pain, and is used by medics on the battlefield. It helps soldiers who are dying, as well as those who are injured. Soldiers also carry morphine because, as Xavier notes, many are more afraid of pain than of dying. No one wants to suffer, and so soldiers carry syringes or tablets of morphine. Some soldiers, like Grey Eyes, abuse morphine. Grey Eyes is viewed as an untrustworthy character from the beginning, and is addicted to morphine. It is Grey Eyes who gives Elijah his first taste of morphine while they are traveling from Canada to France and Elijah is sick. At one point, Elijah says he is simply interested in the drug, and only plans to take it when necessary. Later, after a battle in which he is injured, he begins taking morphine regularly, not for pain, but to relieve his fear.

When the novel begins, the reader finds that Xavier is addicted to morphine, and that he must take it for his pain, having lost his leg in World War One. Moreover, he is running out of his supply, and does not know what will happen once it is gone. Niska senses the struggle and disease within Xavier, and is puzzled as to how she can combat this new disease. She senses that the morphine is eating Xavier alive, and that when it is gone, he will certainly die.

Morphine is compared to a visionary medicine, especially as it takes individuals on a journey and, at times, shows them the past or the future. Morphine, however, eats away at the insides of those who take it. It does connect users to the spirit world in a good way, as a drug Niska relates that is taken by a tribe further south. Morphine is a drug that Xavier describes as allowing users to sleep with the dead.