According to the folklore of several Native American tribes of the Algonquian language group (the Western Abenaki, Maliseet, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy), Kee-wakw or Giwakwa are man-eating ice giants — half-human, half-beast beings that inhabited the forests and woodlands of what is now New England during a period known in Indigenous cosmology as the Ancient Era, the first of three ages of the world, when humanity was still inseparably connected with the rest of the animal realm.

Most legends describe the giwakwa as former humans whose hearts turned to ice either through possession by an evil spirit or as a result of committing a grave crime — such as cannibalism or depriving the starving of food. They feel no remorse for their deeds, for the only emotion left to them is an all-consuming hunger.

Abenaki traditions also speak of beings similar to the giwakwa — the A-senee-ki-wakw — who, unlike them, were not transformed humans but primordial stone giants. They were ultimately destroyed by their own creator, the culture hero and demiurge Gluskabe.

The motif of the giwakwa — humans transformed into monsters through madness and cannibalism during times of famine — is widespread in the folklore of the Indigenous peoples of North America. The most well-known figure of this kind, including in popular culture, is the Wendigo.