Deer Lady: Evil Temptress, Tragic Victim, or Ghost of Indigenous Femininity?

Abstract

“Deer Lady” (2023) is the third episode in the third and final season of the FX on Hulu dramedy series, Reservation Dogs. The show features an almost entirely Indigenous cast and crew. This includes creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, the director of this particular episode, Danis Goulet, actors D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who plays Bear, and Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays Deer Lady. According to an interview for NPR, showrunner Sterlin Harjo is of Seminole and Muscogee heritage, and grew up in rural Oklahoma, where the show is set (Harjo interview). A large driving force behind the creation of the show was to provide realistic representations of Indigenous Americans in popular media. “Deer Lady” uses Indigenous folklore to shed light on a piece of American History in a way that is both shocking, and devastatingly relatable. Thus humanizing the experiences of Indigenous people in the United States. I will be delving into some of the inconsistencies in traditional Deer Lady/Woman stories. This involves exploring the connotation that folklore may have been influenced by colonization, and how that could be contributing to the violence against Indigenous women that persists today.