There are many variations on the traditional tales of the Deer Woman and her role in the stories of various Indiginous populations. Research returned me again and again to a specific anthropologist who wrote. "
Deer Women and Elk Men." Her story is very interesting and worth noting for its own sake just to see some of the struggles involved in documenting the culture you have a passion for. Her name was Beautiful Day Woman - that's a good name.
Ella Cara Deloria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A review of her work:
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1818&context=greatplainsquarterly
"The story of Deer Woman is a puberty narrative for our traditions. She teaches us the correct way of behaving, and especially the correct use of our sexuality in terms of our marriage rites. The Lakota have Deer Woman and Elk Man narratives very similar to our Deer Woman stories. The gist of the story is that the Deer Woman is very beautiful, very enticing. It's easy for you to fall in love with her. If you notice that she's a deer, you look down at her feet and you can see that instead of feet she has hooves, and then you think, "Oh, this is Deer Woman, and I know who I'm dealing with." So you're okay because you're able to think, "I recognize who she is." But if you don't recognize who she is, you become totally enchanted with her, completely enspelled by her, and she drives you to madness, and some say prostitution, and illness or disease which is a break with the community. That is a little bit about the Deer Woman character and what she means to us. It's called Deer Hunter, and it has a short preface from Grandmothers of the Light by Professor Paula Gunn Allen."
From:
Mythic Imagination Institute
"The Deer Woman, sometimes known as the Deer Lady, is a shape-shifting woman in Native American mythology, in and around Oklahoma, the Western United States and the Pacific Northwest. She allegedly appears at various times as an old woman, or a young beauitful maiden, or a deer. Some descriptions assign her a human female upper body and the lower body of a white-tailed deer.
The Deer Woman is said to sometimes be seen as a beautiful woman just off the trail or behind a bush, calling to men to come over. Deer Woman is often said to have all the features of a normal young woman, except her feet which are shaped like deer hooves and her brown deer's eyes. Men who are lured into her presence often notice too late that she is not a natural woman and are then stomped to death. Other stories and traditions describe the sighting of Deer Woman to be a sign of personal transformation or a warning. Deer Woman is also said to be fond of dancing and will sometimes join a communal dance unnoticed leaving only when the drum beating ceases."
From:
Deer Woman (mythology) - Villains Wiki - villains, bad guys, comic books, anime