# The Deer — Zuni Folktales character guide

> The Deer in Zuni Folktales by Frank Hamilton Cushing.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** The Deer, Deer, their, thou, its, thy, themselves

**First appearance:** 0001-zuni-folktales

## Snapshot

A gentle foster-mother of the herd who raises a cast-off mortal child and teaches him that even hunted creatures give their lives in sacred sacrifice.

## Who they are

The Deer is the leader and foster-mother of a great herd, who long ago found a mortal infant and nursed him as her own. When the people discover the herd and decree a grand hunt, she must tell the youth the truth of his birth and prepare him to return to his own kind. Her quiet acceptance of the hunt as a sacred exchange, and her guidance of the boy to the Lake of the Dead, make her the moral heart of the tale's early arc.

## In the story

### [The Foster-Child of the Deer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/zuni_folktales_se/chapters/the-foster-child-of-the-deer)

The kind Deer who finds the abandoned infant, raises him as her own, and later guides him to the Lake of the Dead.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/zuni_folktales_se/characters/deer
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/zuni_folktales_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/zuni_folktales_se/characters