Coyote Girl, 2024

For years, I’ve wanted to create a photograph featuring a female coyote. Coyote stories often focus on male tricksters, whose actions lead them into mistakes. However, Coyote Girl embodies a more clever and savvy character. As part of my Indigenous Futurism and Coyote Tales series, we are highlighting Coyote Girl’s wisdom and resourcefulness. I am also taking imaginative liberty to remind us of Coyote’s presence now and into the future. 

To the Chemehuevi, Coyote (Sunaav) dominates our mythology and is the most “ridiculed and despised, the most loved, emulated and needed, of all those wondrous animal people who lived in the story time…shedding light on our penchant for irony and questioning strong affirmatives..for the spirit personified by the Chemehuevi as Coyote is universally present in the desires and impulses which move mankind.” (Laird) Coyote embodies both the good and the bad of our human nature and asks us to forgive ourselves and each other.