Kee-On-Ee (Navajo 1898–1924) & Marie Walcamp(American 1894–1936)

In 1913, the Canadian company Bison released its silent film The Werewolf, directed by Henry MacRae. Based on an 1898 short story by Henry Beaugrand, a Navajo woman, Kee-On-Ee (Marie Walcamp) transforms her daughter Watuma (Phyllis Gordon) into a wolf using witchcraft to exact revenge against invading white settlers. It is the first known example of a werewolf being portrayed on the silver screen. Sadly, the film was lost to a warehouse fire in 1924, and a single theatre poster offers the only visual clues as to how the female werewolf was portrayed, although it is known that a simple dissolve effect was used to transform woman into wolf. The film’s portrayal of the Native American she wolf saw anxieties about female morality combined with xenophobic fears of racial degeneracy.