Jump to content

Ehyophsta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ehyophsta
Ehyophsta, (Cheyenne: "Yellow-Haired Woman")
Personal details
Died1915
RelationsUncle, Bad Faced Bull.
ParentStands-in-the-Timber
Known forFought in the Battle of Beecher Island

Ehyophsta ( "Yellow-Haired Woman")[1] (b. circa 1826, d. 1915) was a Cheyenne woman warrior. She was the daughter of a chief, Stands-in-the-Timber, who died in 1849, and the niece of Bad Faced Bull.[2] She fought in the Battle of Beecher Island in 1868, and also fought the Shoshone that same year, where she counted coup against one enemy and killed another.[3] She fought the Shoshone again in 1869, and during battle she stabbed and killed an enemy, saving a member of her own people.[4]

It is said that she rode her father's horse, and sang songs alongside a fellow woman warrior, Buffalo Wallow Woman of the Lakota.[5] She was also a member of a secret society composed exclusively of Cheyenne women. During this period, Cheyenne women often participated in battle, dressed and armed the same as the male warriors were.[6]

She died in August of 1915 at the Tongue River Reservation in Montana, aged eighty-nine.[4]

She is one of the women in the Heritage Floor of the famous feminist installation art work, The Dinner Party, by Judy Chicago.[7]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Grinnell, George Bird; Fitzgerald, Joseph A. (2008). The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Lifeways : Edited and Illustrated. World Wisdom, Inc. ISBN 978-1-933316-60-4.
  2. ^ Chicago, Judy (2014-07-08). The Dinner Party: Restoring Women to History. The Monacelli Press, LLC. ISBN 978-1-58093-397-1.
  3. ^ Southwestern Studies. Texas Western College Press. 1998. ISBN 978-0-87404-157-6.
  4. ^ a b Grinnell, George Bird (1962). The Cheyenne Indians Their History and Ways of Life.
  5. ^ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2023-12-20). Women Warriors in History: 1,622 Biographies Worldwide from the Bronze Age to the Present. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-5032-6.
  6. ^ Tucker, Phillip Thomas (2002). Cathy Williams: From Slave to Female Buffalo Soldier. Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-0340-6.
  7. ^ "The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Ehyophsta". Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Retrieved 2013-08-13.