Pretty Nose (b. 1851) was an
Arapaho
The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...
woman who participated in the
Battle of the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nor ...
. She lived to be at least 101 years old and reportedly became a war chief.
Biography
Pretty Nose was Arapaho, though in some sources she is referred to as
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
. She was identified as Arapaho on the basis of her red, black and white beaded cuffs.
Pretty Nose took part in the
Battle of the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nor ...
in 1876 with a combined Cheyenne/Arapaho detachment.
Pretty Nose's descendant,
Mark Soldier Wolf, became an Arapaho tribal elder who served in the
US Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. She witnessed his return to the
Wind River Indian Reservation
The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone ( shh, Gweechoon Deka, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Northern Arapaho ( arp, h ...
in 1952, at the age of 101. At the time he reported her wearing cuffs that he said indicated she was a war chief.
Pretty Nose was portrayed in the 2017 novel ''The Vengeance of Mothers: The Journals of Margaret Kelly & Molly McGill'' by
Jim Fergus.
Photographs
A photograph taken by
Laton Alton Huffman shows Pretty Nose with a young woman named Spotted Fawn. One source from the Montana Memory Project implies that they were sisters. She appeared in several of silver prints by Huffman, and they are now part of the collection of the Princeton Library. Her photo is featured on the cover of ''The Spirit of Indian Women'' (Judith Fitzgerald and Michael Oren Fitzgerald, eds.).
See also
*
Buffalo Calf Road Woman
Buffalo Calf Road Woman, or Brave Woman, (c. 1844 – 1879) was a Northern Cheyenne woman who saved her wounded warrior brother, Chief Comes in Sight, in the Battle of the Rosebud (as it was named by the United States) in 1876. Her rescue helped ...
*
Moving Robe Woman
*
Minnie Hollow Wood
Minnie Hollow Wood (1930s) was a Lakota woman who earned the right to wear a war bonnet because of her valor in combat against the U.S. Cavalry at the Battle of Little Big Horn. At one time, she was the only woman in her tribe entitled to wear a wa ...
*
One Who Walks with the Stars
References
Notes
Citations
{{reflist, 30em
1850s births
Year of death missing
19th-century Native American women
Women in 19th-century warfare
Arapaho people
Native American women in warfare
19th-century Native Americans
20th-century Native Americans
People of the Great Sioux War of 1876
American centenarians
Year of birth uncertain
Women centenarians
20th-century Native American women