Ehyophsta
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Ehyophsta | |
|---|---|
Yellow-Haired Woman | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1826 |
| Died | August 1915 |
| Relations | Bad Faced Bull |
| Parent | Stands-in-the-Timber |
| Known for | Fought in the Battle of Beecher Island |
Ehyophsta (Cheyenne: Yellow-Haired Woman,[1] c. 1826 – 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]