page_title: Hook Nose
section_title: The war bonnet
hierarchical_section_title: Hook Nose / The war bonnet
caption_attribution_description: English: Chyanne leader Roman Nose is killed at the Battle of Beecher Island.
context_page_description: This is the article on the Northern Suhtai, Northern Cheyenne warrior who died at the Battle of Beecher Island 1868
  Roman Nose, also known as Hook Nose, was a Native American of the Northern Cheyenne. He is considered to be one of, if not the greatest and most influential warriors during the Plains Indian War of the 1860s. Born during the prosperous days of the fur trade in the 1820s, he was called môséškanetsénoonáhe as a youth. He later took the warrior name Wokini, which the whites rendered as Roman Nose.
  Considered invincible in combat, this fierce warrior distinguished himself in battle to such a degree that the U.S. military mistook him for the Chief of the entire Cheyenne nation. Following the Sand Creek Massacre in November 1864, Hook Nose became a principal figure among his people, leading retaliatory strikes against Euro-American settlements at the Battle of Julesburg along the Platte Road and Powder River regions of south-central Wyoming and in the Platte valley of Nebraska, western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. The Native American author and physician Charles A.
context_section_description: Hook Nose possessed an elaborate warbonnet that he believed gave him special powers. The medicine man Ice, later known as White Bull, made the warbonnet, and assured Hook Nose he would be impervious to the white man's bullets as long as he followed certain conditions. Hook Nose could not shake hands in the way of the white man, nor could he eat food that had been touched with any iron implement. Ice told Hook Nose that should he violate either of these conditions, he would surely be killed in battle.
  Several days prior to the Battle of Beecher Island, Hook Nose visited the nearby Sioux camp, where he participated in a feast. During the feast, he ate some fry bread. However, the woman who cooked the bread had used an iron fork to remove it from the cooking pan, which violated one of the conditions of his medicine.
  As he left for battle, he was made aware of this fact, but he did not have the time to perform the necessary cleansing ceremony to restore his medicine. Because of this, he did not participate in the fighting as he normally would, preferring to watch the battle from afar. During the battle, he was chastised by an elderly warrior named White Contrary for his lack of participation, and thus decided to enter the battle after all, knowing that he would die. After donning his war clothes, including his war bonnet, he led an assault on the island. He was shot at close range during the attack and died late that afternoon, near sunset.
  The demise of Hook Nose had devastating effects on the Cheyenne's efforts to defend their lands, which virtually ended with the defeat of Tall Bull and the Dog Soldiers, at the Battle of Summit Springs, near Sterling, Colorado, in July 1869.
caption: Roman Nose being shot (from an 1895 book).
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