- Term
Howling Wolf
- Alternate Term
Howling Wolf
- Occupation/Role
artist
- Nationality/Ethnicity
Southern Cheyenne
- Remarks
Howling Wolf was born around 1849 somewhere in the Plains. His father, Eagle Head, was a warrior and Southern Cheyenne council chief. Both Howling Wolf and his father, were members of the Bowstring Society, a fraternal warrior society and strong proponent of war by the 1870s. Howling Wolf went to war as a teenager and counted his first coup in 1867. In 1875 Eagle Head and Howling Wolf, along with seventy other Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Caddo warriors and chiefs, were arrested by the federal government and sent to prison at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. During imprisonment In Fort Marion he started creating extremely accomplished drawings, which became popular items for the growing tourist trade. Released in 1878, he wanted to stay in the East and to attend school, but his eyesight was failing. He was sent to Boston for treatment, but it was only partially successful, and in May of that year, Howling Wolf returned to the reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) where he created at least twelve ledger works. Howling Wolf died in 1927 in an automobile accident while returning home to Oklahoma from a stint in a Houston Wild West show, where he was performing Indian dances.