Woquini, aka Henry “Hook Nose” Carruthers

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This staff photo was taken of another photo that hangs in the Roman Nose State Park lodge of Southern Cheyenne Henry Roman Nose and Southern Arapahos Yellow Bear and Lame Man, 1899, that is credited to Walter Stanley Campbell Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries.

Sometime in late spring or early summer of 1856, a baby was born in a Cheyenne village somewhere north of the Arkansas River near what now is the Kansas-Colorado state line. Born during troubled times on the Plains, the baby, named Woquini (pronounced Wah-kin-e, which translates into Hook Nose) rode against the Pawnee, the tribe’s enemy, but it never was known if he fought against whites.

Eventually his tribe was relocated to Oklahoma, and he was sent with other warriors to imprisonment in Florida. He never was charged with a crime. Records identify him simply as a ringleader.

There Woquini became a Christian and adopted the name Henry Caruthers Roman Nose — Henry from the fort commander and Caruthers from a teacher and friend. He returned to Oklahoma, eventually choosing a canyon area where he once camped with his father as a home. That land today is known as Roman Nose State Park.

Roman Nose was appointed chief of the Southern Cheyenne tribe in 1897.

Source: “Roman Nose A History of the Park,” by M.C. Weber

 

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