White Hair
name of several Osage leaders
White Hair or Pawhuska ( paw-HUSK-ə; Osage: 𐓅𐓘𐓢𐓶𐓮𐓤𐓘, romanized: hpahúska) is the name of several Osage leaders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A tintype image of White Hair can be seen at the Osage Nation Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
White Hair I
The first White Hair, Paw-Hiu-Skah, Pahuska, or Pawhuska, was born about 1763 and died about 1809. The town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma is named for him. He was the chief of the Thorny-Valley people, a division of the Osage people. In 1791, Pawhuska is reputed to have fought against American troops under Arthur St. Clair in Ohio. During the battle, the worst defeat ever suffered by U.S. forces against Indians, Pawhuska attempted to scalp a fallen officer but the man's powdered wig came off in Pawhuska's hand. In the ensuing confusion, the officer escaped. The chief was impressed by how the wig protected its original wearer, so he kept it for the rest of his life and became known as White Hair.
The public source identifies “White Hair” as name of several Osage leaders. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around White, Hair and name.
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This entry incorporates text from “White Hair” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.