Minnie Hollow Wood (c. 1856 – 1930s) was a Lakota woman who earned the right to wear a war bonnet because of her valor in combat against the U.S. Cavalry at the Battle of Little Big Horn.[1][2][3]: 4:37 At one time, she was the only woman in her tribe entitled to wear a war bonnet.[4]
Her husband, Hollow Wood, was a Cheyenne who also fought at the Little Big Horn.[5] Both Hollow Woods surrendered to Colonel Nelson A. Miles at Fort Keogh in Montana in 1877.[5]
Minnie Hollow Wood lived on the Cheyenne reservation in Montana and became an informant of author and ethnologist Thomas Bailey Marquis. Marquis suggested that she was a "favorite" of Miles while she was a prisoner at Fort Keogh.[6]
Minnie Hollow Wood was the subject of an animated short by Yvonne Russo.[7] Minnie's War Bonnet premiered at the Red Nation International Film Festival in 2019.[8]