Chon Man I Case Otos

"half chief, Husband to Eagle of Delight"

Chonmanicase was an Oto Indian who visited Washington.  Under the patronage of Thomas L. McKenney, Commissioner of Indian Trade, artist Charles Bird King produced 143 portraits of Indian dignitaries, visiting Washington, DC, over a 20 year period.

Chonmonicase was also known as L'letan or Prairie Wolf was a member of the first Native American delegation to be painted by King in Washington, D.C.  His wife, Eagle of Delight (Hayne Hudjihini) was also painted by King. 

In addition to trade silver armbrands, Presidential Peace Medals and a grizzly claw necklace, he wears a headdress ornamented with shaved bison horns topped with horsehair.

"Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall's highly regarded Indian Trades of North America (1948) is famous for its realistic portraits of Native Americans. These plates are based on paintings by the artist Charles Bird King, who was employed by the War Department to paint the Native American delegates visiting Washington, DC and form the basis of the War Deparment's Indian Gallery.

Most of King's original paintings were subsequently destroyed in a fire at the Smithsonian.  Their appearance in McKenney and Hall's magnificent work is our only record of the depictions of the most prominent Native American leades of the nineteenth century.  Among the sitters were Sequoyah, Red Jacket, Micanopy, Major Ridge, Cornplanter and Osceola."