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Cheyenne Roach

Cheyenne "Dog Soldier" Roach Headdress

The roach headdress or headpiece is the most common everyday headgear worn by Native Americans. The porcupine and deer-tail roach is the most common with most all Native American tribes. When you think of a roach headdress, you usually think of this form of headgear because of how common they are especially at pow-wow's. However, there are hundreds of styles of roach headpieces. By definition, a roach is any multiple of adornments attached to a feather or group of feathers which is tied to the warriors hair. They can even be worn by the women.

This particular roach design was influenced by Larry and myself from the movie
"Last Of The Dogmen." Both of us witnessed a Cheyenne Dog Soldier wearing this roach depicted in the movie. Larry could not wait to reproduce it and I could not wait to acquire this beautiful headpiece. There were many ways a warrior displayed his coup count accomplishments ( ref. war bonnet). The first eagle feather a warrior was awarded was when he entered into manhood and became a recognized warrior in his tribe. There were several ways to display the counting of 5 coup. One way was the original eagle feather with four red dots running down the side of the feather. Another was a feather consisting of four red slashes running down the side. Yet another was this version you see before you which is just the tip of the feather atop the quill in tact.

The quill of the feather has ornate quill stitching wrapped around the quill in various colors. The tip of the feather adorns ermine fur and red horse hair. A large grouping of red hackle feathers seven inches in diameter are attached to a small circular piece of rawhide and are sinew sewn to the rawhide. Also, a three inch piece of bone is secured to the back of the rawhide which is use to connect several ermine strips that hang from the bone. The ermine is attached to the bone with sinew and have bear and buffalo fur attached to the end of the ermine strips . Indians quite often used military items on their regalia which they captured quite often after battles. Note in the close-up of the red hackle feathers, in the middle you see an officers button from the 1800's. An accent which made this head piece even more authentic. Any Dog Soldier would be proud to display this roach headdress . A magnificent specimen. By the way, Larry surprised me with this piece by making it for me before I even asked him to do so.

Description: Cheyenne " Dog Soldier" Roach Headdress
Date: Ca. 1994
Artist: Larry Richardson (Iroquois)
Represented by: Tom Manno (Phoenix, Arizona)
Photo's by: Charles Zemis (Phoenix, Arizona)
Consultant & Appraiser: Jim Covarrubias (Apache)