English: Cabinet Card of Comanche Chief Tosawa, or White Knife, by W. S. Soule. . His name is also transcribed as Tosahwi or Penateka. Original albumen photograph, on card mount (cabinet card format). Some surface soiling. Damp staining. Surface abrasion to parts of the image (mainly in lower third of image). W. S. Soule, Fort Sill, Indian Territory printed imprint on verso. Interesting pencil inscription on verso mentions Gen. Hazen (see below for transcript). Overall condition is quite good.

An early manuscript caption on the recto of the mount directly below the photograph reads: "Tush=a=wa or White Knife / Pen=a=Teth=ka Comanche Chief." Tosawa wears an elaborately decorated Hardee hat with a prominently displayed "sheriff's star." He also sports an unidentifiable medal around his neck.

A pencil inscription on verso of mount relates an intriguing story connecting Tosawa and William Babcock Hazen, referred to as "Gen Hazen" in the inscription. The story refers to a house built with decaying logs, and White Knife's response to living in such an abode. It reads, in part:

Gen Hazen built him a / house several years ago of un- / -hewn logs - after a while the / wood [was black or on back] began to decay / and the dust fell. he left / the house in disgust - thought / and said the Gen'l meant to put his eyes / out and it was with great / difficulty he could be persuaded / to live in a house after.

Tosawa, known as a peaceful chief of the Penateka Comanche tribe, was one of the signers the Treaty of Tehuacana Creek in 1844. In later years, he met Confederate General Albert Pike at Fort Cobb and purportedly swore allegiance to the Confederacy. Tosawa engaged in raids in the southwest during the 1860s, but he eventually returned to Fort Cobb and submitted to military authority.

Tosawa is credited with keeping his people out of the Red River War of 1873-1874, further bolstering his image as a peaceful chief. Richard Henry Pratt wrote in his Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indian, 1867-1904, that General W. B. Hazen (who is mentioned in the pencil inscription on card mount verso) was put in charge of a temporary Indian Agency at Fort Cobb where "friendly" nomadic Indians were asked to assemble. Pratt adds in a footnote, "...the Penateka Comanches of Tosawi and AsaHavey were cooperative."