What is documented — in the oral tradition of her people, in the accounts that were eventually recorded — is that she had been there.

That she had heard of her brother’s death and ridden into the battle.

That she had fought.

The American mythology of Little Bighorn, built around Custer’s death and the image of the Last Stand, left her out.

It left out almost everyone who wasn’t a cavalryman or their commanding officer.

It made the battle into a story about American defeat and American heroism, about the cost of the Indian wars, about the tragedy of Custer, and it did so by treating the Lakota and Cheyenne who were actually present as scenery — as the force that killed Custer rather than as people who had names and families and reasons for fighting.

Moving Robe Woman had reasons for fighting.