Her story is documented in the journals of traders who knew her and is one of the clearest examples of a woman who occupied a warrior role by formal social recognition.

Among the Lakota, the role of warrior was primarily a male role, but the boundaries were not absolute.

Women could count coup.

Women could and did participate in horse raids and in the defense of camps under attack.

The category of winkte — people whose gender identity crossed conventional boundaries — was recognized and respected within Lakota society, complicating any simple binary of male warriors and female non-combatants.

Moving Robe Woman’s action at Little Bighorn falls into the category of extraordinary individual response to emergency — a woman who rode into the battle not as a formally recognized warrior but as a grieving sister responding to the killing of her brother.