Warriors made decisions based on what Lozen’s ceremony told them.

This is not the description of someone whose gift was understood as metaphorical or symbolic.

It is the description of someone whose specific contribution was practically important and trusted.

The accounts also describe her physical appearance and demeanor in ways that are consistent across sources: a person of striking physical capability, of unusual self-possession, of the specific kind of authority that comes from genuine competence rather than from position or ceremony.

People responded to her, the accounts suggest, because she earned the response through what she actually was and what she actually did.