No account of Woman Chief’s world is complete without understanding the specific role that horses played in every aspect of Crow life.

The Crow acquired horses in the eighteenth century, earlier than many of their neighbors, through trade networks that extended south through the Rocky Mountain tribes to Spanish colonial settlements.

The acquisition of horses transformed their society — not in a slow evolutionary way, but in the relatively rapid timeframe of a few generations.

Before horses, the Crow were foot hunters and semi-nomadic gatherers, capable of effective hunting and warfare on foot but limited in range and mobility.

After horses, they became the mobile equestrian culture that the historical record documents — capable of covering enormous distances, of striking and withdrawing faster than foot warriors could respond, of managing the complex logistics of moving entire communities with their material wealth.