It was an achievement that exceeded what most Crow men accomplished, in a society where women had defined social roles that were genuinely important even when they were different from the roles available to men.

The second misconception is that Native American societies were static and unchanging — that the customs Denig observed in 1851 were the same customs that had existed for centuries and that would persist unchanged.

In fact, Crow society in the nineteenth century was itself in the middle of enormous changes driven by the introduction of the horse, the expansion of the fur trade, the arrival of smallpox epidemics, and the increasing pressure of American expansion.

The society Denig observed was not an ancient unchanging tradition; it was a dynamic culture adapting to extraordinary circumstances.