In Crow culture, songs were a form of official recognition.

Songs about warriors were sung at camp gatherings, at ceremonies, after successful raids.

They were the oral history of military achievement — public, repeatable, collective acknowledgments of what specific people had done.

Songs did not get composed about people who hadn’t actually done what the songs described.

The fact that songs were composed about Woman Chief and sung in Crow camps means that her achievements were not simply acknowledged privately or grudgingly by reluctant contemporaries.

They were celebrated publicly, in the forms that Crow society used to honor its most successful members.