This is the most important counterweight to the outsider accounts that tend to treat her as a curiosity.

Kurz and Denig found her fascinating partly because she didn’t fit their preconceptions.

The Crow people who sang songs about her victories were not fascinated by her novelty.

They were honoring her effectiveness.

The songs are gone.

They were oral compositions in a living performance tradition, and the specific songs that celebrated Woman Chief’s victories did not survive into the documented record.

But the fact of their existence — preserved in Denig’s account — tells us something that no amount of outsider observation can: that within her own community, she was understood and celebrated on the same terms as any other great warrior.