She was not performing.

She was doing what Crow warriors did when they visited trading posts: presenting evidence of their activities, maintaining the social relationships that connected the plains nations to the trading world.

The moment is a perfect encapsulation of the difficulty of knowing her through outsider accounts.

Everything the outsiders recorded tells us something true and something distorted simultaneously.

She was modest and good-natured — and she had just taken a scalp in battle.

Both facts are true.