Medicine Crow could explain why Crow scouts made the choices they did without requiring an audience to interpret those choices as betrayal of some imaginary pan-Indian unity.

Native nations were nations.

They had politics.

That sounds obvious, yet popular history often denied it.

By telling the battle through Apsáalooke memory, Medicine Crow restored agency to people who had been turned into supporting characters in Custer’s last chapter.

He also connected the battlefield to consequences beyond the famous afternoon.

A battle is a moment.

A nation’s history continues.

Medicine Crow repeatedly returned listeners to what happened after victories, defeats, treaties, and campaigns.

Land was lost. economies were transformed. children were sent to schools. ceremonies faced suppression.