Ordinarily, women left warring and raiding expeditions to the men, but they might help defend their own camps, accompany a war party to cook and hold the horses or go to a nearby battleground to strip the enemy dead and carry home the loot. Among the Utes, women who had participated in raids danced their own peculiar war dance in full regalia; the limping, labored step of the dance symbolized the carrying home of captured enemy property.
In some exceptional cases, women actually became outstanding warriors. A certain Gros Ventre girl, for example, was taken prisoner by the Crows when she was about 10 years old. She soon displayed a love of horses and boy's sports. Her captor allowed her to guard his horses and practice with a bow. The girl grew up to be a peerless rider, marksman, and hunter. A raiding party of Blackfeet attacked her Crow band one day as they were camped near a trading post. They lost several men, but managed to get safely into the post. Five Blackfeet, out of gun range, signaled for a parley. None of the Crow men or white traders would go out to meet them. But the Gros Ventre woman rode out, well armed, to see what they wanted. The five attacked her in clear view of the fort. She killed one with her gun, and wounded two others with arrows; the remaining two fled. She came back into the fort to shouts of praise, and from then on was called Woman Chief.
A year later Woman Chief led a group of male warriors against the Blackfeet, taking 70 horses and two scalps. After this she was permitted to sit in Crow war councils. She led many raids and defended Crow country, even against her own people, the Gros Ventres. In the warrior ceremony, in which men would strike a post and publicly recount their brave acts, she would tell of more coups than most of them.
Crow men held her in reverence, but would not court such a formidable woman. When her foster father died, she took his lodge and family, acting as both mother and father. As a ranking hunter and warrior, she demanded the privileges of a man, including the privilege of marriage. Eventually she "married" four women to tan her robes and perform the many domestic duties of her lodge. This was work unsuited to a warrior.
Woman Chief became a living legend among the Crows. Finally the tribe made an uncertain and tentative peace with the Gros Ventres in 1851. Three years later, she made a pilgrimage to them. Upon recognizing her (their scourge for many years) they treacherously killed her, never realizing that she was trying to visit her own people.