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= Moving Robe Woman = Moving Robe Woman (Sioux name Tȟašína Máni), also known as Mary Crawler, Her Eagle Robe, She Walks With Her Shawl, and Walking Blanket Woman, was a Hunkpapa Sioux woman who fought against Custer during the Battle of Little Big Horn to avenge her brother, Deeds. Her father's name was Crawler, and he was also present at the battle. There is an account that Moving Robe Woman stabbed Custer in the back, but several other warriors claimed to have killed Custer, so it is uncertain if she actually killed him. Since there are no published post-mortem accounts that describe Custer as having stab wounds, and because officers who found his body described him as having died of gunshot wounds it is difficult to prove that Moving Robe Woman did kill him.

Family
Moving Robe Woman also went by the name Mary Crawler. She received this name from whites in the area due to her father being named Crawler. Everyone in her family had multiple names, and this is addressed in the story of how her brother, Deeds, died. A man named Brown Back was with him at the time of his death, and was wounded but managed to escape. This has been spoken about often over the years because it was confusing that Brown Back was a nickname for their father, Crawler. Most of the interviews that Moving Robe did in her lifetime were related to the Battle of Little Big Horn, and how her brother was killed.

Evidence relating to Deeds’ kill site on the west bank is provided by Joseph G. Masters who went to Standing Rock in 1936 to secure the facts of this case. Masters wrote: “After stopping to water the horses as they crossed the river, the [Reno] soldiers rode far out toward the western hills where the Indian boys were herding the horses. In their story of the battle, all of the Indians recounted the fact that the soldiers killed a ten-year-old boy by the name of Deeds, but that his father, Little Bear, who was wounded, and his brother, Hona, both escaped.” Here is yet another example of a name that Crawler went by—Little Bear. The story is told among Deeds’ relatives that upon learning of his death, Deeds’ sister Mary Crawler, obtained a revolver and fought Custer’s soldiers as fiercely as any of the men. She distinguished herself by killing two troopers.

To partially set the stage and a view at some of the motives of Moving Robe Woman's people, the Hunkpapas, they were a part of the Lakotas that moved to the plains late in the eighteenth century. The Lakotas—the Oglala, Hunkpapa, the Sicangu or Brule, the Miniconjou, the Sans Arc, the Two Kettle, and the Sihaspa or Blackfoot Sioux—were the western tribes of a huge nation that also included the Eastern Dakota and Middle Yankton divisions. They added to the turmoil on the plains as they pushed weaker tribes aside and seize hunting territories.

Interviews
A large portion of the written work surrounding Moving Robe Woman comes from Hardorff's Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight: New Sources of Indian-Military History, where her recollections confirm the stories of other native and white warriors. She was interviewed by Frank Zahn shortly before her death. Known to her people as Moving Robe Woman, and a leader of small Hunkpapa band and a member of the Silent Eaters, a distinguished soldier lodge. Zahn was an accomplished interpreter, an educated mixed blood, who had risen to be a judge of the Standing Rock Indian Court of Offenses. He believed there was no reason to doubt Mary Crawler’s statements. The University of Wyoming Heritage Center located the original clippings of the interview with Moving Robe Woman and several others.

Moving Robe Woman also corroborated a statement by White Bull about the very first casualty, which took place even before any Indian resistance was formed. An old Lakota named Three Bears was hit by a stray bullet while standing near his tepee and succumbed to the wound a few days later. In the same interview she states how she saw a fellow Hunkpapa die at the hands of Ree Indians, the hated allies of the white soldiers, named Hawk Man.

Moving Robe Woman confirmed George Herendeen’s story that he had seen six women’s bodies in a little ravine, the same location where Fred Gerard saw the Rees during the opening phase of Reno’s attack. Herenrdeen had asserted that “Our men didn’t kill any squaws, but the Indian scouts did.” This was important because during this time they were trying to prove that the white soldiers hadn't killed any non-combatants at Little Big Horn.

This quote from Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life gives insight into the day that Moving Robe Woman fought to avenge her brother and a snapshot of what she saw:

"Warriors gradually infested the riverbed hillside to within forty yards of the Company 1 position. Two Moons recalled that sixteen right-wing horse holders were the first victims as the battle climaxed. To counter the coulee infiltrators, Company C charged from its position at the west end of the Calhoun Ridge, flushing warriors like quail. After five hundred yards, the company halted, dismounted, and drew up a skirmish line. Their expected volley was never fired. Almost simultaneously, a double blow struck. In the lower coulee, the Cheyenne Lame White Man rallied the retreating warriors and led a charge that overran Company C, while Yellow Nose’s Cheyennes opened sustained fire from Greasy Grass Ridge. A “great roll of smoke seemed to go down the ravine,” remembered the Two Kettle Runs the Enemy. Moving Robe Woman, a Hunkpapa widow fighting to avenge the deaths of her brother and husband, saw the soldiers “running up a ravine, firing as they ran. The valley was dense with powder smoke. I never heard such whooping and shouting.” Company C fell back hurriedly to its position atop Calhoun Ridge, leaving at least four men dead in the coulee."

An Oglala Lakota warrior named Fast Eagle claimed that he had held Custer's arms while Moving Robe Woman stabbed him in the heart. Moving Robe Woman followed Sitting Bull into Canada where she stayed for four years before surrendering at Fort Buford, Montana in 1881. She lived out her remaining years on the Standing Rock Reservation, which straddles the border between North Dakota and South Dakota.

Art
There are several art pieces inspired by Moving Robe woman and her participation in the battle of Little Big Horn. Daniel Long Soldier, a Lakota Oglala, created Moving Robe Woman with the caption that reads: "Moving Robe Woman kills two cavalry men. One was a black man who was married to a Sioux woman but took sides with the cavalry when the battle of the Little Big Horn started June 25th 1876. She carries her brother’s shield. Another artist who portrayed the battle of Little Big Horn, including Moving Robe Woman is Thom Ross, who painted her and other women warriors, including Calf Trail Woman in 2004.The 12 foot oil painting is one of two hundred sculptures erected on the Little Bighorn battlefield. There are a lot of debates surrounding what happened during this battle but, as an artist, Ross feels comfortable with elusive facts. Ross felt that it was important to portray the battle as part of the grand flow of human history, and as an opportunity to appreciate the individual's ability to face overwhelming adversity with courage.