Kiowa Story~The Seven Sisters and the Bear

One day long ago a traveling party of the Kiowa People were crossing
the great prairie and camped by a stream. Many of the Bear People lived
nearby, and they smelled the Kiowa People. The Bear People were hungry,
and some of the bear warriors went out to hunt the Kiowa People. Seven
young girls from the Kiowa camp were out gathering berries, up along
the stream, far from the campsite. The Bears came upon them and growled
to attack. The girls ran and ran, out across the open prairie, until
they came to a large gray rock. They climbed onto the rock, but the
bears began to climb the rock also. The girls began to sing a prayer to
the rock, asking it to protect them form the Bear People. No one had
ever honored the rock before, and the rock agreed to help them. The
rock, who had laid quietly for centuries, began to stand up and reach
to the sky. The girls rose higher and higher as the rock stood up. The
bear warriors began to sing to the bear gods, and the bears grew taller
as the rock rose up. The bears tried and tried to climb the rock as it
grew steeper and higher, but their huge claws only split the rock face
into thousands of strips as the rock grew up out of their reach. Pieces
of rock were scraped and cut away by the thousands and fell in piles at
the foot of the rock. The rock was cut and scarred on all of its sides
as the bears fought to climb it. At last, the bears gave up the hunt,
and turned to go back to their own houses. They slowly returned to the
original sizes. As the huge bears came back across the prairie, slowly
becoming smaller, the Kiowas saw them and broke camp. They fled in
fear, and looking back at the towering mountain of rock, they guessed
that it must be the lodge of these giant bears. “Tso’ Ai’,” some People
say today, or “Bears’ Lodge.” The Kiowa girls were afraid, high up on
the rock, and they saw their People break camp and leave them there,
thinking the girls had all already been eaten by the bears. The girls
sang again, this time to the stars. The stars were happy to hear their
song, and the stars came down and took the seven girls into the sky,
the Seven Sisters, and each night they pass over Bears’ Lodge and smile
in gratitude to the rock spirit.