A
story told by the Kiowa People in Wyoming and South Dakota, and by other
tribes.
One
day long ago a traveling party of the Kiowa People were crossing the
great
prairie and camped by a stream. Manyof 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.