The story about the Circle Stars painted on the ears of all Blackfoot tipis.
Brings-Down-The-Sun, sitting by a fire, tells the tale of the lost children. But before be begins, the musical song of the western meadow lark can be heard in camp. The bird is seated on the top of the back rest in the camp. He sings his song and the men talk of his name; they call him the Gros Ventre bird because his song cannot be understood. The Blackfoot men around the camp say that the sounds of the Gros Ventre's language can never be understood and so that this bird's song is the same.
Brings-Down-The-Sun starts, "There is a family of six small stars we call the 'Lost Children.' These children were lost a great many years ago from a large camp of Blackfoot, during the moon when the buffalo calves are yellow (spring). The Indians had been running buffalo over a piskan, and had secured a large number of hides and among them were many yellow buffalo calves hides. The yellow hides were given to the children who played a game of buffalo with them. There was a poor family of six children who were unable to secure any of the yellow skins and the children went naked. One day, when many of the children were on the prairie playing buffalo and they were putting the skins over their heads and running after each other, they made fun of the poor children, calling them 'scabby old bulls' and shouting derisively that 'their hair was old and black and coming out.' The six children did not go home with the rest. They were ashamed because their parents gave them no yellow skins. They wandered off on the plains and were taken up to the sky. They are not seen during the moon, when the buffalo calves are yellow (spring, the time of their shame), but every year when the calves turn brown (autumn), the lost children can be seen in the sky every night.
This story is told to remind parents of the lost Blackfoot children and to always remind parents how important it is to take care of their children.
McClintock, W. (1896) Old North Trail: Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians (1999: First Bison Press)