The Kiowa say it occurred in the winter season, when they were camped on a small tributary of Elm fork of Red river, within the present Greer county, Oklahoma. The whole camp was asleep, when they were wakened by a sudden light; running out from the tipis, they found the night as bright as day, with myriads of meteors darting about in the sky. The parents aroused the children, saying, "Get up, get up, there is something awful (_zédălbe_) going on!" They had never before known such an occurrence, and regarded it as something ominous or dangerous, and sat watching it with dread and apprehension until daylight. Such phenomena are always looked upon as omens or warnings by the ignorant; in Mexico, according to Gregg, it was believed to be a sign of divine displeasure at a sacrilegious congress which had recently curtailed the privileges of the church, while in Missouri it was regarded by some as a protest from heaven against the persecution of the Mormons then gathered near Independence (_Gregg, 5_). [Illustration: FIG. 65--The star shower of 1833 (from the Dakota calendars)] SUMMER 1834 The figure is intended to commemorate the return of the girl captured by the Osage in the massacre of the preceding summer. The tipi above the female figure, with which it is connected by a line, indicates her name, Gunpä´ñdamä, Medicine-tied-to-tipi-pole(-woman) (see the glossary, _Gunpä´ñdamä_). She was restored to her friends by a detachment of the First dragoons from Fort Gibson. Although this occurred in the summer, the season is not indicated by the usual figure of the medicine lodge, for the reason that, the _taíme_ being still in possession of the Osage, there was no sun dance held that year. It is omitted also in the picture for the preceding summer, the _taíme_ having been captured early in the spring. [Illustration: FIG. 66--Summer 1833-34--Return of Gunpä´ñdamä] As the return of this girl was the object of the first American expedition up Red river, and the beginning of our official and trading relations with the Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita, and affiliated tribes, it merits somewhat extended notice. The expedition and subsequent council are noted in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1834 (page 240), and are described at length in the journal of Lieutenant Wheelock (_Greer, 1_), and in the letters of the artist Catlin, who accompanied the party and painted the first pictures ever made of any of these tribes. The resulting treaties of 1835 and 1837 are noted in the Commissioner's reports for these years (_Report, 74_). The first Indian story of the occurrence is here given: