MooNET] METEORIC SHOWER, 1833 261 



plains tribes, as well as among a large part of our own po])ulation; 

 the event is still used as a chronologic starting point by 

 the old people of the various tribes. It is pictorially ■^^ 

 represented on most of the Dakota calendars discussed -^-^ 

 by Mallery in his valuable work on the Picture Writing ^ 



of the American Indians. Set-t'an was born in the pre- 

 ceding summer, and the small figure of a child over the 

 winter bar Indicates that this is his first winter or year; 

 the stars above his head rei)reseut the meteors. 



The Kiowa say it occurred in the winter season, when 

 they were camped on a small tributary of Elm fork of 

 Eed river, within the present (Ireer 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 dart- 

 ing about in the sky. The parents aroused the children, fio. 64_winter 

 saying, "Get up, get up, there is something awful 1833-34-TI16 

 (zeddlbe) 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 appre- 

 hension 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 dis- 

 pleasure 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 

 {Gre(/g, 5). 



StiM3IER 1834 



Fir.. 65 — The star shower of 



^833 »rom the Dakota caien- rpj^^ gg^^,.^ j^ intended to commcmorate 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, 

 GunpiiTidamii, Medicine-tied-to-tipi-pole(-woman) (see the 

 glossary, GunpaTKldmii). She was restored to her friends 

 by a detachment of the First dragoons from Fort Gibson. 

 Although this occurred in the sunuuer, the season is not 

 indicated by the usual figure of the medicine lodge, for 

 the reason that, the tainie 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 

 tahne having been captured early in the spring. 



As the return of, this girl was the object of the first ^";- ce-Smmucr 

 American expedition up Red river, and the beginning ^^ Gimpit'fui™ 

 of our official and trading relations with the Comanche, ma 

 Kiowa, Wichita, and affiliated tribes, it merits somewhat extended 



