I found the following in an article about the Leonid meteor showers of 1833, it comes from the link: http://www.clarkfoundation.org/astro-utah/vondel/Leonids98.html

One record stated that the Kiowa...were wakened by a sudden light. Running out from the tipis, they found the night as bright as day, with a myriad of meteors darting about in the sky. The parents aroused the children, saying, "Get up, get up, there is something awful 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.

As Scott Momaday mentions on page 85, the Kiowas seem to associate this meteor shower with negative events and with the disintegration of what was, a life that was. It seems that in their minds it coincide with the decline of their culture, a treaty with th United States, which might not have been something positive for them, with the end of an era.