"When the Five Nations possessed the country, the buffaloes came to us," said the Onondaga.
"Then the Long Knives came on the sea in the East and there was neither buffaloes nor Mengwe," answered the Mound-Builder, who did not like these interruptions. He went on describing the Kaskaskia Trail. "It led along the highlands around the upper waters of the Miami and the drowned lands of the Wabash. It was a wonderful trip in the month of the Moon Halting, when there was a sound of dropping nuts and the woods were all one red and yellow rain. But in summer...I should know," said the Mound-Builder; "I carried a pipe as far as Little Miami once..."
He broke off as though the recollection was not altogether a happy one and began to walk away from the wood, along the trail, which broadened quickly to a graded way, and led up the slope of a high green mound.
The children followed him without a word. They understood that they had come to the place in the Story of the Trails, which is known in the schoolbooks as "History." From the top of the mound they could see strange shapes of earthworks stretching between them and the shore of Erie. Lakeward the sand and the standing grass was the pale color of the moon that floated above it in the midday sky. Between them the blue of the lake melted into the blue horizon; the turf over the mounds was thick and wilted.
"I suppose I must remember it like this," said the Tallega, "because this is the way I saw it when I came back, an old man, after the fall of Cahokia. But when this mound was built there were towns here, busy and crowded. The forest came close up on one side, and along the lake front, field touched field for a day's journey. My town was the middle one of three of the Eagle Clan. Our Town House stood here, on the top of this mound, and on that other, the tallest, stood the god-house, with the Sacred Fire, and the four old men watchers to keep it burning."
"I thought," said Oliver, trying to remember what he had read about it, "that the mounds were for burials. People dig into them, you know."
"They might think that," agreed the Tallega, "if all they know comes from what they find by digging. They were for every purpose that buildings are used for, but we always thought it a good omen if we could start a Town Mound with the bones of some one we had loved and respected. First, we laid a circle of stones and an altar with a burnt offering, then the bones of the chief, or some of our heroes who were killed in battle. Then the women brought earth in baskets. And if a chief had served us well, we sometimes buried him on top and raised the mound higher over him, and the mound would be known by his name until another chief arose who surpassed him.
"Then there were earthworks for forts and signal stations. You'll find those on the high places overlooking the principal trails; there were always heaps of wood piled up for smoke signals. The circles were for meeting-places and for games."
"What sort of games?" demanded Oliver.
"Ball-play and races; all that sort of thing. There was a game we played with racquets between goals. Village played against village. The people would sit on the earthworks and clap and shout when the game pleased them, and gambled everything they had on their home-town players.