Each room was divided into two terraces; the one in
front being covered with red mats, while that in the rear, a kind of
raised dais or great couch, was strewn with skins. They contained
stools hewed out of poplar logs, and chests made of clapboards sewed
together with buffalo thongs.[23]

The rotunda or council-house stood near the square on the highest spot
in the village. It was round, and fifty or sixty feet across, with a
high peaked roof; the rafters were fastened with splints and covered
with bark. A raised dais ran around the wall, strewed with mats and
skins. Sometimes in the larger council-houses there were painted
eagles, carved out of poplar wood, placed close to the red and white
seats where the chiefs and warriors sat; or in front of the broad dais
were great images of the full and the half moon, colored white or
black; or rudely carved and painted figures of the panther, and of men
with buffalo horns. The tribes held in reverence both the panther and
the rattlesnake.

The corn-cribs, fowl-houses, and hot-houses or dugouts for winter use
were clustered near the other cabins.

Although in tillage they used only the hoe, they had made much progress
in some useful arts. They spun the coarse wool of the buffalo into
blankets, which they trimmed with beads. They wove the wild hemp in
frames and shuttles. They made their own saddles. They made beautiful
baskets of fine cane splints, and very handsome blankets of turkey
feathers; while out of glazed clay they manufactured bowls, pitchers,
platters, and other pottery.

In summer they wore buckskin shirts and breech-clouts; in winter they
were clad in the fur of the bear and wolf or of the shaggy buffalo.
They had moccasins of elk or buffalo hide, and high thigh-boots of
thin deer-skin, ornamented with fawns' trotters, or turkey spurs that
tinkled as they walked. In their hair they braided eagle plumes, hawk
wings, or the brilliant plumage of the tanager and redbird. Trousers
or breeches of any sort they despised as marks of effeminacy.

Vermilion was their war emblem; white was only worn at the time of the
Green-Corn Dance. In each town stood the war pole or painted post, a
small peeled tree-trunk colored red. Some of their villages were
called white or peace towns; others red or bloody towns. The white
towns were sacred to peace; no blood could be spilt within their
borders. They were towns of refuge, where not even an enemy taken in
war could be slain; an