The outer surfacing of the hide attire showed ample variation in the quill and beadwork patterns worked skillfully into them. Flowers, birds, and intertwining swirls gracefully ascended the women in beautiful displays of natural elements.
Richly decorated moccasins adorned the feet of the women, filled abundantly with even more dyed quill-work and beaded embellishments. On many of the pairs the ornamentation was augmented further around the high ankles of the moccasins, with fringes created from deer-hair tassels, each of them bound by little metallic cones.
The women had been using hoes crafted of wood and bone in their labors among the developing crop. Looking again at the planting area, Logan then noticed that the burgeoning yield was not uniform in nature. Rather, it contained multiple elements that had been planted purposefully together.
One of those crop elements was rising from the tops of the small dirt mounds, the growths roughly a span high. Another distinct element was sprouting on the surface of the mounds as well, maturing close to the taller, vertical growths. A third distinctive crop was fanning out from the base of the mounds, filling in the flatter ground in between the low rises.
“What are you growing here?” Logan had managed to ask Ayenwatha, as he stared out over the field. “Has it been planted for long?”
“When the leaf of the oak is the size of a squirrel’s foot, the Three Siblings are brought forth,” Ayenwatha replied, as if quoting some tribal maxim.
“The Three Siblings?” Logan asked curiously, wanting to learn something more of the intriguing people that were taking Logan and his companions in.
Ayenwatha related to Logan that the Three Siblings were the primary crops of the tribal people. As Ayenwatha explained it, maize stalks would rise up from the mounds of soil, and beans would then grow upward along the rising stalks, using them as support. The third of the Siblings, squash, would grow profusely all over the lower ground, thickly covering the spaces in between the small mounds with their broad leaves.
Logan nodded, as he looked around at the women now fully gathered all around them.
The women, who mostly ranged from young adulthood to middle age, displayed a great exuberance at the arrival of the war band. Like the others that the war band had come across, they looked upon Logan and the others with both curiosity and a little trepidation exhibited in their faces.
A few children, likely having mothers amongst the field laborers, soon made their presence known among the throng greeting the war party. The little ones worked their way eagerly to the forefront of the gathered women, taking quick note of the interesting newcomers among the war party.
The youngest among them were entirely unclothed, much to Logan’s surprise and slight awkwardness. The presence of clothing, and the amount of it, increased with their age, with the oldest of the children being garbed in very similar manners to the adults.
The children chattered and giggled excitedly, talking amongst themselves as well as calling out to the warriors. They all remained close to the adult women, clearly keeping a little cautious distance from the strangers.
A few of the warriors laughed merrily and teased the children, who appeared to be utterly fascinated with the seven guests, making no effort to hide their feelings. Many little mouths fell agape, eyes widening with incredulity and amazement at the sight of the peculiar clothes and foreign appearances of Logan’s group.
The mothers, trying to maintain a certain level of composure, endeavored to deflect the flurry of hushed and blurted questions cast at them by the inquisitive, unsubtle youth.
The women from the crop field subsequently joined their number to the swelling entourage, as the group continued onward following the short delay. The children, though staying intensely interested in the exiles, maintained a healthy distance from the foreigners as they trotted out to the sides of the war party.
The expanding party proceeded on past the field, finally moving towards the base of the village’s great hill, which came into sight through the trees, the prominent elevation looming high above everything around it.
The village was quite an impressive sight seen from below, drawing Logan’s eyes immediately upward as he strode out from the trees and walked forward under the open sky. The summit of the large hill had been entirely cleared of trees and brush, as had the slopes. An encompassing wooden palisade of vertical stakes had been erected all along the contours of the hilltop’s outer edges.
Just beyond a thin strip of ground at the base of the palisade were some earthworks, which consisted of a broad ditch and outer embankment that had been cut into the hillside itself. The ditch and embankment looked as if it would be a very potent obstacle to any threat seeking to reach the palisade itself.
The long walk up the slope to the village was accompanied by an increasing amount of jubilance and fanfare from the tribal people. The returning warriors shouted and cried out boisterously as they approached the timber crown surmounting the hilltop. The women carrying the poles with the scalps, still at the forefront of the entire procession, called out in loud, resonant voices, before breaking into vibrant, chant-like singing. They waved the poles back and forward, proudly heralding the return of the war party.
Several other tribal warriors filed out of the narrow entrance in the palisade wall to greet the party as they ascended the lengthy slope. The emerging warriors were not covered in the red and black paint, such as that gracing all the members of the war party. Like all the groups that the war party had recently come across, they also looked happy and very relieved to see the approaching contingent.
Also similar to all of the others, they took an immediate, profound interest in the seven foreigners.
The chorus of animated cries and vibrant songs filled the air underneath the bright silken skies, as the war band funneled through a gap in the earthen embankment and continued forth through the village entrance, with the rest of the crowd in their wake. Within the palisade’s narrow entryway was a considerable expanse of open ground, which was occupied by numerous wooden structures.
Most of the edifices were of a generally similar, elongated appearance, which varied only in their absolute lengths. They ranged from a few dozen feet up to some greater ones that were well over a couple hundred feet long. Sprinkled in amongst them were a few smaller, circular wooden huts, as well as some tall vertical posts, which displayed an array of surface carvings.
Another similarly narrow opening within the outer palisade was evident at the far end of the large enclosure, placed just opposite to the one that Logan and his companions had just passed through.
A number of high wooden platforms, accessible by steep sets of narrow, ladder-like steps, each provided with thin timber railing, had been erected at several locations along the inside of the palisade. From their positioning and height, it was very obvious to Logan that these platforms were intended for defensive purposes.
As Logan gazed out over the grounds of the enclosure and the structures within it, he noted that the largest of the elongated buildings was placed at what looked to be the very center of the village. A garden plot brimming with what looked to be young tobacco plants sat just adjacent to it. Smaller such garden plots accompanied some of the other lengthy edifices.
The particular construction of the dominant form of building was made very evident a few moments later, as Logan set his eyes upon a mid-sized structure of the type that was currently undergoing an extension in its length. Materials such as stacks of bark sheaths, various poles derived from saplings and thicker tree sections, and coils of hempen rope were clustered near to the skeletal framing of the extension.
The longhouses were covered in a type of elm bark paneling or sheathing, affixed over a framework of tied elm poles. Sapling poles bent into arches formed ceiling rafters.