The âpéquestion remains, whether the Tallike were the "Mound Builders." It is not so stated in the WALUM OLUM. The inference rather is that the "Snake people," _Akowini_ or _Akonapi_, dwelt in the river valleys north of the Ohio river, in the area of Western Ohio and Indiana, where the most important earthworks are found--and singularly enough none more remarkable than the immense effigy of the serpent in Adams County, Ohio, which winds its gigantic coils over 700 feet in length on the summit of a bold bluff overlooking Brush Creek.
According to the RED SCORE, the Snake people were conquered by the Algonkins long before the contest with the Tallike began. These latter lay between the position then occupied by the Lenape and the eastern territory where they were found by the whites. In other words, the Tallike were on the Upper Ohio and its tributaries, and they had to be driven south before the path across the mountains was open. For this reason they are called _wapawullaton_, "possessing the East," that is, with reference to the then position of the Lenape in southwestern Ohio.
54. _Talamatan_. This was the Lenape name of the Huron-Iroquois or Wyandots. It is found in the form _Telamatinos_ in a "List of 11 Nations living West of Allegheny" present by deputy at a Conference in Philadelphia, 1759 (_Minutes of the Prov Council of Penna._, Vol. VIII, p. 418). Heckewelder gives _Delamattenos_ (_Ind. Nations_, p. 80).
Rafinesque translates the name in one place by "not Talas," and in another by "not of us," from Len. _matta_, not, Latin _nos_, us. That the Lenape did not speak Latin made no difference in his linguistic theory, as he held all languages to be at core the same! On the Hurons, see above, p. 16.
2. _Wapalaneng_, apparently the White River, Indiana, or else the Wabash.
16. In this line the three tribes are mentioned which were previously named in IV, 44, 45, 46, and the difference in the spelling shows that the chant was written down by one unacquainted with the forms of the language. The correspondent names are:--
IV. V. Akowini, Sinako. Towakon, Towako. Lowanuski, Lowako.
The termination _ako_, uniformly rendered by Rafinesque _snake_, appears to be either the animate plural in _ak_, or the locative _aki_, place or land.