I can’t really say much about the Lakota. The archaeological cultures associated with the Dakota-Lakota, like the Psinomani Complex, built small burial mounds, occasionally in abundance, but generally aren’t included in the major mound-building cultural complexes like the Hopewell and the Mississippians. I do know that Lakota traditional histories go back to at least the early 900s CE, which is pre-Psinomani Complex and corresponds to the arrival of White Buffalo Calf Woman and her introduction of the sacred pipe and its associated ceremonies to the Lakota. Later traditional history - at least that which focuses on large-scale society - is mainly concerned with the Seven Council Fires, the old Dakota-Lakota alliance which roughly corresponds to the aforementioned Psinomani Complex in archaeology (the Psinomani are a bit more inclusive and likely include some non-Siouan but otherwise similar cultures in early 2nd Millennium Minnesota, like the Cheyenne). So while there are historical narratives, spotty as they might be, dating back to the time period of mound construction, the mounds themselves don’t play a prominent role here as far as I’m aware. Of course, I haven’t done a lot of work with Lakota traditional history so perhaps someone more familiar with topic might be able to shed additional light on the subject.

For the Cherokee, the situation is a bit different. Synthesizing several accounts dating to the late 1700s and early 1800s, from both Cherokee and non-Cherokee sources, we get a glimpse of ancient mound-building traditions. To begin with we have Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, West Virginia being claimed as the work of the ancestral Cherokee. On one hand, this isn’t far-fetched as the Cherokee were certainly living north of their historic territory at the time the Grave Creek Mound was constructed (around 200 BCE) and the upper Ohio Valley is well within the core ancestral Iroquoian region. On the other hand, the same account at attributes Grave Creek Mound to the ancestral Cherokee also name-drops the Monticello Mound in Virginia as another of the Cherokee’s works. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility, but at the time (early 1820s), these were perhaps the two most famous earthworks. We must cautiously consider the possibility that this attribution erroneously links famous landmarks with a famous nation merely because of their mutual fame.

However, if we accept an ancestral Cherokee origins for the Grave Creek Mound (and by extension, an ancestral Cherokee identification for the late eastern Adena in the upper Ohio Valley), some non-Cherokee traditions also begin to fall into place. Namely, the Lenape history concerning their war with the Talligewi, which might be derived from the Cherokee autonym Tsalagi. There are a few different versions of this account (even ignoring the fraudulent Walam Olum), which place the Talligewi (or Alligewi, from which we get the name “Allegheny”) in the upper Ohio Valley and credit them for the construction of many of the mounds and earthworks. An important difference in the narratives is the direction from which the Lenape were traveling when they first encountered the Talligewi. The most famous version was recorded by Heckewelder and says the Lenape crossed the Fish River, which he identified as the Mississippi, before they encountered the Talligewi in the Ohio Valley. The identification of the Fish River with the Mississippi is likely erroneous. Another version of the tradition, which mentions the Lenape coming from a forest of firs points to a northern homeland, which comports better with archaeological evidence which indicates that Ontario was the source of various waves of Algonquian migrations. Some portion of the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence watershed has been suggested as an alternative identification for the Fish River, in particular, the small rivers connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie.

In the tale of the Talligewi, the Lenape initially asked to settle in their lands. The Talligewi refused, but offered the Lenape safe passage through their territory instead. However, as the Lenape began their migration through Talligewi territory, the Talligewi became concerned over the large number of Lenape now occupying their lands. Fearing that this migration would become an occupation, the Talligewi launched a preemptive attack. The Lenape allied with the Mengwe, their generic name for the northern Iroquoians (from which we get “Mingo”). Sometimes these Mengwe are specifically associated with the Wendat (Huron) though given the time period we’d be looking at if this matches with the archaeological record, we’d really be dealing with ancestral-Northern Iroquoians predating a firm distinction between the Haudenosaunee, Wendat, Erie, etc. In David Cusick’s Iroquoian history from the early 1800s, which is a popularization of Iroquoian traditional history written for a largely Euroamerican audience than a direct presentation of it, features an incident that might be based on the Iroquoian side of this conflict. Cusick references a war with an “emperor” (Cusick liked to use European terms like “emperor” and “king”) to the southwest who had become paranoid when he discovered that there were encroaching powers to his north. The Iroquoian war with this “emperor” lasted for about 100 years, which potentially meshes with the four successive Lenape sachems who led their war effort against the Talligewi. In both cases, the Talligewi and the “emperor” built fortifications in the Ohio Valley region to defend against this incursion, but ultimately they were defeated and driven out of the area. A point in Cusick’s favor is the specific mention that what ultimately turned the war in the Iroquois’ favor was their mastery of the bow and arrow, which the emperor’s forces either did not possess or were not as proficient with - which corresponds relatively well with what we know archaeologically about the transition between the Middle and Late Woodland Periods (circa 4-500 CE) in the Ohio Valley, when the mound building becomes significantly less common in the area and the bow is introduced by immigrants from the north.

Again assuming that the Talligewi are the ancestral Cherokee, following their defeat they seem to have fled up the Kanawha River into the Appalachians. In the early 1800s, the Cherokee’s migration narrative was traditionally recited during the Green Corn Ceremony. Unfortunately, at this time the Green Corn Ceremony had became a largely secular holiday and the oral history was recited in an older dialect that was not then widely understood. The basics involve coming down from the north, the loss of five clans, and eventually settling in Kituwa (archaeologically around 1200 CE). Kituwa wasn’t originally a Cherokee settlement, but a Muskogean-Mississippian one. It is likely here that Mississippian influences began entering into Cherokee culture, perhaps via the influence of the Ani-Kutani. The Ani-Kutani were an ancient priesthood that kept the sacred fires (it’s been suggested that the both Kituwa and Kutani are related to the Alabaman root -kita-, which refers to starting or maintaining fires). I’ve not see any 19th Century or earlier sources that explicitly link the Ani-Kutani with Kituwa, but Kituwa is explicitly referenced as the original Cherokee town and the place where the sacred fire was kept so it’s not a huge leap of logic. In Cherokee traditional history, the Ani-Kutani became oppressive and abused Cherokee women. When they made demands of a Cherokee leader’s sister-in-law, he and his brother led a rebellion against them. The Ani-Kutani were destroyed, though whether they were completely wiped out or merely demoted and transformed into one of the Cherokee clans is a matter of debate. The defeat of the Ani-Kutani and the establishment of Cherokee independence is likely why the old Mississippian town of Kituwa is regarded as the place where the Cherokee people truly began. Kituwa remained the most important Cherokee town for a while, but eventually the other six Mother Towns of the Cherokee were established or joined with the Cherokee and Kituwa lost its position of prominence to Chota and, much much later, to New Echota - the Cherokee capital at the time of the Removal.

During the colonial era, the Cherokee expanded their territory well beyond the Seven Mother Towns in the Smoky Mountains area. While they did eventually push north as far as the Ohio, their southern expansion would be more important since that’s where their territory of the Cherokee Nation at the time of Removal. Many of the most direct Cherokee stories concerning the mounds and earthworks reference ones in the northern Georgia and neighboring areas. Since many of these earthworks predate the Cherokee in the area, some of them were attributed to mysterious other-than-human people, like the Moon-eyed People who built Fort Mountain, or the albino dwarfs that lived beneath some mounds (the description of their homes aligns with some Pisgah Phase mounds that were built from old earth lodges, which indicates that the Cherokee knew about the methods of their construction either form building some themselves of conducting their own investigations). These may be synonymous beings, as in both cases, the Cherokee eventually drove these other-than-humans from the region. Other earthworks were more readily associated with their historic human builders, especially the Creek.