Shane Lore

The Nunnehi (Immortals) and the Underworld

[Image Credit: Charles Frizzle, https://faerielore.tumblr.com/image/168404953618.]

[Note: Numbers below correspond to the map found on the main page. This page is long because following the explanation below you will find many maps detailing exactly where these mysterious locations are.]

Nunnehi, or the Immortals

The ancient Moundbuilders of the Cumberland Valley were a fairy people who took physical forms (through a process similar to the one that produced the Nephilim in the Bible) and attempted to build a civilization as late as the Mississippian period. This was later in time but analogous to the Tuatha De Danann of Ireland, a similar half-human, half-fairy race that now live in the ancient mounds of Ireland. The mound builders left their incarnated physical remains in stone boxes underneath great mounds (and took Indian wives, thus leaving some semi-“divine” offspring that eventually were also buried there and which were absorbed into later Indian bloodlines, akin to the bloodlines of the “gods” in places like Greece and Scandinavia).

The restless Nunnehi spirits, not human souls in most cases but of greater dignity than other fairies (much like elves), have ever after haunted these locales, speeding between them along fae lines, and the Cherokee termed them the Nunnehi, or the Immortals (literally, though, the “people who live everywhere”). They are of large, warrior-like stature, like elves, but can vary in height from two to seven feet tall, and sometimes they reveal that they have round dog paw-like feet. They were friendly to the Cherokee, and their physical forms left a genetic imprint on the American Indians of our area, who bear some ancestry from them. They would communicate at times with Indian medicine men and healers. Their descendants bearing the largest portion of their blood were the Ani-Kuta’ni, an ancient hereditary priestly class that were massacred by the Cherokee laity because of their cruelty and hubris. It was said that the ancestors of the Ani-Kutani built the mounds, though certainly other Cherokee also bear similar ancestry from the Immortals (393).

Structure and Contents of the Ancient Mounds

The mounds themselves were built thusly: a circle of stones was laid on flat ground on level bottom lands. Then a fire was started in the center of the circle, and the bodies of seven chief men from the different clans were placed around it along with an Ulunsu’ti stone (explained on the Uktena page), an Uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an eagle or even from the great tla’nuwa hawk spirit, and beads of seven colors: red, white, black, blue, purple, yellow, and gray-blue. A priest then conjured or cursed them all with disease, so that if the mound was ever destroyed, the attacker would surely die. Then the earth was piled up, along with the bodies of great men and other sacred things. A hollow cedar trunk was fitted over the fire so that the earth didn’t smother it. A townhouse was built over top of it. The “fire keeper,” one man, stayed always to tend and keep this fire. This was the “honored, or sacred fire” from which all other fires were ignited. Some say only the larger mounds had an everlasting fire (Nikwasi’, Kitu’hwa, etc.) that fed all others. The Immortals still tend these fires, and show them to mortals at times, as at Kitu’hwa during the War Between the States (396).

Mound Bottom in Cheatham County, Tenn. Image credit: Google.

How they Act

The concentration of their graves around Nashville bequeathed it the name “City of the Dead” (source: https://www.angelfire.com/tn2/inada/davidson.html#:~:text=Nashville%20Tennessee%20is%20known%20as,who%20are%20not%20at%20rest) by some Indians (the Cherokee name is Dăgû′năwelă′hĭ, “Mussel-liver place,”). Besides their great townhouses under Pilot Knob near Brevard, NC, the Nikwasi mound in Franklin, NC, and under Blood Mountain at the head of the Nottely River near Helen in Georgia, Nashville was the Mississippian Fae People’s most important site. It is only because the settlers came under the sign of the cross that they were not defeated by the Chickamauga Cherokee (allies of the Immortals) and/or driven off the land by the deathless Immortals themselves, who assuredly resented the destruction of their ancient artifacts and resting places.

The mounds house the Immortals’ ephemeral townhouses (which were also located on mountain balds and in round depressions sometimes). This was observed by the Cherokee in Franklin, NC, at the Nikwasi mound, when Immortal warriors streamed out of the mound and turned the tide of a battle in favor of the Indians of that place. The same thing happened again at Franklin during the Civil War when Union soldiers threatened. Spoken voices can come from these townhouses, like the one under the Hiwassee River in the mountains (Du′stăyalûñ′yĭ). Warm air is also known to issue forth, flowing out from their immortal fires (smoke has been seen rising out of the Kituwha mound near Bryson City, NC, in the mountains). (Source: Mounds, Myths, and Cherokee Townhouses in Southwestern North Carolina, by Christopher B. Rodning. American Antiquity 74(4), 2009, pp. 627-663.) When things are thrown into a circular depression that houses one of these invisible structures (such as the 30-foot diameter one east of Soquee P.O., near the head of Soquee Creek, 10 miles NW of Clarkesville, in Habersham Co., GA), the debris will be removed by them and found outside the hole later.

Yahula in the Underworld

If one goes to live with the Immortals and tastes their food, he can never again eat human food, and leaving their company permanently will be almost impossible. One man named Yahula did this, and the place where he lived as a permanent guest of the Immortals is at the head of Yahoola Creek on a mountain where some stone ruins are now (probably the end of Jimmy Walker Road). For many years the bells on his horses, the whip he used, and the songs he sang could be heard in this vicinity, though he could not be seen. It is certain an entrance to the Underworld exists at these headwaters, for which Yahula’s soul might be a willing guide. One should not attempt to copy the songs he sings, if privileged to hear them.

Some Nunnehi Locations Just Mentioned

  • 1. Pilot Knob (park at Gloucester Gap Art Loeb Trailhead; it’s a 5.9 mile hike). This is also where Kanati and Selu, the original spirit stewards of the Appalachians, lived. (Pilot Knob is up Pilot Mountain Road from National Forest 475 Road, and directly south of Deep Gap. It’s a high mountain in Transylvania co., about eight miles north of Brevard, with a stratified appearance to the rocks; the faces of the cliffs present a peculiar glint under the sun’s rays, as of shining walls with doors, windows, and shingled roofs. Use the Art Loeb Trail and FR229 from Gloucester Gap on FR 475 to hike it) (the knob is marked with a X below):
  • 2. Nikwasi:
  • 3. Blood Mountain (Nunnehi townhome within): park at Byron Reece Trailhead off US Hwy 19 – Byron Reece Memorial Trail, Blairsville, GA 30512. It’s 35 min from Helen. It’s a 2-mile hike up the mountain:
  • 4. Kituwah:
  • 5. Circular depression near head of Soquee Creek east of old Soquee (now Batesville) PO (probably south and east of the Batesville label below). On the east side of 197/255 junction:
  • 6. Du′stăyalûñ′yĭ: place under Hiwassee River (now further submerged by the damning of the river) where the ghost townhouse and an Immortals location is (just northwest of Penland Island; to the left of the “Chatuge Lake” label in the map below). It’s a haunted place (nets drag, voices can be heard). You can see it by going to the Chatuge Dam Trailhead: 1407 Chatuge Dam Rd, Hayesville, NC 28904.
  • 7. Head of Yahoola Creek. Should be stone ruins around this valley. It’s haunted, and you might hear bells here. An entrance to the Underworld is here. From Preacher’s Rock Trailhead on Highway 60 to the east (Appalachian National Scenic Trail, Cleveland, GA 30528), it’s about a 1.5-mile hike along the ridge to the area circled below.

Their Domains Described

When entering the Immortals’ domains, which appear as wide open bottomlands when once you have entered, you’ll note that they use large turtles and thorny honey locust seats (which feel soft: a sign of spirits is their ability to withstand pointed things as if they were nothing) as furniture (these entrances include mountain balds like Chimney Tops and the tallest mountains, deep forests, inside large mountains accessed by caves like underneath Pilot Knob in NC; at Nununyi, or Potato Place in Cherokee, NC; on Nugatsani, a ridge with a long gradual slope below Cherokee, NC, on Oconaluftee River in Swain Co.; at lonesome water sources; in ancient mounds; and at ancient ruins like Old Stone Fort (TN) and Fort Mountain (GA); and along their fae lines like the Natchez Trace).

What to do Around Them

They enjoy gifts of music, tobacco smoke, or mashed cane root, or old arrowheads and tools (as they are fascinated by the tools of men). Christians should sing hymns, psalms, or spiritual songs to offer to their listening, pleasing them while also preaching Christ as Lord to them (hopefully saving some of them). An appropriate practice is to sing a portion of “Creator alme siderum” upon encountering an area sacred to the Immortals. Perhaps they will listen, as did the satyr to St. Anthony the Great in the desert. Regardless, they may show themselves by the glimmering sunlight through the trees and waters, and if you hear their drumming and music high up on a mountain or down in a cave or valley, do not try to find them. The music will remain just out of your reach, and you could get lost. (Source: Richards, Jake. “The Wee Folk of North America.” Holy Stones and Iron Bones. littlechicagoconjure13.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/the-wee-folk-of-appalachia/). They can also appear as someone you know and deceive you. If you were to enter their world, it would disappear when you left it so that you couldn’t find your way back into it. It takes a fast of four days normally to see the Immortals (one that does not fast will crumple in a heap upon entering their realms, and only stand with difficulty). Places associated with them are known to be haunted, and sleeping near one can arouse frightful dreams.

More Nunnehi Locations as Described Above

  • 8. Chimney Tops is an entrance to the Immortals’ world. Hike up to it from the trailhead, south side of Newfound Gap Road (on the right as you ascend). It’s a 3.6-mile hike. It’s before you get to the Alum Cave trailhead.
  • 9. Potato Place: a partial mound and Immortals site. It’s behind or next to the old football field shown below. It’s in Cherokee, NC (formerly it was called the “place of the Nunehi”). It should be next to or behind the old Cherokee High School football field on the Oconaluftee River (catty corner to the Bay Mountain Inn, at 1455 Acquoni Rd, Cherokee, NC 28719) (source: https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/18439/2/FINAL-FULL%20DRAFT%201-%20Muse%20Isaacs.pdf).
  • 10. Nugătsa′nĭ: Immortals were heard and seen on the flat area circled, and also on the long ridge above most likely. It’s in the middle of Cherokee, NC, and more easily accessed at 80-58 Clean Store Road, opposite the Burger King on the other side of the river (source: https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/18439/2/FINAL-FULL%20DRAFT%201-%20Muse%20Isaacs.pdf).
  • 11. Old Stone Fort (732 Stone Fort Dr, Manchester, TN 37355) in Manchester:

The “Moon-Eyed People”

Related to and sometimes confused with the topic of the Immortals is the “moon-eyed people.” They are described as having large pale eyes and termed moon-eyed by the Cherokee because they could see better at night than at day and because some of them had blue eyes. There was conflict between them and the Indians: a war was waged between the Creeks and the moon-eyed that the Creeks won because they attacked the strange race while the moon was in a certain phase that reduced their ability to see. Chief Oconostota told John Sevier in 1782 they were white men from across the “great water.” A Welsh prince named Madoc had explored our country 300 years prior to Columbian contact, but the full impact he and his followers had is unknown. A theory: Madoc probably bolstered the construction of the Uktena stone wall on Fort Mountain in Georgia and then was driven by the Creeks and/or the Cherokee west, where he and his men left a genetic imprint on certain fair- and blue-eyed tribes in Missouri. They could not have built the original stone wall on Fort Mountain, though, because it predates Madoc’s voyage. It is likely they used or strengthened it in their battles with the Indians or with the Uktena itself. The monument was originally built by Agan-uni’tsi in his hunt for the Uktena on Cohutta Mountain, or possibly by the Immortals and only later strengthened by Agan-uni’tsi.

  • 12. Rock Fort of Agan-uni’tsi (at the end of Old Fort Road, there’s a parking lot in Chatsworth, GA: take Hwy 52 into the park)

Fae Lines

The major Nunnehi fairy path is the Natchez Trace. The 444-mile path traces a basically straight line from Nashville to Natchez, Miss. It links the Emerald Mound near Natchez via the Bynum and Pharr Mounds in northeastern Miss. to the largest gravesite mounds near the former Glendale Park in South Nashville (the Noel Cemeteries, containing perhaps 8,000 graves, the epicenter of which is located west off Lealand Lane opposite the intersection with Greerland Drive, on the slope of a hill overlooking the Browns Creek valley), to the now leveled mounds of the French Lick, or Sulphur Springs Bottom; and right across the river to the former mounds in East Nashville (East Bank/River North); and to the vanished mound near the mouth of Stone’s River; all at Nashville, Tenn. The mounds probably begin a fairy line that starts at Castalian Springs in Sumner County, continuing southwest to the Rutherford-Kizer mound, thence to Cheyenne Hills overlooking Hill’s Island in Davidson County, to Sulphur Dell downtown, to Brentwood and Kellytown (Hillsboro and OHB), to Old Town outside Franklin, and on to the mounds in Mississippi mentioned above until Natchez, following roughly the Natchez Trace.

  • 13. Site of the Charleville or French Lick Mound in Nashville (from this report: The Jefferson Street Bridge Project: Archaeological Investigations at the East Nashville Mounds Site (40DV4) and the French Lick/Sulphur Dell Site (40DV5) in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/archaeology/documents/tdot-pubs/arch_TDOT_No07_JeffersonStreet_REDACTED.pdf)
  • 14. East Nashville mounds. The largest mound is probably just north (50m) of the bridge; smaller mounds are probably within the right-of-way. The graves stretched north along the river for at least a mile, as shown below.
  • 16. Mouth of Stones River at the Cumberland (border of Donelson and Hermitage):
  • 17. Beasley Springs Mound (Smith County):
  • 18. Sellars Farm Mound (Wilson County):
  • 19. Mound at Castalian Springs:
  • 20. Kizer Mound in Hendersonville:
  • 21. Cheyenne Hills Subdivision, overlooking Hills Island (A scale of an Uktena was found under the Cheyenne Hills subdivision just across the river above Hills Island (in the form of a calcite earplug; source: Distribution and Context of Worked Crystalline Artifacts from the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee Michael C. Moore, Kevin E. Smith,2 Aaron Deter-Wolf, and Emily L. Beahm, Southeastern Archaeology, https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/archaeology/documents/archparks/arch-parks_castalian-springs_sarc-33-01-25-41-e.pdf). This means some Nunnehi warrior in the distant past had encountered an Uktena, probably in some deep part of the Cumberland River, and triumphed over it (that, or he merely discovered the scale in a cave in which the Uktena had been—either way, the find indicates that Uktena are present in the Cumberland, which makes sense as its waters are connected with those of the Tennessee). The prize was dear enough to the warrior that he was buried in his stone grave with it.):
  • 22. Brick Church Pike Mound (may not be any trace left):
  • 23. Fewkes/Boiling Springs site (Brentwood):
  • 24. Mound Bottom (north of Kingston Springs in Cheatham Co., accessed from Hwy 70 E to the south):

The related “Pack” site adjacent to the south:

  • 25. Gordontown in Brentwood: mound and stone box grave site:

Kellytown (Aaittafama), in Brentwood (no mound):

  • 26. Old Town (outside Franklin):
  • 27. Riverview Mounds (Montgomery County, outside Clarksville):
  • 28. Shiloh Mounds (within the military park):
  • 29. Swallow Bluff Island Mounds:
  • 30. Bussell Island (Outside Lenoir City, Loudon Co.):
  • 31. Citico Mound site (Chattanooa):
  • 32. Bell Field Mound and Little Egypt and Sixtoe Mound, North Georgia (submerged):
  • 33. Etowah Mounds, North Georgia:
  • 34. Hoojah Branch Mound, North Georgia:
  • 35. Long Swamp site, North Georgia
  • 36. Nacoochee Mound, North Georgia:
  • 37. Rembert Mounds, GA/SC:
  • 38. Vicinity of Summerour Mound, North Georgia (submerged):
  • 39. Wilbanks Site, North Georgia (submerged):
  • 40. Biltmore Mound, Biltmore Estate, NC:
  • 41. Pisgah Mound, NC:
  • 42. Joara, near Morganton, NC:
  • 43. Annis Mound, Aberdeen, KY:
  • 44. Slack Farm Mound, KY:
  • 45. Tolu Mound, KY:
  • 46. Chauga Mound, SC (submerged):

Fairy Path Considerations

In Ireland it was always said that traveling along a fairy path is dangerous. This may be due to the fact that Irish fairies are of the anciently hostile Tuatha De Danaan race, who still harbor resentment at their displacement. The Natchez Trace, however, belonging to the Nunnehi, who have historically been well-disposed to men (or at least to the Cherokee and to Southerners during the Civil War), may therefore be safe to travel. However, still, never cut as much as a twig away from a fairy mound or fort, even in America. Certainly this would apply to Old Stone Fort on the Eastern Highland Rim, one of the Immortals’ greatest remaining edifices. If a house lies along a fairy path, the front and back doors may need to be left open or at least slightly ajar to allow the Immortals to pass through at night. Before building a house, stones can be left in a pile at each corner of the proposed footprint. If the next day the stones are undisturbed, it should be safe to build there. Fairy paths running across rivers may feature abnormal flora.

Middle Tennessee Ancient Peoples

In Tennessee, our knowledge of the local spirit beings comes mostly from the Shawnee and Cherokee Indians, who inhabited this area at certain times before us. No one knows what became of the Immortals, who receded into the underworld well before the coming of the White man. The Shawnee, a race of magicians, were expelled in 1682 after a few decades of settlement by a coalition force of the surrounding tribes (Cherokees, Creeks, and Chickasaws). Piomingo, the Chickasaw chief, called Mountain Leader, came from his home near Memphis and told of that war, which began after a sign from God convinced the coalition it was time to attack. The sign was the “[breaking] open [of] the mountains and [the shaking of] the rocks from their places of rest,” likely a cataclysm of the type that produced Reelfoot Lake. At the order of God, then, the fertile land to be known as Middle Tennessee thus became a great, wild, teeming hunting ground, bereft of permanent human settlements and ripe for the growth of civilization.