The Nunne'hi and Other Spirit Folk
The Nunne'hi or immortals, the "people who live anywhere," were a race of spirit people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a great many townhouses, especially in the Bald Mountains, the high peaks on which no timber ever grows.
They had large townhouses in Pilot Knob and under the old Nikwasi' mound in North Carolina, and under Blood Mountain, at the head of Notley river, in Georgia. They were invisible excepting when they wanted to be seen, and then they looked and spoke just like other Indians. They were fond of music and dancing, and hunters in the mountains would often hear the dance songs and the drum beating in some invisible townhouse, but when they went toward the sound it would shift about and they would hear it behind them or away in some other direction, so that they could never find the place where the dance was.
They were a friendly people, too, and often brought lost wanderers to their townhouses under the mountains and cared for them there until they were rested and then guided them back to their homes. More than once, also, when the Cherokee were hard pressed by the enemy, the Nunne'hi warriors have come out, as they did at old Nikwasi', and have saved them from defeat. Some people have thought that they are the same as the Yunwi Tsunsdi', the "Little People"; but these are fairies, no larger in size than children.
A well known story relates how the Nunne'hi once attempted to move the Cherokees to their own world where they would never sicken or grow old. These stories relate how the Nunne'hi came to all the Cherokee villages and told the inhabitants to fast for seven days and seven nights. The Nunne'hi returned on the seventh night and led all those who had fasted to a nearby mountain (now called Pilot Knob) where the villagers passed through the solid rock and into the realm of the Nunne'h. Since the majority of the Cherokees had not kept faith with the Nunne'hi and had not completed the fast, they remained behind. Since that time, the Cherokees have waited in vain for the Nunne'hi to return.
Spirit Defenders of Nikwasi'
Index
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page