The Nunnehi

The Nunnehi are an immortal people from Cherokee tradition. Most of what is known about them comes from James Mooney, an ethnologist with the Smithsonian’s Bureau of American Ethnology, who lived among the Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina between 1887 and 1890 and published their stories in Myths of the Cherokee in 1900.

Mooney translates their name as the people who live anywhere. They are also called the Immortals.

According to Mooney’s informants, the Nunnehi lived throughout the highlands of the old Cherokee country.

They had many townhouses, especially in the bald mountains, the high peaks where no trees grow.

Their largest townhouses were in Pilot Knob and under the old Nikwasi mound in North Carolina, and under Blood Mountain in Georgia.

They were usually invisible, but when they chose to be seen, they looked and spoke like Cherokee.

They loved music and dancing, and hunters in the mountains sometimes heard their drumming without being able to find where it came from.

They were friendly to the Cherokee. They often helped lost travelers, especially in winter, taking them into their warm townhouses until they were rested, then guiding them home.

Mooney also recorded that the Nunnehi helped in war.

A powerful enemy tribe once attacked Nikwasi, the oldest Cherokee settlement, near present day Franklin, North Carolina.

The defenders were losing when strange warriors appeared and joined the fight.

As the Cherokee fell back toward the mound, they saw hundreds more pouring out of it.

Once on the battlefield, these warriors became invisible. The enemy could see arrows flying and hatchets swinging but not the men using them.

Most of the invaders were killed, and the survivors fled home. The Cherokee then understood that the Nunnehi lived under the mound.