In the mountainous region of northern Georgia, East Tennessee, and western North Carolina, you can still hear tales told of the moon-eyed people who only come out after dark on moonless nights because light hurts their eyes. If you leave them alone, they may do your farm chores for you. The origin of these folk is supposed to go back way before pre-Columbian America. They pre-dated the Cherokee in these mountains, and when the Cherokee drove them off their lands, they started avoiding all human contact. They are short, pale-skinned, and have unusually round eyes.
Who were these short, round-eyed people who predated European colonization? Some speculate they could have been Welsh, a people who were also called "moon-eyed" at one time because they worked in deep mines and could see in the dark. Could they have been a race of albinos? Strangely, white skin weren't a part of their description by the Cherokee. Except these supposedly Cherokee tales aren't even part of Cherokee culture. They first appeared in print in 1797, as a legend told by white settlers about the Cherokee. But the moon-eyed people are still thing, and the park rangers at Fort Mountain State Park, where a short stone wall is said to have been built by the moon-eyed people, get plenty of questions about them. Read what we know about the legendary race of moon-eyed people at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Cherokee County Historical Museum)
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