The Mysterious Moon-Eyed People May Be A Myth, Or A Civilization Lost To Time
Within the Appalachia region lie some mysterious ancient ruins, and from its depths rose a Cherokee legend hinting at a civilization that predated the landing of Columbus in America and possibly even the Native Americans themselves.
According to Cherokee legend, moon-eyed people lived deep in the woods of what is now North Carolina and Georgia.
They were small in stature, had pale skin and blue eyes, and were sensitive to light, so they slept during the day and were active at night.
These beings were not mythical or monstrous like others that have appeared in Indigenous folklore. In fact, the moon-eyed people were human, just like the Cherokees.
Some suspect that the moon-eyed people were related to Welsh settlers who arrived in the area hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus.
In the 18th century, European settlers started trickling into North America, which was when the first records of the legend of the moon-eyed people surfaced.
According to writings from 1797 by Benjamin Smith Burton, an American botanist and educator, the Cherokee had told the settlers that when they first arrived in the country, it was already inhabited by moon-eyed people who couldn’t see during the day.
In 1782, a Cherokee chief, Oconostota, told the story to Tennessee governor John Sevier. Oconostota said his ancestors had reported that “white men” had crossed the ocean long ago and landed near the mouth of the Alabama River.
It is believed that the moon-eyed people were Europeans, possibly Welshmen, who came to North America during the 12th century.
Alexander Ozerov – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Burton wrote that the Cherokees had “expelled these wretches.” The myth of the moon-eyed people aligns with a Welsh legend about a prince named Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd. In 1170, Madoc and his brother Rhirid fled from Wales because of a civil war between their other brothers.
They sailed west and eventually hit North America, where they established a settlement. Madoc planned to bring back more people from Wales.
Eventually, they disappeared altogether. These Welsh princes could be the ancestors of the moon-eyed people.
Oconostota told Sevier that Welshmen had built mounds in the area. Welsh settlers that arrived in North America also observed many similarities between their culture and the Indigenous culture.
They noticed stone forts that resembled the ones their ancestors constructed back in Wales, and some of the Indigenous people had pale skin and blue eyes. Certain Indigenous languages even sounded like Welsh.
Across the Appalachian foothills, there are strange sites that some people believed were made by the moon-eyed people.
For instance, the ruins of a once-imposing wall still stand in Fort Mountain in Georgia. It was nearly 900 feet long and 12 feet thick, and parts of it were seven feet tall.
It looked almost like European battlements. Historians have estimated that the wall was built between 400 and 500 C.E., which precedes the arrival of the Welsh princes by hundreds of years.
Another artifact that is said to be from the moon-eyed people is a statue of two people with flat faces, either standing close together or conjoined.
The statue was dug up by a farmer in the 19th century and is now housed in a history museum in Murphy, North Carolina.
It is unclear whether the moon-eyed people crafted the figurine themselves or if it was made in their likeness. So, are the moon-eyed people just a myth? Or were they a real civilization that was lost to time?
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