Thin Places, Sacred Places, Haunted Places
An installment in our Folklore & Legends series
Stand below a mountain’s rock face when sunlight catches the creases in the stone. A ledge resembles a wall; a dark opening suggests a door. You might study the slope and look for a way up. But in a Cherokee account from the Appalachian mountains, a doorway in the rock led somewhere else entirely.
The mountain was Tsuwa’tel’da, which Folklorist James Mooney identified as Pilot Knob near Brevard, North Carolina. In his notes, he recorded that its sunlit cliffs were said to resemble walls with doors and windows. The Cherokee storyteller Swimmer told him about a man who went inside.
His name was Tsuwenahi.
A welcome inside the mountain
Back in his settlement on the Pigeon River, Tsuwenahi has worn out his relatives’ patience. He spends much of his time in the woods but brings home no game. They have grown tired of feeding him.
At last, he asks them to fill a pouch with parched corn. He will bring back a deer or never trouble them again.
Soon after leaving the trail, he meets a stranger who invites him to a nearby town. Relatives of Tsuwenahi live there, the man explains. Ashamed to return to his own settlement empty-handed, Tsuwenahi goes with him.
The stranger leads him to a cave in Tsuwa’tel’da. The passage runs into the heart of the mountain, then opens onto country like a broad river bottom. There is a settlement with hundreds of people. They welcome Tsuwenahi and bring him to their chief, who offers him a seat near the fire.
Tsuwenahi sits down and feels the seat move. Looking again, he discovers a turtle with its head sticking out of its shell. He jumps up. The chief reassures him, and he sits down carefully. The turtle draws in its head.
Food follows, the same kind Tsuwenahi eats at home. The chief takes him through the settlement to meet its people. After several days, Tsuwenahi wants to return home, and the chief leads him to the cave entrance and shows him the trail down to the river.
Back among his neighbors, Tsuwenahi tells where he has been. They laugh at him.
The way in has conditions
Tsuwenahi keeps visiting the mountain people. Eventually, another hunter agrees to go with him. They make a camp in the woods, and Tsuwenahi goes ahead.
Two nights later, the hunter hears him returning. Girls’ voices accompany him, though no one else is visible. Tsuwenahi explains that two friends have come with an invitation to a dance. They also want some venison. The hunter gives them meat from the deer he has killed.
When they return for him two days later, he can see the girls. Together, they make their way to the mountain.
At the far end of the cave passage, with houses visible beyond it, the hunter’s legs fail him. He cannot stand. He hasn’t prepared himself by fasting. A medicine-man treats him with tobacco, and he is able to enter.
Inside the townhouse, another seat awaits. This one has long honey locust thorns sticking out of it. Encouraged by Tsuwenahi, the hunter sits down and finds them soft as feathers.
He stays for the dance. When the two men return to their settlement and describe what they have seen, people believe them. Others want to go.
Tsuwenahi tells them to fast for seven days while he makes arrangements. At the end of that time, he comes for them. They leave with him for Tsuwa’tel’da, and their friends never see them again.
The mountain has offered a welcome, but accepting it may mean leaving one’s former life behind.
Where thin places fits
Someone reading that account today might think of thin places in Appalachia: places where ordinary life and a spiritual world seem close enough to meet.
The expression is often associated with Celtic spirituality and the Scottish island of Iona. The Iona Community attributes thin-place imagery to minister George MacLeod. It gives a modern reader a familiar way into Swimmer’s account, though it wasn’t the name he used for the mountain.
What he described was a place where people lived. They received visitors and held dances. Reaching them required preparation, and those who entered might stay. The story gives the mountain a meaning that its outward appearance alone cannot reveal.
Sacred ground and a troubled house
Near Bryson City, another place carries spiritual importance without an account of entry through a cave. At Kituwah, a low mound stands in an open landscape. It once supported a council house at the Cherokee mother town.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians purchased Kituwah in 1996. Thirty years later, former Principal Chief Joyce Dugan spoke at a celebration there about what its return meant. She described home through the care that holds a community together, and the family traditions taught and celebrated there. Kituwah was that home.
For a visitor, the mound may be the first thing to notice. Hearing Cherokee people speak about the ground brings something else into view: a relationship with homeland that continues in the present.
A haunted house can hold a different kind of account. John Jackson, the African-American musician and storyteller with roots in Virginia’s mountains, learned “The Preachers and the Spooks” from his mother.
In her tale, a preacher agrees to spend the night in a haunted house. He makes a fire and settles in with his pipe. A cat comes to the door, and he lets it in. Later, he looks over and sees a large dog with red eyes where the cat had been. As it grows larger, he flees through a window.
Another preacher stays. The appearances eventually take human form and tell him about two people murdered and buried beneath the floor. After their bodies are found, the haunting ends.
Jackson inherited this tale rather than witnessing its events. We don’t know where its house stood. What his telling preserves is an account in which a place remains troubled until a hidden wrong is brought to light.
Return now to the mountain’s rock face. The ledges remain, and sunlight still catches the creases in the stone. Knowing the tradition hasn’t revealed a hidden entrance. It has given you a reason to pause before moving on.
There is more to knowing a place than seeing what’s there. Part of knowing it is listening to the people who have called it home.
More Appalachian Folklore
See more mountain legends, local tales, and story traditions on the Folklore page.
Appalachian Folklore and Legends Collection
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