According to Cherokee Legend who called this portion of the Appalachian chain of Mountains in the Carolina’s their native homeland for thousands of years prior to incursion by the Spanish in the 1500’s, the Great Creator had favored their people with this breath taking jewel comprised of rich green covered peaks, fertile valleys teeming with flora and fauna by gifting their forefathers with this paradise after creating it. High up the food chain in their belief system, the Cherokee People valued the ever present healing springs that welled up from their mountain paradise cascading down as a series of waterfalls in ever widening clear cool rivers on their respective routes to the coastal plains of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Indian wisdom had it that certain spring heads (points where streams originate) had not only the power to heal (injured warriors sought out these locales for the recuperative effects after battle for days at a time) but believed that these healing effects were magnified around the myriad waterfalls found throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hard to deny that point nowadays as later American settlers, after pushing the Cherokee off of their homeland, originated towns and settlements with the term “spring” attached to the name of the settlement. To understand what it was that the Cherokee were attempting to convey, all one has to do is hike along the trails (or drive under them as the photo shows at one location outside of Highlands, N.C.) by these falls breathing in the supercharged air to know
beyond knowing that these in tune natured based people understood the dynamics at play in our modern day mountain home here in the Carolinas. Make it a point to pack up the car, hit the road, and grab that restorative weekend getaway adventure you keep promising yourself you are going to take.
Posted at 06:54 AM in Scenic Attractions | Permalink | Comments (0)
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