Eastern Band reports vandalism at Kituwah, Cherokee birthtown

Wednesday, January 19, 2011  

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina says someone vandalized Kituwah, the ancestral Cherokee home.

Someone lifted a gate to the site and drove a pickup truck over the Kituwah mound. “We feel like it was an act of vandalism and luckily there was little damage to the mound itself,” historic preservation officer Russ Townsend told The Tuckasegee Reader.

Kituwah is the birthplace of the Cherokee people. It was home to the tribe's ancestral village and the site of a year-round sacred flame.

The Eastern Band owns the site but it is not held in trust. An application was submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2006.

Get the Story:
Cherokee mothertown, Kituwah, target of vandalism (The Tuckasegee Reader 1/18)