The Cherokee arrived in the area around 1600, and built a series of small villages along Little River. The name "Tuckaleechee" is from the Cherokee "Tikwalitsi", and its original meaning is unknown. A branch of the Great Indian Warpath forked at this site, with one branch heading west to the Overhill towns along the Little Tennessee River and another heading south to North Carolina. 19th-century anthropologist James Mooney recounted an attempted raid on the Cherokee villages in Tuckaleechee by the Shawano (Shawnee) in the mid-18th century. The raid was thwarted when a Cherokee conjurer named Deadwood Lighter envisioned the position of the Shawano ambush. The Cherokee surprised the raiders from the rear, killing many of them and chasing the rest back over the crest of the Smokies.