Kituwa in western North Carolina is an ancient Cherokee place of exceptional historical and spiritual importance, remembered as the Cherokee original town and one of their seven mother towns. First settled in the Woodland period, it later gained a platform mound built about 1000 CE, atop which the Cherokee repeatedly rebuilt a townhouse that served communal and ceremonial life and was linked in tradition to a sacred flame. The town was destroyed by British forces during the Anglo-Cherokee War, and the Cherokee later lost control of the land. Repurchased by the Eastern Band in 1996 and placed into trust in 2021, Kituwa remains a protected center of Cherokee identity.