Chilhowee was a prehistoric and historic Native American settlement on the Little Tennessee River in present-day eastern Tennessee that became an important Overhill Cherokee town. Some scholars identify it with Chalahume, a Muskogean village visited by Juan Pardo in 1567, though that remains uncertain. By 1761 Henry Timberlake recorded 18 dwellings, a townhouse, headman Yachtino, and 110 warriors, showing Chilhowee’s strength on the river. Cherokee tradition also tied the place to stories of the Utlunta and the False Warriors of Chilhowee. Burned in 1776 during a retaliatory expedition, the town later disappeared beneath Chilhowee Lake, but its name remained across the region.