Swannanoa Gap
| Swannanoa Gap | |
|---|---|
| Suwali Nûⁿnâhi | |
Location in the United States Location in North Carolina | |
| Elevation | 2,657 ft (810 m) |
| Traversed by | I-40 / US 70 |
| Location | North Carolina |
| Range | Blue Ridge Mountains |
| Coordinates | 35°37′17″N 82°16′13″W / 35.6215074°N 82.2703954°W |
The Swannanoa Gap is a pass in the eastern United States through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Asheville plateau. The pass sits on the Buncombe-McDowell County line in North Carolina near the head of the Catawba River. Long traversed by Native Americans, its trail was the first road into Buncombe County from the east.
According to James Mooney, a prominent ethnographer of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the pass was used by the Cherokee to reach the land of the Sara. The Cherokee name for the pass is Suwali Nûⁿnâhi. Mooney wrote it was "the pass through which ran the trail from the Cherokee to the Suwali or Ani-Suwali, living east of the mountains." The names of the census-designated place of Swannanoa, North Carolina, the Swannanoa River, Lake Swannanoa, New Jersey, and Swannanoa, New Zealand are derived from its name. Its name in modern Cherokee syllabary by the neographer Sequoyah is not known.