Is there a historical consensus on the "Moon-Eyed People" of pre-Columbian Tennessee?

As /u/ahalenia mentioned, James Mooney popularized the idea of the Moon-eyed People in his Myths of the Cherokee. His source was Benjamin Barton's New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America. Barton, in turn, got his information from Colonel Leonard Marbury, who heard it from some anonymous (as far as Barton is concerned) Cherokee. Interestingly, Barton associates the Moon-eyed People with the Guna, who had expanded from Columbia along the Panamian coast after the Spanish arrived. This is because of the unusually high incidence of albinism among the Guna and his association of the Moon-Eyed People with albinism in folklore. Barton's reasoning is rather flimsy, though admittedly, Guna with albinism have historically been associated with the moon and it's certainly a better hypothesis than those attribute the Moon-Eyed People to some wayward Europeans, which many following Mooney have expounded (who brings up the Moon-Eyed People as part of a larger discussion of an extirpated "white race"). I still think both ideas are way off the mark though.

Based on what Barton and Mooney wrote regarding the Moon-Eye People, I'd classify them as one of the many types of other-than-human people that populated the mythic landscape of the Cherokee. Whether they have any kernel of historic basis is almost irrelevant because by the time Barton and Mooney are writing about them, they're clearly not portrayed as human people. The Moon-Eyed People are described as being unable to see in daylight, and by extension being nocturnal (their superior night vision is why they're called "Moon-Eyed"--it's not a reference to a pale eye color as those who favor a European identity for the Moon-Eyed People claim, always going a step farther to equate pale eyes with blue eyes). If Barton's description of the Moon-Eyed People as albino is accurate (it's a bit unclear why he makes that connection), then we could also pull some information from Mooney's various "white people" that had been expelled from the region. These are described by his informants as "very small" and "perfectly white" (and explicitly distinct from "whites" in the sense of Europeans) that lived in what were essentially earth lodges beneath and within various local earthworks (the construction of many of the older earthworks was likewise attributed to these beings). Like Barton's Moon-Eyed People, these other-than-human peoples migrated west after the Cherokee moved into their territory.

Based on descriptions like these, it's my opinion that the Moon-Eyed People fit in with other examples of other-than-human peoples common in the Cherokee mythos, including the Tsundige'wi, Yunwi Tsundi, Nunnehi, the De'tsata, etc. The Moon-Eyed People seem to have been used to explain the origins of some pre-Cherokee earthworks, and perhaps found some inspiration from the peoples the Cherokee encountered as they migrated down from the Iroquoian heartland, or perhaps picked up from the mythos of other peoples that mingled with the Cherokee as they expanded further south into northern Georgia. Many of the sites associated with these mythic peoples, like the Hiwassee River, are at the southern fringes of the old Cherokee Nation, which weren't acquired by the Cherokee until the 1700s; alternatively, they might be based on older myths that had their locations updated to fit a contemporary context as the Cherokee migrated and expanded.

This all, of course, assumes that "The Moon-Eyed People" are actually part of Cherokee folklore. There's some question on the reliability of Barton's source, Marbury, as Barton is the only one who seems to noted any entities called "the Moon-Eyed People" or any similar name--though, again, assuming the albinism link is also accurate then it would appear that the Moon-Eyed People tie into the similar myths, just using a different primary descriptor.