The way Verin (or was it Adeleas/Vandene, can't recall), they sounded more like a kind of sect of freaks obsessed with the Paendrags. in the vein of the Amayar.

My guess is that between the damane, the beasts that Westanders associate to Shadowspawn and the authorian ways of the Seanchan, the Watchers got totally confused. That's certainly not the kind of Return they had been expecting, especially that in the Westlands true knowledge of Hawkwing's period is dim even among scholars. Likely, the Watchers worship more legends than truths.

We also know there's a lot of lost history regarding that area, but it's really hard to connect all the dots from very tenuous hints. We know the Paendrag fleet sailed more or less from Falme, and earlier than that we know the area was tied to the Tree of Life symbolism (that's been variously connected by people to either the departure point of the future SF/Amayar during the Breaking, or others even believe the location of Falme isn't far west of the (now drowned in the Aryth?) location of Paraan Disan. It does sort of fit with the travels of the Da'shain in TSR. It was also the area in which Guaire Amalasan was born and proclaimed himself. but it's all really, really tenuous, especially since we don't even know if the Watchers were local born, or just the descendants of a group of fanatics driven to Falme where they set a watch desperately hoping for the return of Luthair, during the chaos of the War of Hundred Years.

Curiously, though, the Watchers are pretty much the sort of obscure topic we could very well learn more about in Harriet's Encyclopedia.