| Show for Sequoyah the ther Cherokee t iQ o i 1 D I Ii It 27 T o dy 51 a 1 S 15 28 2 y 41 A 5 St St. J 67 E ES l 16 i 1 Iu 55 r 6 r W r 30 P C 11 G t 5 1 6 of 9 I h j s. s 54 18 1 c a 31 U II 44 57 y 60 t. t G 19 31 I. I r 45 Z 58 5 q 1 O. O a Q s p F 7 Z 33 P l' 4 59 71 h 4 Ir M 8 U E 21 i 4 o r a a L 47 of 60 r 72 71 g u y 9 i 22 S 1 14 48 s z o A 1 S 73 t 1 f a 23 L 3 36 C 42 j 62 1 dY 74 P IL G J o 24 f kry J 7 Jr r 50 J 63 d cJ 7 75 C M t s 12 G 25 3 38 A 6 51 C u. u 6 vz 76 16 6 s 13 26 6 II a 39 Ji 52 G 65 C 77 71 H D Ht Dt t The Cherokee Alphabet s w I s e f S s s Ya z f i t u o TT m uY I S Sr If 1 r ZA VA a f 1 ry t t r k w ZA It Db Knot OCA za t eR V w ws 2 s Dh Db DhA B Hf iii v 4 t tv A CI piL i. i r rig s c a w y s lt h l h G. G Q air 4 e Jerri ot i heat It Base Bae of a a. Statue in t e 4 I. I Sequoia Treo Hall i in Art California United HE H 8 3 s. o CA M 1 ePY J. J ift O O J Lei i i Ka OUZO MW Tile The Cherokee Version o of f Home Sweet Home Hom 4 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON of a great Indian and ana the o average e Am American rl usually thinks of ot one of ot those chiefs who won fame by their warlike deeds and the wars which they wu waged 11 against the conquering white whiteman man man King King lp Ihl of the Warn Warn- pl noa of the of the Shawnees Black Hawk of the Sacs Sars and Foots Fo Osceola Osceola Osce Osce- i ola of the Seminoles t Chief Joseph of the Nez and Jt Red lied tI Cloud and Sitting Kitting Hull null of the Sioux ns liS these st men were wIre find and l' l deserving of honor though they mn may he ht for being patriots patriot who fought In defense of what they considered rl right ht there Is II another n n man of pence peace Instead of war who war who seems destined to ho bo remembered s longer than any of the others other r He lie was Sequoyah of the tho Cherokees For It was Sequoyah who Invented an nil alphabet and taught his people to 10 write talk on paper Ia fa so that talk staled and remembered Itself and who won for himself the title of the Cadmus of the Cherokees Ills statue stands In Statuary Stat Stat- nary uary hall In the Capitol nt at Washington the gift of the state of Oklahoma as ns the symbol of one of Its two greatest men Out on the coast there Is an 1111 even ln greater memorial to So Se There great trees tower to the heavens heavens- some of them more than 00 feet tt high They g are the oldest living things In the world their rs ages being estimated at nt from 2000 to JOO years The picture boe Indicates the tbt size sze of If if these giants Its girth Is R 81 1 feet fed These Thee trees perpetuate I the memory of Sequoyah for the two t fT species Sequoia fl the red wood of cf the timber trade and Sequoia gigantic the big or mammoth tree were given their scientific ri names In honor of the till Cherokee Indian Now a II new honor Is proposed for Sequoyah and ond his name nam Is to be he perpetuated In the shadow t of If the high Smoky mountains where his people 1 lived Jived If It a r recent proposal to the hoard boar of 1 geographic names II'S of Washington by the Interstate interstate Inter inter- state nomenclature nOl commission of North I Carolina Carolina Caro Caro- lina hina and Tennessee Is accepted the peak Just southwest of Old Black standing more than fl feet t above e sea Fn level 11 will be known kno as us Mount Sequoyah For a long time Hmo there has been considerable mystery about the early arly history of Sequoyah the maker of If the Cherokee alphabet Hut But a II recently t discovered manuscript In the collections of If th the I Newberry library In Chicago written by John 0 Howard Paine the author of Home J Sweet SweetHome SweetHome Home lies has done much to clear up the m mystery This valuable record W was as J dictated to PaIne b by Major dalor I Lowry a 8 cousin In of S Sequoyah 1 1 In the thet thel t l presence of many Cherokee chiefs and relatives In the cabin calsin of If the principal chief at a 0 council i of the nation at In October 18 1585 The 1111 Paine manuscript proves prowl that Sequoyah was us not nota a full blood Indian but a n half breed lie He was the son of a white man Nathaniel Gist who ho had hadi i been a trader amon among the Cherokees tad fid later was oas a lieutenant colonel of the Indian allies who ho t i fought with Washington In the French and InI Indian In In- I dian dlan war war- Ills His mother was a full tull blood Chero- Chero Cherot t iee kee woman of the Taint Paint clan s At tho outbreak of If the devolution He Colonel ti GJ cit Cist t seems ems to have hate deserted his Indian wife If and son and returned to his own people In Vir Vir- ginia One authority sass that this tills took place before Sequoyah Sequoah was as born and that teat his mother named the bo boy George e Gist after Arter his father a t It l I I I. I though he hud had deserted her Sequoyah Is the Cherokee version of that name nome Very Iry early he lie developed artistic ability probably probably ably an Inheritance from some ancestor In the paternal line lie He turned his artistic ability to making articles of silver which were In much demand among the tile Cherokee braves braves bracelets bracelets nose bobs bob and chains Unfortunately for him his shop became n a popular loafing place and his friends began bringing liquor to him lie He soon developed a taste for the white mans man's firewater and was rapidly succumbing to Its lis In Influence In- In thence fluence when 1 he came In contact with a n white whiteman whiteman man either a trader or a missionary who rescued rescued res res- cued curd him from his drunken habits and ami converted o him to Christianity It wo was by a n chance conversation In ISO 1501 that was is-as led Ild to reflect upon the ability of the white man to communicate thought by means of or writing The general theory with many Indians In In- was that the written speech of the white whiteman whiteman whiteman man was one of the mysterious gifts girts of the great spirit Sequoyah boldly avowed o It to be merely an art and that he could himself Invent In n a written language for the Cherokees Iy Ily a hunting accident which had crippled him he was afforded more leisure for study The prevalent Nr Idea Idla among the Cherokees was wars that written page pOle actually talked to the white man for this reason they railed called It ft the talking Ila leaf Sequoyah noticing the strange cabalistic marks conceived the Idea hiM that each tl one represented n a word but upon getting a n hook book and counting the different marks thereon he soon Ilon saw liaw that their number was Inadequate to the expression of a language In 1501 his meditation medi tation tallon culminated In the Idea that probably each Iah mark meant a 11 sound To test tNt this he scratched d with his knife on astone n u stone D O. O calling It wa and l l' l 13 which he railed relied ku This Tills demonstrated to tn him the probable feal feasibility of his ills Idea Idla us liS by these two marks and the sounds lOunds that he applied he tie represented the word wa-ku wa which Is the Cherokee name of cow At the lII same time he hI scratched out three e other figures to which he gave ne tile the sequent sounds Rounds of tsu tsa quI II II this being the Cherokee for horse placing Having thoroughly tested his discovery IlIsco he hI next proceeded l to a II s symbol for each ach syllable syllabic For this purpose he made mode use nse of a number of characters which he lie found In an nn old 1111 spelling hook book picking out capitals lower Yr case Italics and figures and placing pl them right side up tip and upside down without any Idea of their sound Found or significance Having thus ma made le use of sonic some 8 ready made characters to which be lie added a dozen doren or lr more produced b by a II 1110 modification of the same originals he hie designed from his bis own Imagination n as many more as liS was necessary to his purpose making 85 So In all nil There were three dialects of the Cherokee kte language the eastern lower louver middle and wc west western tern t- t ern Mn upper The lal eastern and middle dialects were about the same excepting for the change of I 1 or r and the entire absence of If the labial from th the eastern dialect The fhe western differs considerably from the others particularly In Inthe Inthe th the greater frequency of the liquid 1 I and the softening of the guttural g g. g the changes tending to render It the most musical of nil all the Cherokee dialects It Is also the standard literary dialect and the one spoken by most of those now constituting constituting con eon the Cherokee nation In the West rl t. t It was the only alphabet In the whole world to io be lie finished by one man Dlan and was wn so complete complete com eom- that anyone understanding the Cherokee language could upon learning the K So 5 characters of the alphabet al read and write trite correctly 11 Despite some opposition ul m. m the alphabet was soon rt recognized as an Invaluable In Invention for fM the elevation of or th the tribe and within a 11 few v months thousands of hitherto Illiterate Cherokees were able to read nad and write their own language g In IS J Sequoyah visited the West Nest to Introduce Introduce Introduce Intro- Intro duce the new learning among those of his Lis tribe THE CHEROKEE ALPHABET Below are given rinn by number the English equivalents equivalent of the symbol in the Cherokee alphabet shown bowD above 1 A 21 SE 40 0 II 89 9 2 GA and nd KA 22 DE and TE 41 GO Co 60 vu tl 3 IIA hIA 23 TLE 42 HO 61 DU 4 I IA A 24 TSE 43 LO 62 TL U S II MA MA 25 WE 44 MO 0 63 TSU TSUe e 8 NA NAH NAI Ze 21 YE 45 NO 84 WU 7 QUA 27 I 48 OUO 65 YU YUa a 8 SAS 28 CI 47 SO 66 V 9 DA TA 29 HI 48 DO 67 CV V 1 10 DLA LA 30 LI 49 40 no 68 NV IV 11 TS TSA 31 MI so ISO TSO 69 LV 12 WA 32 NI III 61 WO 70 N NV g 13 VA 33 QUI OUI 62 2 YO VO 71 OLIV Or 14 E 34 51 63 U 72 S 15 GE CE 35 DI and TI 84 GU CU 73 DV lA HF 38 36 r. 55 Ii J 74 V 17 LE ui 37 TSI 1St 1111 IoU U 75 T TV SV 14 u. u 38 Wt WI MU 78 76 WV V 19 NC NC 39 YI 58 NU 77 YV V Q QUE who had emigrated to the Arkansas It was at nt once taken up through the Influence of Da gulu a n a great chief who had previously opposed every effort of the missionaries to Introduce introduce Intro Intro- duce dure their own schools and religion The next neit year 1 1 Sequoyah took up his permanent home with Ith the western land never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen The first Bible Hible translation Into the Cherokee language was n a portion of St. St Johns John's gospel made by lIy or John Arch a n young youn native convert conert In the fall of I u wing using ln the alphabet In September IS ISI I David avld Brown n a prominent half breed preacher completed a II translation of the New lw Testament In the alphabet the work being handed about In manuscript II as there were wIre as us yet jet tt no types cn cast t t In the Sequoyah character In 1 1ST the Cherokee council resolved to establish establish es IS h a 1 national paper In the Ch Cherokee language lan Inn guage and characters types for that purpose were east cast In Boston Haston under the supervision of the not noted 1 missionary Worcester of the Amerlean Amer Amer- ican lean hoard board of commissioners for foreign mis mis- I Early Farly arly the next nest year jear the press and types arrived nt at New IW and the first number of the till new paper lago lao the Cherokee Phoenix printed In both buth languages appeared ap ap- on on February 21 1 lS After a precarious existence of about six years I the Phoenix was su suspended owing to the hostile action of the Georgia authorities Its successor after the removal of the Ihl Cherokees to the theIst West Nest was the Cherokee Advocate tI I I of or which the first number appeared at nt Tahlequah I. I T T. In 1 ti 41 In 1810 Hie 1111 Cherokees nil all moved NI West and reuniting with the Old OKI Settlers as ns the Arkansas Arkan Arkan- sa sas hand was called the nation was reorganized and Tahlequah w was as designated as the seat sent of government l taking It Its name from front the old Cherokee town of or Tellico In Ten Ten- neSSI In this reorganization played a prominent part purt but other things were ere In his mind uppermost was wOt th the Idea of Inventing a universal Indian alphabet Th There rt was teas an nn old tradition of or n a lost loot band of Cherokees who ho were believed 1 to be he somewhere In the far Southwest In the hope of verifyIng verify verify- Ing this tradition and restoring his lost bast kinsmen Kins kins- men to their tribe I Sequoyah set out In 1843 with his son sou and another companion SO Somewhere I near Iwar the village tillage of San an Fernando Mexico their ponies I were either stolen or wandered wen wan 1 tiered dered Ul away and the old man mun w went out alone to find tind them When his companions went out to see sec what had become of Sequoyah lIh they found him dead III Ills Illy body bOlly was teas wrapped up I with of If his such writings ns as he had with Ith him anI and with other mementos of If his great groat life he ha had 1 aion along with him ns os Is U the Indian custom put They the body on a 11 shelf In a 1 small put In lag Ing could disturb cave where notIng not anti It They said sal they marked the place so they could find it but the men sent si-nt on from Indian Territory to bring the home horn I failed to find the place e. body J y ySo So an nn unmarked grave o In 01 Old 1 Mexico the dU dust 1 of If one of or the greatest holds bold lived the Indians who ever Cherokee ms ga gave ve his people a written who language Q PJ by py I pa r Union |
