Show new anixt honors for Seu sequoyah oyah the che C he roke I 1 V e ift az T jo 4 IS r A 16 k 4 29 0 1 55 1 ap 0 30 ta 43 G 5 cg 60 6 0 G 19 A 7 X Z 58 q 70 33 P 6 ta 71 J 1 1 9 L W 22 TP IU 35 47 60 r 72 IR r A 73 r jo 23 L 36 C ai 00 IL G K IV r 74 P ar 57 fr C y 12 C 25 50 ak 63 J 75 7 C 0 51 k ar ax X IF p C 26 3 6 39 Z 51 fi 65 C 7 77 the cherokee Al l f za j aw sweet za ZA gazbar A wa riz ach elk L 2 ar db bar of JL q VW se cju base ba se of in tree liall I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 the states juva MW WT 16 IP hv d io erdi er yow yi fwu jerf t KA kanj aej the cherokee version of oi ahme nome sweet home by ELMO SCOTT WATSON PEAK of a great indian and the average american usually thinks of one of those chiefs who won fame by their warlike deeds and the unsuccessful wars which they waged against the conquering white man king philip of the pontiac of the ottaway Ot tawas tecumseh of tile the shawnees black hawk of the sacs and foxes osceola of the seminoles Somi Semi noles chief joseph of the nez perces and red cloud and sitting bull of the cloux crave brave as these men were and deserving of honor though they may be for being patriots who fought in defense of what they considered right there Is another a man ban of peace instead of war who seems destined to be remembered longer than any of the others lie he was sequoyah of the cherokees for it was sequoyah who invented an alphabet and taught his people to write talk on paper so that talk stayed and remembered itself and who won for himself the title of the cadmus of the cherokees his statue stands in statuary hall ball in the capitol at washington the gift of the state of oklahoma as the symbol of one of its two greatest men out on tile the pacific coast there Is an even greater memorial to sequoyah there great trees tower to the heavens some bone of them more than feet high they are re the oldest living things in the world their ages being estimated at from 2000 to years the picture above indicates the size of these giants its girth Is 84 feet these trees perpetuate the memory of sequoyah for the two species sequoia the red wood of the timber trade and sequoia gigantic gig antia the big or mammoth tree were given their scientific names in honor of the cherokee indian now a new honor Is proposed for sequoyah and his name Is 18 to be perpetuated in the shadow of the high smoky mountains where his people lived if a recent proposal to the board of geographic names of washington by the inter state nomenclature commission of north carolina and tennessee Is accepted the peak just southwest of old black standing more than feet above sea level will be b known as mount sequoyah for a long time there has been considerable mystery about the early history of sequoyah the maker of the cherokee Cne alphabet but a recently discovered manuscript in n the collect collections lons of the newberry Kew berry library in chicago written by john howard paine the author of home sweet home has done much to clear up the mystery this valuable record was dictated to pattie by major lowry a cousin of sequoyah in the presence of many cherokee chiefs and relatives la in the cabin of the principal chief at a council tit of the nation at echota in october 1830 1835 the I 1 paine manuscript proves that sequoyah was not it a full blood indian but a halfbreed ile he was the son of a white man nathaniel gist who had been a trader among the cherokees tild nd later was a lieutenant colonel of the indian allies who fought with washington in ili the french and indian war his mother was a full blood cherokee woman of the paint clan at the outbreak of the revolution colonel gist seems to liae hae deserted his indian wife and son and returned to ills his own people in virginia one authority says that this took place before sequoyah was born and that his mother named the boy george gist after his father though lie he had bad deserted her sequoyah Is the cherokee version of 0 that name very early he developed artistic ability probably an inheritance from some ancestor in the paternal line ue ile turned his artistic ability to making articles of silver which were in much demand among the cherokee braves bracelets nose bobs forgets and chains unfortunately for him his shop became a popular loafing clare and his friends began bringing liquor to him ile he soon developed a taste tor for the white mans firewater and was rapidly succumbing to its influence when he came in contact with a white man either a trader or a missionary who rescued him from his drunken habits and converted him to christianity it was by a chance conversation in asoo that sequoyah was led to reflect upon the ability of the white man to communicate thought by means of writing the general theory with many indians was that the written speech of the white man was one of the mysterious gifts of the great spirit sequoyah boldly avowed it to be merely an art and that he could himself invent a written language for the cherokees by a hunting bunting accident which had crippled him he was afforded more leisure for study the prevalent idea among the cherokees was that the written page actually talked to the white man for this re reason son they called it the talking leaf sequoyah noticing the strange cabalistic marks conceived the idea that each one represented a word but upon getting a book and counting the different marks thereon he be soon saw that their number was inadequate to the expression of a language in 1809 his meditation culminated in the idea that probably each mark meant a sound to test this he scratched with his knife on a stone G calling it na a and E which he called ku this demonstrated to him the probable feasibility of his idea as by these two marks and the sounds that he applied he represented the word wa ku which Is the cherokee Chero koe name of cow at the same time he scratched out three other figures to which he be gave the sequent sounds of tsa qui if 11 this being the cherokee for horse having thoroughly tested his discovery he next nest proceeded to formulate a symbol for each syllable for this purpose he be made use of a number of characters which lie he found in an rid old english spelling book picking out capitals lower case italics and figures and placing them hem right side up and upside down without any of their sound or significance having thus made use of some 35 ready made characters to which must be added a dozen or more produced by a modification of the same originals lie he designed from ills his own imagination as many more as was necessary to his purpose making 85 in all there were three dialects of the cherokee cheroke e language the eastern lower middle and western upper the eastern and middle dialects were about the same excepting for the chan change ge of I 1 or r rind and the entire absence of the labial from the eastern dialect the western differs considerably from the others particularly in the greater frequency of the laiq liquid uld I 1 and the softening of the guttural g the changes tending to render it the most musical of all the cherokee Cne dialects it Is also the standard literary dialect and the one spoken by most of those now constituting sti the cherokee nation in the west it was the only alphabet in the whole world to be finished by one xan man and was so complete that anyone understanding the cherokee language could upon learning the 83 85 characters of the alphabet read and write correctly despite some borne opposition the alphabet was soon goon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe and within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate cherokees were able to read and write their own language in 1822 sequoyah visited the west to introduce the new learning among those of his tribe THE cl CHEROKEE ALPHAS ALPHABET ET below are given g iven by ni number limber the tl ie english engl nh equivalents equivalent of the symbol 1 in the cherokee alphabet shown above I 1 A 21 SE 40 0 59 2 GA and KA 22 DE and TE 41 GO CO 60 VU 3 HA 23 TLE 42 HO 61 DU 4 LA 24 43 LO 62 S MA 25 WE 44 MO 63 TSU 6 NA NAH 26 YE 45 NO 64 WU 7 QUA 27 1 I 46 QUO 63 YU 1 I 1 SAS 28 GI CI 47 SO 50 66 V 9 DATA DA TA 29 HI 48 4 a DO 67 CV 10 DLA 30 LI 49 4 9 68 6 HV 11 TSA 31 nil MI SO 50 TSO 69 LY LV 12 WA 32 NI 61 51 WO 70 NV 13 YA 33 QUI 52 YO 71 14 E 34 SI 53 U 72 SV IS GE as DI and TI 54 CU 73 DV in 10 HE 38 36 TU ft C HU 74 17 LE 37 TSI so 59 LU as in 14 4 r I 1 38 wt wl 57 MU 78 76 WV 19 NE 39 YI ss 58 NU 77 YV 20 QUE who had emigrated to the arkansas it was at once taken up through the influence of Tak atoka atolia da cataga a great chief who had bad previously opposed every effort of the missionaries to introduce their own schools and religion tile next year lear 1823 sequoyah tools tool up his permanent home with the western land never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen the first bible translation into the cherokee language was a portion of st johns gospel made by abst or john arch a young native convert in the fall of ir 4 using the alphabet in september 1825 david brown a prominent halfbreed half breed preacher completed a translation of the new testament in the alphabet the work being handed banded about in manuscript as there were as yet no types cost cast in the sequoyah character in the cherokee council resolved to establish a national paper in the cherokee language and characters types for that purpose were cast in boston under the supervision of the noted missionary worcester of the american can board of commissioners for foreign missions early the next year the press and types arrived at new echota cechota and the first number of the new paper tsa lago the cherokee phoenix printed in both languages appeared on february 21 isis after a precarious existence of about six years the phoenix was suspended owing to the hostile action of the georgia authorities its successor after the removal reni oval of tile the cherokees to cheavest the west AVest was the cherokee advocate of which the first number appeared at tahlequah tallequah Tahle quah 1 I T in 1844 in 1840 lie file cherokees all moved west and reuniting with the old settlers as the arkansas band was called the nation was reorganized and tahlequah tallequah Tahle quah was designated as the seat of 0 government taking its name from the old cherokee town of Tali Tall kwa or tellico bellico Tel lico in tennessee in this reorganization sequoyah Re played a prominent part but other things wore were in his mind uppermost was the idea of inventing a universal indian alphabet there was an old tradition of a lost band of 0 cherokees aho ho were believed to be somewhere in the far southwest in the hope of verifying this tradition and restoring his 1111 1 lost kinsmen to their tribe sequoyah set out in 1843 with his son and another companion somewhere near the village of san fernando mexico their ponies were either stolen or wandered away and the old roan man went out alone to find them when his companions went out to see what had become of sequoyah they found him dead ills body was wrapped up lip with such of his writings as he had with him and with other mementos of his great life he had along with him as Is the indian custom they put the body on a shelf in a small cave where nothing could disturb it they said they marked the place so they could find it but the men sent on from indian territory to bring the body home failed to find the place so an unmarked grae in old mexico holds the dust of one of the greatest indians who ever lived sequoyah the cherokee cadmus who gave his people a written language I 1 b by western union |