Show stories lories of GREAT ady INDIANS y ELMO m SCOTT WATSON 0 1922 western newspaper anjun SEQUOYAH THE CADMUS OF THE CHEROKEES T THIS HIS Is the story ot of an indian who robe to tame fanie not as warrior nor as orator but as the hie inventor of an aa alphabet for hla his people which enabled them to write and read their oin own language sequoyah ot of the cherokees was born in tennessee in the boy grew up among tho the I 1 indians a unacquainted with the white mans tongue or any of his arts an accident made him a cripple for or life and ho he became a craftsman in and a sl tIlled mechanic ue ile also made pictography pictographs showing the great deeds of the cherokee on the warpath karpath war path in 1809 impressed by the value of the white mans talking leaves books sequoyah concel conceited celner Ned a system of writing suitable to the cherokee tongue undismayed by ridicule he persisted in his studies until convinced that the cherokees Chero keea had bad SO 80 syllables which in various combinations bi constituted their vocabulary ills his next nest problem was to design symbols for each syllable and that being done he be taught his six year old daughter to build words from these symbols in 1821 sequoyah demanded a trial for his alphabet and in a public test be proved its worth the chiefs endorsed his invention and cherokees of nil all ages learned the all alphabet babet with enthusiasm thusia sm the next bear ear he left hla his village in georgia to visit the ch cherokees ere in arkansas and carry his in invention en success to them again he was success f ful ul two years later parts of the bible bif were printed in cherokee in 1823 the cherokee the first periodical ever printed in any indian language an was published as a weekly at new echota cechota ga when tribesmen were removed to indian territory he was the great leader in organizing the reunited nation but he was little interested in politics anong among his people was the tradition of a lost cherokee tribe that had wandered west before the revolution although sequoyah was then more mora than eighty years old he resolved to carry his message of education to the tha lost tribe ills his quest led him into mexico ico and there in august 1843 weakened by privation he be died ue was mas buried in an unknown grave but he was to lo have a grander memorial than any monument of stone when the big trees of california were discovered v it was decided to call these giant redwoods sequoias an everlasting tribute to an indian who gave his people a printed language of their own |