Show T T ors for i k K t alie I 1 i e Clie C h r roke J 0 k e L D 14 it 21 T ad 15 1128 Y 34 A sa s1 a rr J 67 ae 7 0 5 r 6 a 30 P ir 31 it 4 60 4 19 1 IV its jy Y 7 X 20 CD 45 Z 58 A 70 8 U r 59 a 71 2 4 RL 41 D 9 L W 60 r 72 0 a C 23 L I 1 56 36 C r A S P A nal nfl I 1 d r y 0 ILC uzl 2 r T 57 31 fc 49 9 9 62 T 1 ap p Q K 63 J I 1 35 W C IN 51 C 6 esq 76 ian 65 the cherokee alphabet H zoaa fg n e home sweet ahme X ZA aw mg 0 SS I 1 N I 1 tyby M 10 nv jbf me V Z A ch MU en ZM ux at 01 aa 2 N ph itch jimay limay Z 1141 eipl effs aar I 1 ef WM na i cwi WS W S bv SM y A 1 t vf V f jerie vv W 1 l y kit anzo zal a base of a a statu stathi sequoyah in m S sequoia i a tree ha n I 1 ia in california inthe the ua red states capitol IBS tt POW Gari gme tv t v caa X 4 the cherokee version of home sweet home 4 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 Ot ottaway tawas tecumseh of the shawnees black hawk of the sacs and foxes osceola of the seminoles Semi noles chief joseph of the nez perces and red cloud and sitting bull of the sioux brave as these men were and deservio deserving de servin of honor though they may be for being patriz patriots who fought la in defense of what they considered right there Is another a man of peace instead of war who seems destined to be remembered rei longer than any of the others lie ile was sequoyah of the cherokees F for or it was sequoyah who invented an alphabet and taught ills 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 nis ills statue stands in statuary hall in the capitol at washington the gift of the state of oklahoma as the symbol of ofie one of its two greatest men out on tile pacific coast there is an even greater memorial to sequoyah there great trees tower to the heavens heave 11 S some of them more than feet high they are 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 tw 0 species sequoia the rod red wood 0 of f the timber trade and sequoia gigant la the mg 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 to be perpetuated in the shadow of ve uie high smoky mountains where his people lived if a recent proposal to the board of geographic names of washington by the interstate 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 known as mount sequoyah for a long time there has been considerable mystery about the early history of sequoyah the maker of the cherokee alphabet but a recently discovered manuscript in the collections of the newberry library in chicago written by john howard paine the author of home sweet biome has done much to clear up the mystery this valuable record was dictated to paine by major lowry a cousin of sequoyah in tile presence of many cherokee chiefs and relatives in the cabin of the principal chief at a council of the nation nt at echota cechota in october 1835 the paine manuscript proves that sequoyah was not it a full blood indian but a half breed he was the son of a white nan man nathaniel gist who had been a trader among the cherokees and later was a lieutenant colonel of the indian allies who fought with washington in the french and indian war nis HIS mother wasa full blood cherokee woman of the print paint clan at the outbreak of the revolution colonel gist seems to have deserted his indian and son sen and returned to his own people in virginia ginia one authority says that this took before sequoyah was born and that his bis earned the boy george gist after his father though ile he had deserted her sequoyah Is the cherokee version of that name very early he developed artistic abill ability ity probably an inheritance from some ancestor in the paternal line he turned ills 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 ill place a and his friends began bringing liquor to him lie he soon developed a taste 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 min him to christianity it was by a chance conversation in ISO 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 avonel it to be merely an art and that be could himself invent a written language for the cherokees by a hunting accident which had crippled him he was afforded more leisure for study the prevalent pre alent idea among the cherokees was that the written page actually talked to the white man for this reason 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 lie he soon saw that their number was inadequate to the expression of a language in his meditation culminated in the idea that probably each mark meant a sound to test this he scratched with ills his knife on a stone G calling it wa 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 be applied he represented the word wa ku which is the cherokee name of cow at the same time he scratched out three dire e other figures to which lie he gave the sequent sounds of tsa qui 11 this being abeln the cherokee for horse haning thoroughly tested ills his discovery lie he next nest proceeded to formulate a symbol for each syllable for this purpose he made use ose of a number of characters which he found in an old english spelling book picking out capitals lower case italics and figures and placing them right side up and upside down without any I 1 idea dea of their sound or significance having thus made use of some 35 ready made ma de characters to which must be added a dozen or more produced by a modification of the same originals he designed from his bis own imagination as many more as was necessary to his purpose making 85 in all there were three dialects of the cherokee language the eastern lower middle and west ern upper the eastern and middle dialects were about the same excepting for the chan change chane e of I 1 or r and the entire absence of the labial from the eastern dialect the western differs considerably from the others particularly tn in the greater frequency of the liquid I 1 and the softening of the guttural g the changes tending to render it the most musical of all the cherokee dialects it Is also the standard literary dialect and the one spoken by most of those now constituting sti the cherokee nation in tile the west it was the only nip alphabet babet in the whole world to be finished by one man and was so complete that anyone understanding the cherokee Chero koo Jan language guage could upon learning the 85 characters of the alphabet read and write correctly despite some opposition the alphabet was soon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe and within a few months thousands of hith hitherto irto 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 CHEROKEE ALPHABET below are given by number the engirt equia equiv equivalent agents of the tha symbols in the cherokee Cherol cee alphabet shown above IA 1 A 21 SE 40 0 69 aca 2 and KA 22 DE and TE 41 GO 60 VU aha 3 HA 23 TLE 42 HO 61 DU ala 4 LA 24 TSE 43 LO 62 ama 5 MA 25 WE 44 MO 63 TSU 6 ana NA NAH 26 YE 45 NO 64 WU equa 7 QUA 27 1 I 46 QUO 65 YU asas 8 SAS 28 23 GI 47 SO 66 V 9 DATA 29 HI 48 DO 67 10 30 LI 49 aa HV 11 TSA 31 nil ml so 50 TSO 69 LV 12 WA 32 N na I 1 51 WO 70 70 NV 13 YA 33 0 OUI U X 52 YO 71 14 E 34 st sl sa U 72 SV 15 CE CC 35 DI and TI si 51 CU 73 DV in HE 36 TH 55 HU 74 17 LIZ LC 37 TSI se 56 LU 75 1 0 4 38 wl 57 NIU MU 76 WV 19 NE 39 YI ss 53 NU 77 YV 20 QUE 1 S who had emigrated to the arkansas jt it was at once taken up through the influence of Tak atoka da cataga a great chief who had previously opposed every effort of the missionaries to introduce their own schools and religion the next nest year 1823 sequoyah took up his permanent home with the western land never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen the first bible translation Int into otlie ehfe cherokee language lanqua ge was a portion of st johns gospel made by aasi or john arch a young native convert in the fall of 1824 using the alphabet in september 1825 david grown brown a prominent halfbreed half breed preacher completed a translation tr an of the new testament in the alphabet the work being handed about in manuscript as there were as yet no types cast in the sequoyah character in 1827 the cherokee council resolved to establish a national paper in the cherokee Chero keo language and characters types for that purpose were cast in domn boston under the supervision of the noted missionary worcester of the american can board of commissioners for foreign missions early the next nest 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 after a precarious existence esi stence of about six years the phoenix was suspended owing hostile action of the georgia authorities its successor after the ceriol removal al of the cherokees to the west was the cherokee advocate of which the first number appeared at tahlequah Tahle Table quah L I 1 T in istl 1811 1 in 1340 the cherokees cherol ees all moved west and reuniting with the old settlers as the arkansas baud band was called the nation was reorganized and tahlequah tallequah Tahle quah was designated as the seat ol of government taking its name from thi the old cherokee town of Tall kwa or Tel telico tellico lico in tennessee in this reorganization sequoyah played a prominent part but other things were in his mind uppermost was the idea of inventing a universal indian alphabet there was an old tradition of at lost baua banu ol of I 1 in n the far southwest in the hope of verifying this tradition and restoring his lost kinsmen to their tribe sennorah seq Sen oyah noyah set out la in as 13 with ill his son and an another companion somewhere near the village of san fernando mexico their ponies were either stolen or wan dered away and the old man went out alone to find them when his companions went out to ta be see e what had become of sequoyah the found him dead nis body was wrapped up with such each of his writings as he had with him and with other mementos of his great life he ha had along with him as Is the indian custom they put the body on a shelf in a small cave care 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 grave in old mexico holds the dust of one of the greatest indians who ever lived sequoyah the cherokee Chero keo cadmus who 9 gave ave his people a written language Q 0 by western Wea terin unions |