Writing CInerokee History - TSDCurriculum

Writing CInerokee History
T
HE CHIEES STARED at Ayoka as she was brought
into the room. Was she scared? No, just a little
nervous. Was she afraid she would fail? No, she knew
her papa had taught her well.
But she also knew the great importance of this meeting.
The Cherokee people had been laughing at her papa.
Some said that he was under a witch's spell and should
be sent away. Ayoka must now do her part to change
their minds.
She saw her papa at the other end of the long room,
but she knew she must not look at him. The chiefs might
THAT . . .THAT'S
VOUR
Sl-EP?
by James Gilbertson
Art by Yoshiko Miyake
an © 2012 by Yoshiko Miyake
think that they were signaling to
each other. Soon one of the chiefs
whispered to her papa. Her papa
made marks on a piece of paper
and handed it back. The paper was
brought across the room to Ayoka.
It was her big moment.
In her strongest six-year-old voice,
Ayoka read the markings on the page.
For the first time ever, a Cherokee
Indian was reading her own language!
Everyone gasped. Was this a trick?
The chiefs demanded another
test. This time, a chief whispered to
Ayoka. She wrote down what he said
and then was taken out of the room.
Her paper was given to her papa. He
stood and proudly read exactly what
she had written.
The room buzzed with excitement. In 1821, no North American
Indian from any tribe could read
and write his or her own language.
Could this six-year-old girl really
read and write Cherokee? And how
did Ayoka's papa, Sequoyah, invent
this amazing writing system?
Ir P O E S K ' T LOOk LIkE A S L E P
TO ME, AKP / ' M . S T A K P I K G STILL.
Sequoyali's System
Sequoyah was bom around 1770
in Tennessee. When he was young,
settlers were taking over his tribe's
nation. Cherokee chiefs had signed
many treaties to protect their people,
but Native Americans still kept losing
their rights and land. The Cherokee
called these treaties "talking leaves"
because they thought the white
man's promises dried up and blew
away like leaves.
In the early 1800s, Sequoyah
moved to a farm in Georgia and
became a silversmith. Like most
Indians at that time, he could not
read, write, or speak any English.
He was interested in how white
men could talk to each other by
making strange marks on paper. If
the Cherokee people could read
and write their own language, he
thought, then they could better
communicate and protect their
rights. But Sequoyah's tribesmen
laughed when he shared his ideas.
They said that reading and writing
THIS IS THE ACTUAL SLEIGH HE T R A V E L E P
\H TO SIGK T H E CHIPMUhik TREATIES, AGREEMENTS
BETWEEK STATES OR RULERS. Ir WAS MAPE SPECIALLY
FOR HIM BY A SILVERSMITH, A PERSOK
WHO MAkES ArJP REPAIRS OBJECTS MAPE
OF SILVER.
11
were the way of the white man, not
the Indian.
In 1813, he and other Cherokee
men joined the U.S. Army. As
Sequoyah watched American soldiers
write letters home and record the
events of the war, he wished that his
people could do the same. He grew
even more determined.
When Sequoyah returned home,
he decided to focus entirely on
writing. He stopped doing his farm
work and built a small cabin in the
woods, away from his people. He
began drawing symbols for animals,
trees, and other objects on birch bark,
using burned sticks as pencils.
Sequoyah's tribesmen did not
understand why he spent so much
time alone. Many of them thought
his writing was a form of witchcraft. Some were so afraid that they
burned down his cabin, with all his
work inside.
But Sequoyah had struggled with
hardships and unkindness before. His
father was a white man. Sequoyah
was teased as a half-breed, even though
he thought of himself as only Indian. He
was handicapped with a lame leg and
walked with a crutch. No, he would
not give up.
He started over. He soon realized
that it was not practical to draw a
yoOHOO, ^U&GI£S! OUR HOLIPAV FUP&£ WILL
&£ ft£APV \H iciST A MlKUT£ . . . 5PIP£R! W H V
..•• AR£ VOLI TVIK& £V£RVBU&&V TO A SPOOK?
12
symbol for every word. As he carefully
listened to people's speech, he noticed
that the same sounds could be combined to make a lot of different words.
He created a symbol for each sound
and worked until he had 85 symbols
that could form any word.
Sequoyah's youngest child and only
daughter, Ayoka, spent many hours
quietly at his side, watching him work.
His system was so simple that Ayoka
learned to use it in about three days.
It had taken Sequoyah twelve very
hard years, but now his invention was
just right.
very useful. The Cherokee became
the first tribe in America that could
read and write in their own language.
They started the Cherokee Phoenix,
a newspaper in the Cherokee language. Cherokee history and songs
were recorded and preserved for future
generations, and the Bible and other
important writings were published in
Cherokee.
His work, however, was not done.
Sequoyah still needed to convince
Cherokee leaders that his system
could help their people. He could not
do this alone. So when it was time
to present his invention to the tribe,
Sequoyah brought Ayoka with him.
No one knows exactly what happened at the tribal council meeting.
But after Ayoka's test, the chiefs
agreed that Sequoyah's system was
13
Sequoyah's tribe honored him
with a medal and made him a
chief. The giant Sequoia trees in
California were named after him,
and a Sequoyah statue stands in the
U.S. Capitol building. This great
man—^handicapped, ridiculed, and
uneducated—dedicated his life to
preserving the Cherokee language.
Together, Ayoka and Sequoyah
proved that written words were
not just marks on a page. They
were a powerful force that could
unite a people. ^
Instead of learning an alphabet like the white men did, the Cherokee learned symbols
for the sounds (syllables) they used in everyday speech. That is why Sequoyah's system
is called a "syllabary." Each Cherokee symbol represents a syllable, not just a consonant
or a vowel.
For example, ama ("water" in Cherokee) is written with three letters from the
English alphabet: a, m, and a. But using the Cherokee syllabary, ama is written with
only two characters because the word has two syllables: "a" (written as D ) and "ma"
(written as
14
Copyright of Spider is the property of Carus Publishing Company and its content may not be copied or emailed
to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However,
users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.