Cherokee inscription,
Manitou Cave, Alabama.
Internet, Public Domain.
We
now know that writing was invented numerous times in human history, but very
seldom do we get to know exactly who invented a writing system and exactly what
their original creation was.
"Back in the 18th
century, when tribes such as the Cherokee were a subject of study by white
settlers, the natives in turn were amused by the "talking leaves"
they possessed. They could communicate and transmit messages, a skill that to
the people unfamiliar with the concept of an alphabet, or reading and writing,
seemed more like magic. There were many members of the Cherokee who were
against their society's assimilation with the white people and tried to prevent
it in many different ways, mostly by emphasizing the importance of their own
cultural elements."
(Radeska 2018)
Cherokee syllabary, Sequoya.
Wikipedia, Public Domain.
"Nobody did as
much as the man known as Sequoyah. Observing and analyzing the newcomers and
their "talking leaves," Sequoyah decided that creating a system that
would allow his people to communicate and transmit their own stories and
messages might help prevent the assimilation and the loss of Cherokee culture.
Hence, he invented the Cherokee syllabary with which to write the Cherokee
language. This was one of the two times in recorded history when a pre-literate
person created and original and efficient writing system." (Radeska 2018)
"It took Sequoya
12 years to finish the work he started in 1809. At first, he had been ridiculed
and insulted. Even his wife was said to have burned his initial work as she
believed it was some form of witchcraft. But the man didn't give up." (Radeska 2018)
"Although
he first experimented with logograms, his final product resulted in a system of
86 symbols, each representing a syllable. He studied the Greek, Latin, and
Cyrillic alphabets and even borrowed a few symbols from them, but the sounds
and representations of each in the Cherokee syllabary hs no similarity. When
Sequoya finished his project, he had to find a way to present it to his people,
who were very skeptical at first and couldn't see the importance of his
work." (Radeska 2018)
"Sequoyah's first
student of his new linguistic system was his six-year-old daughter, Ayokeh (in
some places mentioned as the daughter of his brother-in-law). He taught her the
system of reading, and then went to the Indian Reserves in the Arkansaw
Territory, where he found local leaders, the first people he needed to
convince. Sequoyah asked each one of them to tell him a word, which he wrote
down. Then he called Ayokeh to read what he had written. His tactic turned out
to be convincing, and he got permission to teach the syllabary to more
people."
(Radeska 2018)
Viewing Cherokee inscriptions,
Manitou Cave, Alabama.
www.ntd.com, Public Domain.
Now
a team has identified and deciphered inscriptions found in a cave in Alabama
written in the Cherokee script. "Inside
Manitou Cave in modern Alabama, nineteenth-century Cherokees carried out sacred
ceremonies, recording their activity on the walls using (the) Cherokee
syllabary, a system invented in nearby Willstown by Cherokee scholar Sequoyah.
Through collaboration between modern Cherokee scholars and Euro-American
archaeologists, the authors report and interpret - for the first time - the
inscriptions in Manitou Cave. These reveal evidence for secluded ceremonial
activities at a time of crisis for the Cherokee. Pressures from the surrounding
white populations disrupted the Cherokee ancient lifeways, culminating in their
forcible relocation in the 1830s along the Trail of Tears." (Carroll
et al 2019:519)
Although
there are extensive examples of partial words and symbols in the Cherokee
script on the walls throughout the cave "we
focus on two areas within the cave where Cherokee inscriptions are extensive
and where their meanings can be translated. The first area is more than 1.5km
into the cave's main passage, the second approximately 300m from the cave
entrance. Each area contains multiple inscriptions, and one inscriptions in the
deeper area includes a written date. Associated with these inscriptions are
signatures, one of which is a name that appears twice in the cave and which
significantly enhances the historic importance of the site. All of the
inscriptions in the two areas concern ceremonial and/or spiritual matters; they
were probably made in the seclusion of the cave and were not intended for
general audiences." (Carroll et al 2019:524)
"One inscription
on a wall deep inside the cave, translates as, "leaders of the stickball
team on the 30th day in their month April 1828." (Bower 2019)
"Other
inscriptions on a ceiling near the caves entrance may be religious messages to
Cherokee ancestors or other supernatural beings. The script is written
backward, likely because it was intended to be read by residents of what they
Cherokee considered to be a spirit world reachable only via Manitou Cave, the
researchers say."
(Bower 2019)
I
am certainly not a scholar of the Cherokee language or writing but I have a
problem matching some of the symbols in inscriptions retrieved from the
internet with characters in the Cherokee syllabary I found on Wikipedia.
Perhaps I am just failing to recognize the backward characters, or perhaps some
of the inscriptions contain ligatures. The paper by Carroll, Cressler, Belt,
Reed, and Simek does not mention any ligatures in the inscriptions but I find
myself wondering if any of the characters are indeed ligatures. "In hand writing, a ligature is made by
joining two or more characters in atypical fashion by merging their parts, or
by writing one above or inside the other." (Wikipedia) I will have to
leave that determination to the experts.
In
any case these discoveries provide a fascinating look at a painful period of
history, and underscore the importance of some historic inscriptions to our
understanding of past events.
NOTE:
Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for
public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public
domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner
will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should
read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Bower,
Bruce
2019 Newly translated Cherokee cave writings reveal
sacred messages, April 16, 2019, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/newly-translated-cherokee-cave-writings-reveal-sacred-messages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature
Radeska,
Tijana
2018 How Sequoyah, inspired by "talking
leaves," invented the Cherokee writing system, Feb. 24, 2018, https:/www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/024/cherokee-writing-system/
Carroll,
Beau Duke, Alan Cressler, Tom Belt, Julie Reed, and Jan F. Simek
2019 Talking Stones: Cherokee Syllabary in Manitou
Cave, Alabama, Antiquity, Vol. 93, Issue
368, p. 519 - 536.
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