SEQUOYA

excerpts from MYTHS AND SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES by James Mooney


'About this time (1821) occurred an event which at once placed the Cherokee in the front rank among native tribes and was destined to have profound influence on the whole future history, viz., the invention of the alphabet.

The inventor... was a mixed-blood known among his own people as Sikwa'y (Sequoya) and among the whites as George Gist.... On his mother's side he was of good family in the tribe, his uncle being a chief in Echota.... Sequoya was probably born about the year 1760.... he never attended school and in all his life never learned to speak, read or write the English language....  Of an essentially contemplative disposition, he was led by chance converstion in 1809 to reflect upon the ability of the white men to communicate thought by means of writing, with the result that he set about devising a similar system for his own people....

After years of patient and unremitting labor in the face of ridicule, discouragement, and repeated failure, he finally evolved the Cherokee syllabary and in 1821 submitted it to a public test by the leading men of the Nation.... The syllabary was soon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe, and within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate Cherokee were able to read and write their own language, teaching each other in the cabins and along the roadside....  The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful effect on Cherokee development.  On account of the remarkable adaptation of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn the characters to be able to read at once.  No schoolhouses were built and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the study of the system.... An active correspondence began to be carried on between the eastern and western divisions, and plans were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to be established at the capitol, New Echota."

When you drive through Cherokee, NC, all the streets and most of the businesses have both Cherokee and English posted.  The preschool children have what they call "immersion" class and the children only speak Cherokee.  All graduates of Cherokee High School must have at least one course of Cherokee.  There are ongoing adult Cherokee language classes also. It has been said that the language of a people insures the culture.  Cherokee is alive and thriving.