Native American Legends
The Legend of Sequoyah
A Cherokee Legend
Most historians credit Sequoyah, the most famous Cherokee, with
the invention of the syllabary. However, some oral historians contend
that the written Cherokee language is much, much older. But even
if there was an ancient written Cherokee language, it was lost to
the Cherokees until Sequoyah developed the syllabary. The development
of the syllabary was one of the events which was destined to have
a profound influence on our tribe's history. This extraordinary
achievement marks the only known instance of an individual creating
a totally new system of writing.
Born in the 1770s in the Cherokee village of Tuskegee on the Tennessee
River, Sequoyah was a mixed blood whose mother, Wureth, belonged
to the Paint Clan. Sometimes the young man was known by his English
name, George Gist or Guess, a legacy from his white father. Sequoyah,
reared in the old tribal ways and customs, became a hunter and fur
trader. He was also a skilled silver craftsman who never learned
to speak, write or read English. However, he was always fascinated
with the white people's ability to communicate with one another
by making distinctive marks on paper - what some native people referred
to as "talking leaves".
Handicapped from a hunting accident and therefore having more time
for contemplation and study, Sequoyah supposedly set about to devise
his own system of communication in 1809. He devoted the next dozen
years to his task, taking time to serve as a soldier in the War
of 1812 and the Creek War. Despite constant ridicule by friends
and even family members, and accusations that he was insane or practicing
witchcraft, Sequoyah became obsessed with his work on the Cherokee
language.
"It is said that in ancient times, when writing first began,
a man named Moses made marks on a stone. I can agree with you by
what name to call those marks and that will be writing and can be
understood," attributed to Sequoyah.
Some historians say that ultimately Sequoyah determined the Cherokee
language was made up of particular clusters of sounds and combinations
of vowels and consonants. The eighty-five characters in the syllabary
represent all the combination of vowel and consonant sounds that
form our (the Cherokee) language. In 1812, Sequoyah's demonstration
of the system before a gathering of astonished tribal leaders was
so dramatically convincing that it promptly led to the official
approval of the syllabary.
Within several months of Sequoyah's unveiling of his invention,
a substantial number of people in the Cherokee Nation reportedly
were able to read and write in their own language. Many mixed bloods
were already able to read and write in English, but the syllabary
made it possible for virtually everyone in the Cherokee Nation,
young and old, to master our language in a relatively short period
of time.
In 1827, the Cherokee council appropriated funding for the establishment
of a national newspaper. Early the following year, the hand press
and syllabary characters in type were shipped by water from Boston
and transported overland the last two hundred miles by wagon to
the capital of the Cherokee Nation, New Echota. The inaugural issue
of the newspaper, "Tsa la gi Tsu lehisanunhi" or "Cherokee
Phoenix", printed in parallel columns in Cherokee and English
appeared on February 21, 1828. It was the first Indian newspaper
published in the United States.
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