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I am not certain how many of you have read the book, but I received a copy of
"Tell Them They Lie"
published by Traveller Bird, a purported direct descendent of Sequoyah who wrote his work in 1971 that was published by, I believe, Western Lore Publishers. According to the work Bird had considerable support from a rather famous Indian activist that was active during the beginning of Indigenous resistance named Clyde Warrior.
According to the book "Sequoyah" is a made up identity of a man who never existed, the true name of his ancestor he asserts was "Sogwili Gigage'i" (Red Horse Town) Sogwili or "Horse" was his name for short, he was name for the town in which he was born, and contrary to popular belief, was not a mixed blood, but a full blood Cherokee.
In addition the book makes the rather surprising assertion that, the Cherokee syllabary the "real" one had its origins in Pre-Contact times. That another tribe called the "Taliwa" was absorbed among them and they had supposedly brought "gold plates" upon which the original syllabary, known as the "gohwelodi" was inscribed.
Now, I would have to argue that this element of the story is evidence of either biblical or mormon doctrine seeping into Cherokee tradition what with the "gold plate" hypothesis and all, but there are certain aspects of Bird's book that prove compelling to the theory relating to at least an "earlier" origin of the writing system.
The accepted theory of course is that the half Cherokee man "Sequoyah" single handedly "invented" the Cherokee syllabary. And that the "original" syllabary was too complicated, that is to say to curly and expressive, to be easily turned into block print, so....at the request of Moravian Missionary Samuel A. Worcestor, this "Sequoyah" was invited to choose letters from the Latin and Greek alphabets to replace those that the missionaries deemed to difficult to print.
There is even a paper purported to show the "Original" curly and expressive characters of "Sequoyah" side by side with the syllabary that we have today. I don't remember in which collection it is however.
However, when we look at Traveller Bird's chart of the gohwelodi, there is no similarity between it and the supposed "original" syllabary of the infamous "Sequoyah", and this becomes all the more interesting when one considers the story that is presented in Bird's book in further detail.
He claims that, the real guy "Sogwili" was not an inventor of the syllabary, but rather a protector of the original "gohwelodi" and a member of the "Seven Clan Scribe Society" and that these people, in order to combat the "civilization" program of Washington DC that was intent on sending missionaries throughout Cherokee country to educate them in English only schools and perpetrate a cultural genocide against them, he got his people together and took those loyal to the traditonal ways away from those schools and taught them to read and write in the gohwelodi instead.
Then, much later, after the dissolution of the original and traditional Cherokee system of governance, in favor of one modeled after the bureaucratic US government, the "New Order" of Cherokees intercepted a letter written in the gohwelodi on corn shuck paper and were able to capture and imprison Sogwili as a result. They accused him of being a witch and cut off his fingers, nose, and ears, his wife's ears as well.
However, somehow word got out that a Cherokee had "invented" a writing system for their language. The Cherokee "New Order" could not very well send the mutilated Sogwili to Washington, because of the questions that would naturally arise about why he'd been so deformed, so they quickly "invented" a syllabary based on imperfect knowledge gleaned from Sogwili and others, replaced many of the characters with English/Latin ones. Rathern than sending "Sogwili" to Washington they sent Thomas Maw, son of Hanging Maw, in his stead and gave him the title that would go down in history "Sequoyah".
If this scenario is indeed true than it would naturally conclude that the conspirators also had to "invent" the fake "original" syllabary that is presented alongside what might arguably be called the "Sequoyan" syllabary that we have today.
The problems with Bird's work are numerous however, one is that he cites hundreds of "documents" that are said to be written in this gohwelodi and provides English translations of certain of them. He however, does not provide the original documents at all, not even photographs of them (since scanners didn't exist at the time of the publication) nor does anyone appear to know the location of said documents today.
Also, he gives a syllabary chart of the 92 character gohwelodi, but does not provide any sort of pronunciation key. He doesn't even give a side by side comparison of the current "Sequoyan" syllabary and the gohwelodi.
This, one might make the argument for, is because he desired to keep the gohwelodi secret while at the same time making it public. That is to say he wanted people to know "about" it, but not how to "use" it.
The next problem arises in that, whereas Bird argues that the "gohwelodi" which he presents is of purely Indigenous origin, when one looks at several of the characts it is clearly evident at least some of the characters are of Western origin.
If indeed the syllabary is of pre-European, or at least older origin than is presently suggested, than it would naturally conclude that, these characters within the "gohwelodi" that "look like" Western characters simply must've been borrowed from the Spanish alphabet after the voyage of De Soto through the Southeast and subsequent trading relationship developed between the Spaniards and the Inians in the region, in the bloody wake of De Soto's initial destruction.
I've read contemporary Cherokees today, lend credence to the idea that the syllabary might have ancient origins and the one that we use today may not be entirely the original, Wilma Mankiller for exmaple, spoke of such things.
When I asked Durbin Feeling about it, he said he'd always heard, among some people, the story of a more ancient origin for the script, even prior to the publication of the book. I had always wanted to contact Traveller Bird, if he is still living, but Feeling told me that many have attempted just that and failed. Nobody seems to know where he's at, if indeed he's still living, nor who and where his descendents might reside.
"Tell Them They Lie"
published by Traveller Bird, a purported direct descendent of Sequoyah who wrote his work in 1971 that was published by, I believe, Western Lore Publishers. According to the work Bird had considerable support from a rather famous Indian activist that was active during the beginning of Indigenous resistance named Clyde Warrior.
According to the book "Sequoyah" is a made up identity of a man who never existed, the true name of his ancestor he asserts was "Sogwili Gigage'i" (Red Horse Town) Sogwili or "Horse" was his name for short, he was name for the town in which he was born, and contrary to popular belief, was not a mixed blood, but a full blood Cherokee.
In addition the book makes the rather surprising assertion that, the Cherokee syllabary the "real" one had its origins in Pre-Contact times. That another tribe called the "Taliwa" was absorbed among them and they had supposedly brought "gold plates" upon which the original syllabary, known as the "gohwelodi" was inscribed.
Now, I would have to argue that this element of the story is evidence of either biblical or mormon doctrine seeping into Cherokee tradition what with the "gold plate" hypothesis and all, but there are certain aspects of Bird's book that prove compelling to the theory relating to at least an "earlier" origin of the writing system.
The accepted theory of course is that the half Cherokee man "Sequoyah" single handedly "invented" the Cherokee syllabary. And that the "original" syllabary was too complicated, that is to say to curly and expressive, to be easily turned into block print, so....at the request of Moravian Missionary Samuel A. Worcestor, this "Sequoyah" was invited to choose letters from the Latin and Greek alphabets to replace those that the missionaries deemed to difficult to print.
There is even a paper purported to show the "Original" curly and expressive characters of "Sequoyah" side by side with the syllabary that we have today. I don't remember in which collection it is however.
However, when we look at Traveller Bird's chart of the gohwelodi, there is no similarity between it and the supposed "original" syllabary of the infamous "Sequoyah", and this becomes all the more interesting when one considers the story that is presented in Bird's book in further detail.
He claims that, the real guy "Sogwili" was not an inventor of the syllabary, but rather a protector of the original "gohwelodi" and a member of the "Seven Clan Scribe Society" and that these people, in order to combat the "civilization" program of Washington DC that was intent on sending missionaries throughout Cherokee country to educate them in English only schools and perpetrate a cultural genocide against them, he got his people together and took those loyal to the traditonal ways away from those schools and taught them to read and write in the gohwelodi instead.
Then, much later, after the dissolution of the original and traditional Cherokee system of governance, in favor of one modeled after the bureaucratic US government, the "New Order" of Cherokees intercepted a letter written in the gohwelodi on corn shuck paper and were able to capture and imprison Sogwili as a result. They accused him of being a witch and cut off his fingers, nose, and ears, his wife's ears as well.
However, somehow word got out that a Cherokee had "invented" a writing system for their language. The Cherokee "New Order" could not very well send the mutilated Sogwili to Washington, because of the questions that would naturally arise about why he'd been so deformed, so they quickly "invented" a syllabary based on imperfect knowledge gleaned from Sogwili and others, replaced many of the characters with English/Latin ones. Rathern than sending "Sogwili" to Washington they sent Thomas Maw, son of Hanging Maw, in his stead and gave him the title that would go down in history "Sequoyah".
If this scenario is indeed true than it would naturally conclude that the conspirators also had to "invent" the fake "original" syllabary that is presented alongside what might arguably be called the "Sequoyan" syllabary that we have today.
The problems with Bird's work are numerous however, one is that he cites hundreds of "documents" that are said to be written in this gohwelodi and provides English translations of certain of them. He however, does not provide the original documents at all, not even photographs of them (since scanners didn't exist at the time of the publication) nor does anyone appear to know the location of said documents today.
Also, he gives a syllabary chart of the 92 character gohwelodi, but does not provide any sort of pronunciation key. He doesn't even give a side by side comparison of the current "Sequoyan" syllabary and the gohwelodi.
This, one might make the argument for, is because he desired to keep the gohwelodi secret while at the same time making it public. That is to say he wanted people to know "about" it, but not how to "use" it.
The next problem arises in that, whereas Bird argues that the "gohwelodi" which he presents is of purely Indigenous origin, when one looks at several of the characts it is clearly evident at least some of the characters are of Western origin.
If indeed the syllabary is of pre-European, or at least older origin than is presently suggested, than it would naturally conclude that, these characters within the "gohwelodi" that "look like" Western characters simply must've been borrowed from the Spanish alphabet after the voyage of De Soto through the Southeast and subsequent trading relationship developed between the Spaniards and the Inians in the region, in the bloody wake of De Soto's initial destruction.
I've read contemporary Cherokees today, lend credence to the idea that the syllabary might have ancient origins and the one that we use today may not be entirely the original, Wilma Mankiller for exmaple, spoke of such things.
When I asked Durbin Feeling about it, he said he'd always heard, among some people, the story of a more ancient origin for the script, even prior to the publication of the book. I had always wanted to contact Traveller Bird, if he is still living, but Feeling told me that many have attempted just that and failed. Nobody seems to know where he's at, if indeed he's still living, nor who and where his descendents might reside.
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