“Talking Leaves”–The Cherokee Alphabet

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The story behind the Cherokee alphabet is one of the most amazing to be found in the history of the written word, one that underscores the importance of writing and the preservation of language in protecting minority cultures.

Let’s begin with a single fact: the Cherokee alphabet is the only instance of an illiterate people creating its own writing system without help or encouragement from an outside culture. The creator of this alphabet (actually, a syllabary) for the Cherokees was himself a Cherokee acting on his own initiative. His name was Sequoyah, and at the time he began his great work, he was illiterate. Wow!!

And before moving on, let’s note another fact: Cherokee is the only Southern Iroquoian language that is still spoken.

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Sequoyah

Here is Sequoyah’s story, which is mostly the story of how he created his syllabary. Born around 1770 near present-day Knoxville, Tennessee, Sequoyah was the son of a Cherokee mother, Wut-teh, and a white father, Nathaniel Gist, who was a commissioned officer in the Continental Army. He had an English name, George Gist, and was a silversmith by trade, which he practiced in Willstown, Alabama. He fought at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend as part of the Cherokee Regiment.

As was common among the Cherokee, Sequoyah had multiple wives.

Up to his middle years, Sequoyah seems to have lived a typical life for a Cherokee of his time and place; in 1809, partly out of frustration that he could not write or read letters, partly out of admiration for the English alphabet (which the Cherokees called “talking leaves”), Sequoyah began the mammoth work of creating a writing system for the Cherokee language.

At first, he tried to create a set of ideograms to represent the language; but after a year, he realized that this was not practicable. He next turned to the creation of a syllabary, and by around 1820 had completed his writing system, which contained 86 characters. During this time, as is not uncommon with the obsessed inventor, he neglected his duties, leaving his fields unplanted, and endured the destruction of his early work by one of his wives.

Initial efforts at persuading the Cherokees to adopt his system were met with suspicion and accusations of sorcery, but Sequoyah persevered (the first person to learn the new writing system was his daughter), and by 1825, the Cherokee Nation had officially adopted the syllabary. The results were impressive: a Cherokee, Atsee, translated the Gospel of John into Cherokee; a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, adopted the script in 1828; and before long, the literacy rate among the Cherokee exceeded that of the surrounding white population. In 1828, Sequoyah himself received a silver medal from the Cherokee Nation in honor of his work.

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Though the the syllabary has clearly been critical to the survival of the Cherokee language through the many adversities that the Cherokees have endured since its invention (most notably, the Trail of Tears), what may be most remarkable about the Cherokee writing system is the detailed information we have about its creator. The talents behind the Native American craft tradition, to my eye, are evident in the beauty of the Cherokee characters; if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the sign for “wo,” an elegant and compact letterform. We should also not overlook the contribution of the English and Greek letters that Sequoyah adopted for his script. Their angular, geometric form creates an interesting tension when juxtaposed against the sinuous forms that Sequoyah seemed to prefer. Here we have something strange and unparalleled: an American alphabet, one that reflects our roots in both European and Native American history. We can only be thankful that Sequoyah’s syllabary is still in use today; we can only hope that his script’s survival portends new fusions and creations as our culture continues to evolve.

RT

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Bottom Image: Author, Kaldari; All images: WikiCommons, Public Domain.

Edward Curtis, Photographer of the American Indian

During his long life, the photographer Edward Curtis (1868-1952) created perhaps the most authentic and certainly the largest photographic record of the American Indian. He took more than 40,000 photographs of Native Americans, determined not just to record, but also to document his subjects.

The son of a minister, Curtis grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Fascinated with photography, he dropped out of school in the sixth grade and built his own camera. At 17, he apprenticed with a photographer in St. Paul. 

After some years, the pace of Curtis’s life began to pick up. In 1892, he married Clara Phillips; the first of their four children, Harold, was born the following year. When his parents moved to Seattle 1896, Curtis and his family went with them.

Fate struck. Curtis photographed his first Native American, Princess Angeline, daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle (1895). A few years later, he was invited to join the Harriman Alaska Expedition, and after that, he photographed the Blackfoot people of Montana (1900).

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By this point, Curtis had made thousands of images of Indians, and financier J.P. Morgan offered to publish his work. The product of this collaboration, The North American Indian, was issued in twenty volume and contained more than 1,500 photographs. The final volume was published in 1930.

“The information that is to be gathered … respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost.”

–Edward Curtis, preface to The North American Indian

Curtis was an ethnographer, dedicated to recording the Indian’s way of life before it vanished; in addition to his photographs, he made wax cylinder recordings of Indian music and language, wrote down tribal folklore and history, and noted down facts of everyday life such as food, clothing, recreation, and funeral customs. Not infrequently, these materials are our only surviving information.

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Such devotion to his calling, however, came at a cost to Curtis. In 1917, his wife divorced him. He was not a good businessman and was arrested once for failure to pay alimony. In 1924, he sold an original ethnographic film, The Land of the Headhunters for $1,500; the film had cost him $20,000 to make.

Despite these troubles, Curtis continued his work. Much of the material he produced is now part of a special archive at the Library of Congress.

His work remains an astounding gift to the American people.

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Photos: Top: Edward Curtis; Middle: Princess Angeline; Bottom: Apache, Morning Bath. All photos: Edward Curtis, WikiCmns; Public Domain.

The Intelligentsia–Why Wait?

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Anyone who spends significant time researching, studying, learning, or creating has run into flak about why they are wasting time on matters that don’t affect most people.

My answer to that question is: what intellectuals do makes a great deal of difference out on the street. Case in point: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unfortunately, the notion of a black intelligentisia may still seem strange to some readers. But it was the black intelligentsia who saved the United States during the Civil Rights crisis, and none of its leaders was more articulate than MLK–a point I was reminded of when I recently reread King’s Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

King makes many points in his lengthy reply to a group of religious leaders urging him to suspend his strategy of non-violent resistance. But one of King’s themes–perhaps his chief one–is that the world is always ready for justice. Delaying justice will only let the cancer of injustice grow, harming and destroying the lives of innocent people.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

And in his letter, King cites not only the Bible, but Plato, Gandhi, and Martin Buber as well; he read widely and deeply, and on topics that might be considered abstruse. Until, that is, you see the consequences of not studying them.

Daddy, why do white people treat black people so mean?

MLK’s five-year-old son

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And here are some of the things that people who are concerned with larger issues are aware of:

1) One person in three in the United States has no health insurance coverage.

2) Most Congressional districts in this country are drawn by the party in power in such a way as to ensure that its candidate wins. In other words, jerrymandering, one of the abuses that sparked the American Revolution, is alive and well today in America.

3) That many medications are extremely expensive, or “backordered” (i.e., unavailable from the manufacturer), or available only through “charitable” programs that are unwieldy and offer no recourse for their decisions.

4) That colleges in this country have become outrageously expensive, and the degrees they confer useless in a job search.

5) That, with the exception of issue 1, neither of our political parties is doing anything to correct these injustices.

What obligations does the intelligentsia’s knowledge impose on it? Here are some of the things you can do:

a) Write a letter to your congressperson complaining about the problems that bother you most. Carbon Copy your state representative and senator.

b) Take part in protest demonstrations.

c) Run for political office.

d) Talk to your friends and during worship service about these issues.

e) Join organizations working to correct an injustice.

f) Start such an organization.

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Intellectuals are revered not only because they envision solutions to desperate problems, but because they also act to implement their solutions. The next time you keep a doctor’s appointment or walk into a restaurant for a good lunch, think about this.

RT

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Photo: Martin Luther King Leaning on a Podium, 1964. WikiCmns. Library of Congress, Public Domain.

An Inspiration: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook

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Some readers will recognize the symptoms: a sudden, inexplicable obsession with a topic, question, or creative work that drives a person to drop practical considerations and even essential obligations so he or she can spend time researching or writing in the library, interviewing people, tracking people down on the internet, making observations on their telescope, and so forth. Yes, there can be no doubt: you or someone in your life has been inspired to make a contribution to the advancement of knowledge or the creation of beauty. The person in question is an independent scholar.

Just what is an independent scholar? Someone who is working on an research project or work of art without support from an academic institution or other organization. In other words, this is where the rubber hits the road; people have been known to live on the street while they’re researching, writing, painting, sculpting, making a movie…

But, thanks to guides like Ronald Gross’s The Independent Scholar’s Handbook, the journey doesn’t have to be that hazardous. There are ways to organize your time and maximize your resources, grants that can defray your costs, volunteers who will support you because you’re doing important work, and support from other scholars, whether they be unknown like yourself or the most distinguished experts in your field. Patience, tact, and persistence can go a long way to easing the pain involved with any self-motivated act of learning and creation.

You might be wondering if a single book really can be the gateway to marshalling your resources and finishing your “inner assignment” (as Ansel Adams used to call his own creative work). And the Handbook does have one problem: it was last edition was published in 1993. Many of the specific suggestions it lists have disappeared or been reincarnated in internet and e-publishing guises. But then, come to think of it, cheap rent is still cheap rent.

External resources aren’t what’s at the heart of Gross’s book. What matters most is the way that he builds the independent scholar’s pride. Here is the sentence that opens Chapter 1:

This book is about taking risks of an unusual kind: risks in the realm of the mind.

His goal is to awake his readers to a sense of passion and purpose. Why? Because he realizes, that for most people, there is nothing of significance in their day-to-day existence. If we are to live fully, we must find the courage to do something really important.

So, in fact, a project that at first may seem impossible or just crazy turns out to have been the origin of many famous books: Barbara Tuckman’s A Distant Mirror, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and E.F. Schumaker’s Small is Beautiful are all works of independent scholarship. And look at what people like Buckminster Fuller, Betty Friedan, and John Snyder accomplished.

And then there are the many quotes from other authors on living the life of the mind:

Many workingmen are self-taught intellectuals.

Ignace Lepp, L’Art de Vivre de l’intellectual

And finally, to round the book out, Gross provides a wonderful bibliography, full of books devoted to the theory and practice of the independent scholar.

The Independent Scholar’s Handbook has changed a lot of people’s lives. Maybe it could change yours.        RT

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Chinese Character: The Scholar. WikiCmns. CC 2.5 Generic. User: Magna. Magazine Cover: Hermes the Scholar, WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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James Joyce

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◊ Putting aside the facts of his literary achievement, something about James Joyce epitomizes the Irish, or so this photograph of him (taken in 1915) seems to suggest.

His intelligence, intensity, and unassuming air have something to do with it, I think, but what really speaks to the Irish spirit is his otherworldliness, a distance that betrays a preoccupation with beauty and grief.

To be sure, one can surmise other traits–a fierce passion, an occasionally outrageous sense of humor–not so evident here. But anyone who wants to understand how a small island has managed to shape–and shake–the life of the world need look no farther. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.  –Stephen Dedalus

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Photograph: James Joyce, 1915. A. Ehrenzweig. WikiCmns. Public Domain.

One Who Lived

Osborne Perry Anderson was one of five blacks to join John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. He is the only black raider to have survived–the others were either killed during the raid or in its immediate aftermath.

Anderson was born free in Pennsylvania in 1830. He attended Oberlin College and subsequently emigrated to Chatham, Canada, very possibly the unofficial capital of black America at the time. There he apprenticed as and became a printer.

Anderson met John Brown during the Constitutional Convention that Brown arranged in Chatham in 1858. He was immediately attracted to Brown, both by his radical commitment to action in order to free the slaves and by his love of words.

Anderson managed to evade capture after the raid. In 1861, he wrote an account of the raid, A Voice from Harper’s Ferry, and went on to enlist in the Union Army. He died in 1872.

We still struggle to preserve and broaden liberty, which Osborne Anderson helped bring to birth in the United States. For his insight, his eloquence, and his courage, he deserves a distinguished place in our memory. Happy Black History Month!          RT

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Photo: Osborne P. Anderson; WikiCmns; Public Domain.

Mexico’s Lincoln

Benito Juarez (1806-1872), full-blooded Zapotec Indian and five-time President of Mexico, may summarize the differences between Mexico and the United States (especially when compared with his contemporary, Abraham Lincoln). Born in an adobe house to Zapotec peasants, he worked as a shepherd, field hand, and domestic servant before an employer, realizing his gifts, sent him to seminary. He subsequently studied law and was elected governor of Oaxaca. Sent into exile by long-time dictator Santa Anna, he worked at a cigar factory in New Orleans before returning home, where he was instrumental in helping promulgate the liberal Constitution of 1857. Serving as interim president under the new constitution, he was elected in his own right in 1861. The constitution’s liberal slant, which, among other things, mandated education free of religious dogma, plunged Mexico into civil war, during which France intervened, installing the Archduke Maximilian as Maximilian I of a new Mexican Empire.

Juarez resisted the French occupation, and, with military help from U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, expelled the French in 1867. He was reelected President twice more, in 1867 and 1871. He died of a heart attack while in office.

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Tough, stubborn, and unstoppable, Juarez is remembered in Mexico today for his belief in democracy, the rights of Mexico’s Indians, and secular government. He is generally regarded as Mexico’s greatest president, and has been called “Mexico’s Lincoln.” He came closer to realizing the dream of an independent, federal, and democratic Mexican republic than anyone before the Mexican Revolution.

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Photo: President Benito Juarez, WikiCmns, Public Domain.

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A Holy Tradition of Working

A Holy Tradition of Working, a compilation of writings by the sculptor, artist, and thinker Eric Gill, is one of those books I keep coming back to. Gill, most famous for his design of the Gill Sans typeface (the lettering used on the London Underground), was (among other artistic achievements) a successful sculptor who, after a long intellectual quest, converted to Catholicism as an adult; his thinking was much influenced by Catholic views on art and labor, and Tradition collects his insights, scattered throughout his writings, on these subjects.

What attracts me most is the introduction’s fine summary of dissenting thought on industrialism, stretching back to Blake and Carlyle, and Gill’s plain, acerbic style. Though he can sound a bit like a schoolmaster, there is no denying that accounting a society’s worth only by its material production leaves out something profound. I agree with his claim that only when people are fully committed to their work, both intellectually and emotionally, are they capable of producing superior results. In this regard, I think of the quality of William Morris’s textiles (and not just their gorgeous patterns), workmanship that must have originated at least partly in their weavers’ delight in producing something genuinely beautiful. Where the heart is at home, the hand will follow…

We must all seek out and find that work which is most meaningful and satisfying to us.    RT

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Photo: The North Wind by Eric Gill; WikiCmns; CC 2.0 Generic; Photographer: Andrew Dunn.

Eggs & Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was one of the great intellectual lights of Elizabethan and Jacobean England and the father of the essay in English. Though his essays are famous for their wisdom and elegance, he is best known for his establishment of the Baconian Method, a way of scientifically deducing the cause of a phenomenon. His Idols of the Mind listed common causes of error in human reasoning.

Bacon was born into an aristocratic family and attended Cambridge University, where he impressed Queen Elizabeth with his wit. After studying in France, he practiced law and then served in Parliament. Subsequently, he served as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor before resigning in disgrace (merited or not) in 1621. The rest of his life was devoted to study and writing.

Here is one of Bacon’s most famous essays, “Of Studies”:

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OF STUDIES

 
STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores (that is, Any activity practiced with diligence becomes a habit.). Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind, may have a special receipt.

(1597, enlarged 1625)

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Photo:  Dejeuner, Boite Gourmande; WikiCmns; Author: Justin Quintal; License: CC3.0 Unported.

 

Collapse

Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse, (Viking, 2005), is one of the most challenging books I’ve read in some time (for one thing, at 591 pages, it may require a dedicated space on your nightstand). Drawing on a plethora of historical examples, both ancient and recent, Diamond tries to determine the causes behind the collapse of human societies. To underscore the relevance of this task to humanity’s current predicaments, the book starts with a discussion of ecological problems in Montana. It continues on to such exotic locales as Easter Island in the 900s AD, medieval Japan, Viking Greenland, the Mayan cities of the 1st millennium AD, and the Anasazi culture in the southwest of the United States. Contemporary environmental policies in Australia, New Guinea, and the Dominican Republic are also examined.

Collapse is a tough book; it doesn’t pull its punches when drawing attention to the greed and wastefulness of normal human life. Hierarchy, taboo, and the general human reluctance to change core belief and practise are all singled out as causes behind environmental disasters. Now that we are all part of a global economy, the question becomes, can we work out our differences and make the necessary sacrifices to save ourselves from overpopulation and environmental degradation?

On the other hand, the volume is full of arresting stories; my favorite is Easter Island, a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean (and certainly one of the most remote places on the planet), covered by a lush, semi-tropical forest until the arrival of the first people (Polynesians) about AD 900. I was (and am) fascinated by the fact that among the tree species in the forest was the Easter Island Palm, the tallest palm tree that has ever existed. The settlers created a  complex civilization (which included the sculpting of the island’s famous statues), but by about AD 1600 had cut down the entire forest–only a few of the smaller plant species have survived.

One might think that this a doomsday book, focusing on examples of human inability to cope with tough problems, but Collapse offers several examples of successful environmental management resulting from factors that range from heroic individual sacrifice to extremely tough governmental policy. The book points out attitudes and policies that can create consensus on the environment and help our global culture survive into better times.

Informed, level-headed, and focused on finding solutions, Collapse is one book to keep an eye peeled for on your next expedition to the bookstore.  RT

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Image: The Russian vessel “Rurik” at anchor off Easter Island, 1816, artist, Louis Choris; Source: Wikipedia; License, Public Domain.