“I have a message to be written,” Black Fox says.
He walks up and stands over my sister who has placed the paper on the table in front of her and is holding her pen.
“Write this,” he says. Then he leans so close that even I cannot hear the words he whispers in her ear.
My sister calmly writes that message down. Then she hands Agili the paper. She turns to look at me, an impish grin on her face, and then runs off to stand by the same distant tree where she was before. And when my father comes back, he takes the paper and stands next to Black Fox, whose arms are defiantly crossed.
“I will read what is written,” he says. The gentle smile on his face becomes a little broader. “Even though I do not agree with it.” Then he reads the message my sister wrote.
“‘I, Black Fox, speak these words. We are not children who can be fooled by Sequoyah’s tricks. His foolish marks cannot carry my words. If they do, then I, Black Fox, will eat the paper they are written upon.’”
Black Fox has uncrossed his arms and the look on his face has changed to one of amazement.
“You do not have to eat this paper, my friend,” Sequoyah says. “Just tell me what you think now.”
Black Fox turns to the crowd.
“Those are my words,” Black Fox says. “I was wrong.”
Some of people in the crowd are smiling now.
“It is true,” I hear Equgugu’s father say. “Sequoyah has found a way for the leaves to talk Tsalagi.”
Not everyone is in agreement. I still hear a few cold voices of doubt in the crowd.
“All that has been proved,” someone mutters, “is that both Sequoyah and his daughter are witches.”
But before anything else can be said, Agili has placed himself in front of us and is raising his hands again for silence.
“My friends,” he says, “now you have seen and heard this. Some of you are convinced—as I am. But I know that some of you are still uncertain. You may see, as I see, the power of being able to read and write our own language.
“So I have an idea. Let us test Sequoyah’s talking leaves further. Let us send word to our other towns and ask them to send us a few young men eager to learn. Let Sequoyah teach them how to use the talking leaves and then in every town have a public test until all of our people are of one mind. Shall we do this? I ask, SHALL WE DO THIS?”
“Uu!” Black Fox says. “Yes.”
“Yes,” says Yugi’s mother from within the crowd.
Another says yes and then another. Uu! Uu! Yes! Yes! It washes through the crowd like a wind growing strength, like a wave moving the surface of wide water. Even those who still doubt can no longer be heard as the crowd begins to chant their agreement.
Yes, yes, let us do this.
And now I have no doubt. What we have begun will not end here. Instead, like a stone dropped into still waters, its ripples will spread far and wide. And when people see the power of my father’s creation and begin to learn to use my father’s syllabary, they will then teach others.
There is an old saying that the ice of winter never leaves all at once. It takes time for the thaw to happen. But when it does, nothing can stop the spring and summer from returning.
I stand between my father and my sister. My friend Yugi is close behind me with his hand on my shoulder. And I am smiling. I have found the path for my life. I no longer wonder what I can do, what I can make. I will help teach my people how to read and write our beautiful language. I will help bring our people closer together with Sequoyah’s talking leaves. I will help our people stay strong, even in the face of the white men’s might.
I will help bring our Tsalagi people that warmth of the sun.
Afterword
Born somewhere between 1760 and 1780 in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee in present-day Tennessee, the Cherokee man known as Sequoyah was a true genius. In the words of one of his biographers, Grant Foreman, he was “the only man in history to conceive and perfect in its entirety an alphabet or a syllabary.”
One of the amazing things about Sequoyah’s invention is that it was so based in the actual sounds of their language that it was easy for Cherokee people to learn to read and write it. Within a few months, Cherokee people who had been totally illiterate were able to read and write using the syllabary. People of all ages were soon using the language to communicate with one another. When the Cherokee Nation began to publish its own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, it was printed in both English and the Cherokee syllabary. It was a major unifying force and a source of great pride to all the Cherokees.
Sequoyah himself returned to Arkansas and eventually became one of the principal leaders of the western Cherokees. Beloved and respected by everyone, it was Sequoyah who worked to bring together the western Cherokees and their eastern relatives after the Trail of Tears when nearly all of the remaining Cherokees in the American South were forcibly removed to part of the Indian Territory that became Oklahoma. The Cherokee Trail of Tears took place in the winter of 1838–1839. By then Sequoyah himself was living in the West. However, during that terrible journey Sequoyah’s son Tessee (or Jesse), on whom Uwohali, my main character in this novel is partially based, was one of the principal interpreters.
Sequoyah never stopped trying to bring his people together. In 1842, he heard that one band of Cherokee people had ended up in northern Mexico. He was determined to bring them back together with the rest of the nation. Even though he was not well, he made the long trip down through Texas accompanied by Tessee and six or seven other Cherokees. He died somewhere south of the Mexican town of San Cranto and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Sequoyah’s life ended, but the legacy of his syllabary and the pride it inspired in his Cherokee people still lives on. Although English is today the primary language of the Cherokee Nation, Sequoyah’s syllabary is still preserved and taught to each new generation. As long as there are Cherokee people, I have been told, Sequoyah’s talking leaves will continue to speak.
Sequoyah’s
Cherokee Syllabary
CHEROKEE WORDS:
Ah-hey: an exclamation
Ani-tsa-guhi: the bears, Bear People
Ani-tsa-la-gi: real Cherokee
Ani-yonega: white people
Ani-yunwiya: “Principal People,” the traditional Cherokee name for themselves
A-tsu-ta: my son
Awi Usdi: the little white deer, the leader of the animals
Chunkey: game played with a rolled stone and poles
Echota: the Peace Town that was the former capital of the Cherokee Nation
Edoda: father
Etsi: mother
Gah-gay-you-ee: I love you
Gi-li: dog
Ha-ha: no
Ha-wa: you’re right, a word of agreement
Losi: Lucy
Madi: Maddie
Meli: Mary
O-gi-na-li: my friend
O-gi-naw-lee: Are you home?
O-s-da-du: it is okay, it is fine
Osgutan-uhi: pine tree
Osiyo and Siyo : hello
Sa-lo-li: squirrel
Sauh: snorting sound made by the deer
Taskigee (Also spelled Tahs-kee-gee) : important Cherokee town on the Little Tennessee River that was burned by the white people
Tla: dismissive exclamation
Tlah-huh: no
Tsa-la-gi: the name that became Cherokee, probably from a Choctaw word meaning “cave dwellers”
Tsi-s-qua: bird
Tsi-yu: tulip poplar tree
Tsu-la: fox
Ukten: a water monster
U-le-la-nu-go: “Amazing Grace” (the hymn)
Une’-lahun’-ne: the sun
U-u (or v-v): yes
Wado: thank you
Wado agi etsi: thank you, my mother
Wa-heh: an exclamation
We-sa: cat
Ye-la-si-di: knife
FURTHER READING
“The Cherokees revere the memory of Sequoyah as the greatest Cherokee that ever lived. . . .” That is how Jack F. and Anna G. Kilpatrick expressed it in their collection of folktales of the Oklahoma Cherokee, Friends of Thunder.
The same may certainly be said about the general public as a whole—at least those who have any knowledge of this towering figure. In a way, he has become more myth than actual man. Because of the role he played, the amazing accomplishments of his life, a number of books, both nonfiction and fiction, have been written about him. Interestingly, though, both the fictional representations of his life and the imaginative recreations of his story often contain information that is speculative at best and historically inaccurate at worst. A truly authoritative, accurate, and comprehensive book about Sequoyah’s life and accomplishments—not just as the creator of his syllabary but as a peacemaker and astute political leader—has yet to be written, and there are aspects of his life that will always remain a mystery.
The reading list that follows should not be seen as exhaustive or as a sole source of information. Consider it a starting point toward a deeper understanding of a people, a place, a history, and a time that I believe should be better known.
A Cherokee Encyclopedia by Robert J. Conley. University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
The Cherokee Nation: A History by Robert J. Conley. University of New Mexico Press, 2005.
History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1890–1891) by James Mooney. Cherokee Publications, 2006.
Sequoyah by Grant Foreman. University of Oklahoma Press, 1938.
Sequoyah, the Cherokee Genius by Stan Hoig. Oklahoma Historical Society, 1995.
Sequoyah’s Gift: A Portrait of the Cherokee Leader by Janet Klausner and Duane H. King. HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.
Trails of Tears, Paths of Beauty by Joseph Bruchac. National Geographic Society, 2000.
I also recommend visiting the websites of the Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina, the Museum of the Cherokee (www.cherokeemuseum.org/), the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (www.Cherokee.org), and the Cherokee Heritage Center (www.cherokee heritage.org/)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My interest in Cherokee history and culture stretches back more than five decades. This novel is the seventh book I’ve written or edited that focuses on the people who call themselves Aniyunwiya—the Principal People. Aniyunwiya, in fact, is the title of an anthology of contemporary writing by Cherokee authors that I edited two decades ago. Tsalagi, the name usually written as “Cherokee,” seems to have been derived from “Cha-la-kee,” a word in another southeastern indigenous language, Choctaw, that may be translated as “Those who live in the mountains.” (It is amazing how many of the popular names used by non-natives are names those tribal nations never used to call themselves. Iroquois, Sioux, Navajo, Apache. The list is long.)
Although I have done extensive research using the written record, and I am including a brief reading list for those who wish to know more about the Cherokees, my deeper understanding of their rich and complex culture has come from Cherokee friends and teachers. I cannot stress enough how much their generosity has contributed and whatever is best in anything I have published that deals with this enduring, resilient nation has come from them. This current book, for example, owes a deep debt of gratitude to the people in the Cherokee language program at the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, especially Roy Boney who reviewed the manuscript, made helpful suggestions, and made sure my use of their language and Sequoyah’s syllabary was accurate.
The list of those Cherokee people who’ve taught me so much over the decades is too long for me to include everyone. So I will just mention some of those who most directly impacted this book. First is my friend, the late Robert Conley, the most prolific Cherokee author, who wrote a novel of his own about Sequoyah. Whenever we were together in Oklahoma or in North Carolina, or at some other gathering or conference outside the Cherokee nations, Bob was always offering me insights and introducing me to people who could take me further along the path of knowledge. And then there was his extremely Cherokee sense of humor, the way laughter and lessons were always combined whenever he was cracking a joke or engaging in gentle teasing. It’s hard to express how much he is missed. As is another friend and teacher whose poetry was always informed by his Cherokee roots—the late Gogisgi/Carroll Arnett, who gave me my first insights in the Cherokee Nation from a Cherokee perspective over forty years ago.
Another longtime friend I must thank is Gayle Ross, surely one of the greatest storytellers in the world, much less among her own Cherokee people. Whenever I hear Gayle tell a traditional tale, a whole world opens up before me, and it has been my great fortune to now and then share the stage or engage in collaboration with her.
Chad Smith, the former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and Hastings Shade, the former Deputy Principal Chief—who never were too busy to talk with me whether over the phone or while I was visiting their nation.
There’s Jerry Wolfe, storyteller, stickball maker, Beloved Man, and museum guide who told me the story of the great ball game between the birds and animals as we walked through the Cherokee Museum in Cherokee, North Carolina, and to whom I owe what I know about the game of chunkey.
There’s Don Belt, an Oklahoma Cherokee who has been teaching the Cherokee language at the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina and provided a great deal of help when I was working on a project for National Geographic that became the book Trails of Tears, Paths of Beauty. There’re Robert Bushyhead and Lloyd Arneach, Cherokee storytellers who were born and raised on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina and who honored me by allowing me to write introductions for their books.
To those people and so many more Cherokees I say Wado, wado! I am thankful for their strength and their generosity. It is because of such people that the Cherokee Nations have, as Chad Smith put it, not just survived but thrived to the point where together they are today one of the most numerous of all the indigenous nations of the United States with close to 300,000 enrolled.
Listen, My Grandchildren
Grandchildren, you asked me about this medal of mine. There is much to be said about it. This small piece of metal holds a story that I was not allowed to speak for many winters. It is the true story of how Navajo Marines helped America win a great war. There is much that I must remember to speak for this medal, to tell its story as it should be told. I must remember not only the great secret with which I was trusted, but also all that happened to me and those like me. That is a lot. But I think that I can do it well enough. After all, I was expected to remember, as were the other men trained with me. The lives of many men depended entirely on our memories.
Look here. The man you see riding a horse on the back of this medal was an Indian. He is also one of those raising that flag there behind him. I knew him when we were both young men. His name was Ira Hayes. He was a fine person, even though he was not one of our people, but Akimel O’odam, a Pima Indian. We both fought on a distant island far off in the Pacific Ocean. There was smoke all around us from the exploding shells, the snapping sound of Japanese .25 caliber rifles, the thumping of mortars, and the rattling of machine guns. We could hear the pitiful cries of wounded men, our own Marines and the enemy soldiers, too.
It was a terrible battle. But our men were determined as they struggled up that little mountain. On top of it is where Ira was photographed, raising the flag of Nihimá. I was not one of those who fought to the top of Mount Suribachi, but I had my own special part to play. I helped send the message about our success, about the brave deeds so many Marines did that day for Nihimá.
Nihimá, “Our Mother.” That is the Navajo word we chose to mean our country, this United States. It was a good name to use. When we Indians fought on those far-off islands, we always kept the thought in o
ur minds that we were defending Our Mother, the sacred land that sustains us.
Nihimá is only one of the Navajo words we chose for places with bilagáanaa names. South America became Sha-de-ah-Nihimá, “Our Mother to the South.” Alaska we called Bee hai, “With Winter.” Because we knew that Britain is an island, we gave it the name of Tó tah, “Surrounded by Water.” When we did not know much about a place, we described something about the people there. So we named Germany Béésh bich’ahii, “Iron Hat,” and Japan was Bináá’ádaálts’ozí, “Slant-eyed.”
Sometimes we didn’t know much about either the country or the people there, but that did not stop us. We used our sense of humor and played with the English. The word we used for Spain was Dibé diniih, which means “Sheep Pain.”
But I am getting ahead of myself. I have not even explained to you yet why we made up such names. I have not told you why being able to speak our Navajo language, the same Navajo language they tried to beat out of me when I was a child, was so important during World War Two. It was because I was a Navajo code talker.
What was a code talker and what did we code talkers do? Why was the secret we shared so great that we could not tell even our families about it until long after the war ended?
You cannot weave a rug before you set up the loom. So I will go back to the beginning, pound the posts in the ground, and build the frame. I will start where my own story of words and warriors begins.
CHAPTER ONE
Sent Away
I was only six years old and I was worried. I sat behind our hogan, leaning against its familiar walls and looking up toward the mesa. I hoped I would see an eagle, for that would be a good sign. I also hoped I would not hear anyone call my name, for that would be a sign of something else entirely. But the eagle did not appear. Instead, my mother’s voice, not much louder than a whisper, broke the silence.
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