The sequoia, the gigantic and majestic tree grows in the West of America. This amazing tree is found along the Pacific Coast of North America, in the mountain ranges, and is linked with the story of an extraordinary man.
The Sequoia
The sequoia (Sequoia sempervirens) also known as Coast Redwood and California Redwood is the unique species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family. It is a huge evergreen pine tree which can live more than 2000 years. It grows mostly between 30 and 750 meters high and its size can pass 115 meters for a diameter of 8 meters (Hyperion: 155,55 in Northern California, the highest tree in the World).
There is a subfamily represented by 2 trees also called sequoia of which the most famous representative is the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). This tree is smaller than the Sequoia sempervirens (85 m) and lives in a limited area of the Western Sierra Nevada in California (Rocky Mountains). However, its particularity is its incredible volume, the most voluminous plant in the world. This sequoia whose diameter can reach 10 m and the volume more than 1.000 m3 (1.486 m3 for General Sherman) lives also very long: 3500 years for the oldest one.
The qualities of this beautiful tree made it venerated by the Amerindians. Its names, given by an Austrian botanist Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher, was the name of a Cherokee: Sequoyah (Ssiquoya) which is supposed to mean “pig’s leg”.
A Cherokee Named Sequoyah
Sequoyah was probably born circa 1770 in today's Tennessee, maybe in the Cherokee village of Tuskegee. His father, Nathaniel Gist (prisoner of the Cherokees during 6 years) was a White American and his mother, Wut-teh was the niece of a Cherokee chief.
Sequoyah was a warrior and became later a hunter, a fur trader and finally a goldsmith. He did not know English because he and his mother were abandoned by his father.
As a goldsmith, Sequoyah was in touch with the White population. In 1809 he assisted to the installation of a printing press. He had then the opportunity to observe the whites reading books and newspapers, writing and getting letters which he called “talking leads”. At that moment, he realised the importance of the written language which gave, according to him, power to the White people.
Cherokee Alphabet
He decided to study his own language during 12 years to identify the 85 phonemes of the Cherokee language. He invented an alphabet (in fact a syllabary) by using Latin letters in lead found in the printing press. He put them sometimes reverse or upside down to create new letters. Another fact was that Sequoyah was illiterate!
After the alphabet was completed, he had considerable difficulty in teaching it to his prejudiced and superstitious tribesmen. So, his first pupil was his young daughter, Ah-yo-ka, who rapidly learned to read and write.
Menace and Acceptance
When he announced to the "medicine men" that he had a "talking-lead" that would talk in Cherokee, they went through incantations and decided both he and his daughter were possessed of evil spirits and should be killed.
George Lowrey, a half-breed Scotch-Cherokee was town chief, and in order to get clear of the responsibility, he recommended that they send to one of the five Chickamaugua towns for a group of professional warriors to try Sequoyah and his daughter.
When the warriors who were to try them arrived, they separated the father and daughter and then asked Sequoyah to write messages which were carried to Ahyoka, who was out of sight and hearing. She read these messages and wrote others which Sequoyah interpreted for them. After a number of trials the young men were convinced that they could make the paper talk and asked to be taught so that they could return to their homes and teach others. Within a week all of them could read and write.
Alphabet Spreading
In 1821, he showed his alphabet to the chiefs of the Cherokee Nation who were rapidly convinced. Few months after, a thousand people who were called savages knew how to write and read Cherokee.
In 1824, some parts of the Bible were printed in Cherokee and after some reticence, the alphabet was officially adopted in 1825. The Cherokee language is the only Indian language to use its own alphabet.
In 1828, the Cherokee Phoenix is the first newspaper to be partially in Cherokee. Others newspapers will follow using Sequoyah’s alphabet. Today, this alphabet continues to be used by the Cherokee.
Later, Sequoyah, while diffusing his alphabet, started to create a universal alphabet for all the Amerindians. However, in 1843 he died before ending his work in Mexico, today Texas.
Gratitude
Sequoyah’s alphabet is one of the most impressive intellectual realisations from a single man. His name has been given to a district of Oklahoma. In 1911 the Legislature of Oklahoma provided that a statue of Sequoyah should be placed in Statuary Hall of the Capitol, at Washington, in recognition of his services and genius in inventing the Cherokee alphabet. The statue was unveiled on June 6th, 1917.
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The Cherokee language
It is an Iroquoian language spoken by 40,000 persons in Oklahoma and North Carolina.
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Bibliography
• The Redwoods of Coast and Sierra, Sequoia, name of the Redwoods
• Flint, W.D. (2002). To Find The Biggest Tree. Sequoia Natural History Association, Inc.
• Foreman, Grant (1938), Sequoyah, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,OK.
• Bender, Margaret. (2002) Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press.
Pascal Marion - Author, independent researcher, responsible of Terres d'Asie.
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