HE-0004 · Talking Leaves · White

A printed artifact from the Historic Echoes archive: the Cherokee syllabary — the writing system Sequoyah built — rendered in the tradition of 1820s Cherokee letterpress.

Artifact note. Around 1821, Sequoyah, a Cherokee silversmith who could not read any language, completed a syllabary: a character for each syllable of spoken Cherokee. The Cherokee Nation adopted it in 1825, and within a few years much of the Nation could read and write its own language; in 1828 the Cherokee Phoenix became the first newspaper printed in it. The artwork reinterprets that moment, the syllabary in print, in the tradition of 1820s Cherokee letterpress.

On the words. No words of Sequoyah survive in his own voice — he spoke and wrote only Cherokee and left no record of his own speech. So this drop is carried not by a quotation but by the thing he made: the syllabary itself, and the Cherokee Phoenix that first printed it. (Lines attributed to him in later English accounts are not his documented words, and are not used here.)

The Cherokee syllabary is the work of Sequoyah and a cultural achievement of the Cherokee Nation — credited here with respect.