LOL. Those Cherokees got around, didn't they? Both my wife and I have
some of that blood.
Actually, though, they didn't have an alphabet until the 1820's.
Sequoya and his work is a fascinating study in dignity and integrity.
He was some man! Yes, the Sequoia trees are named after him.
My daughter married into another tribe. Her husband is half Mescalero
Apache. He is a recognized "story teller" for the tribe in their
pow-wows. He told me one of their legends and I taped it as it
demonstrated a remarkable level of wisdom. Sure, we can discredit
the thought that we originated in the center of the earth, but they had
no way to know that back then. I found the rest of it highly unusual
and something worth paying attention to.
Here it is, in his words:
THE ORIGIN OF STRIFE
"Long time ago, in a time before time, when men and women lived deep in
the center of the earth in the Point of Origin, there they lived with
Creator, and they were learning all that they needed to know.
"Soon the time came for people to go out into the new world that Creator
was making. Creator brought everyone to the Counsel Fire, and told them
of Creators plan. You will go off, each of you in your tribes and in
your bands, and you will go off to the four corners of the earth; to the
north, to the south, to the east, and to the west, and with you, you
will take the Truth of the Light and of the Fire. You are to be
caretakers of this truth and this light. As you travel and as you
journey, and when you meet others like you, you will take your truth
and you will share it with the people that you meet along the way, for
when you are able to share your truth with other people, and when you
are able to listen to the truth that lives in anothers heart, I will
again be with you, and all will be at peace.
"So the Truth was divided and given to the different tribes and the
different bands, and so the different tribes and the different bands
emerged from the Point of Origin and stretched out across the new world
and traveled great distances to the north and to the south and to the
east and to the west and for many people it was a long, hard journey,
and it had been a long time since they had seen anyone else from the
Point of Origin. They grew lonely, and from their loneliness came anger.
"How soon they had forgotten what Creator had told them! They believed
that they had the only One Truth and that somehow everyone else had been
fools. They became defenders of their truth. And they fought for their
truth. And one day they began to kill for their truth.
"They had forgotten what Creator had told them about sharing and about
listening and about coming together. That is why people still fight
today. And so my gift to you all, is to share the Truth of the Light
that lives within me, and as I tell this story, I stretch out my hand
to you, in the hopes that you will tell me your family stories, and
that soon together we can all be at peace."
That we all could have such wisdom, eh, what?
LoneWolf