Sequoyah, Cherokee Indian Museum, Cherokee Reservation NC - Outside Wooden Display Carvings on Waymarking.com

Peter Toth is a Hungarian emigrant whose family escaped from Hungary just before the Communist takeover in 1956. He was 9 years old. In the US, he developed a strong empathy for American Indians, possibly because of his own experience with oppression. In 1968, the 21 year old Toth began a series of sculptures to honor the American Indian. The first, in California, was sculpted from stone. Over the next 21 years, he sculpted 66 more memorials, at least one in every state, all of wood. For his efforts, he has been given the Indian name "Wolf". His first sculpture in any state was without commission, but I'm told he did accept commissions for subsequent works.


Sequoyah

Probably born handicapped, and thus the name Sequoyah (Sikwo-yi is Cherokee for "pig's foot"), Sequoyah fled Tennessee as a youth because of the encroachment of whites. He initially moved to Georgia, where he acquired skills working with silver. While in the state, a man who purchased one of his works suggested that he sign his work, like the white silversmiths had begun to do. Sequoyah considered the idea and since he did not know how to write he visited Charles Hicks, a wealthy farmer in the area who wrote English. Hicks showed Sequoyah how to spell his name, writing the letters on a piece of paper. Sequoyah began to toy with the idea of a Cherokee writing system that year(1809).

He moved to Willstown, Alabama, and enlisted in the Cherokee Regiment, fighting in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which effectively ended the war against the Creek Redsticks. During the war, he became convinced of the necessity of literacy for his people. He and other Cherokees were unable to write letters home, read military orders, or record events as they occurred.

After the war, he began in earnest to create a writing system. Using a phonetic system, where each sound made in speech was represented by a symbol, he created the "Talking Leaves", 85 letters that make up the Cherokee syllabary (he would later add another symbol, making the total 86). His little girl Ayoka easily learned this method of communication. He demonstrated his syllabary to his cousin, George Lowrey by sending Ayoka outside the house, then asking Lowrey to answer a question. Sequoyah wrote the answer down on a piece of paper, then had Ayoka read the answer to Lowrey. Lowrey encouraged Sequoyah to demonstrate the syllabary in public. A short time later in a Cherokee Court in Chattooga, he read an argument about a boundary line from a sheet of paper. Word spread quickly of Sequoyah's invention. In 1821, 12 years after the original idea, the Cherokee Nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet as their own. Within months thousands of Cherokee became literate.



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Type of wood carving: Chainsaw, grinder, chisel & carving tools Other type: n/a Artist's Name: Peter Toth Approximate size/height: 22 feet Type of wood: Not listed

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