Inscriptions written in the Cherokee script have been discovered at the head of an underground stream in Alabama’s Manitou Cave. It is the first cave inscription found written in that script. The Cherokee script was a syllabary, which means symbols represented syllables not sounds. Invented by Sequoyah it was officially adopted by the Cherokee Nation in 1825. It was quickly in wide usage, in daily life, in printed materials, and apparently in cave inscriptions!
Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee, scholars from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, as well as additional colleagues worked together to understand the cave’s newly-discovered inscriptions. The scholars concluded that the text was written to commemorate a sacred game of stickball played on April 30, 1828. (Stickball is one of the forebearers of modern lacrosse). The rituals conducted before the game are thought to have been presided over by Sequoyah’s son, Richard Guess, whose name appears in an adjoining inscription. A third inscription, reading “I am your grandson,” was found written backwards on the ceiling of the cave.
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