No, he wasn't Choctaw. As I recall, he was a Presbyterian missionary. However, he apparently earned great respect among the Choctaw. The Choctaw embraced literacy and education. By the 1880's, they had achieved 80% literacy in Choctaw and built schools for both boys and girls. Their literacy rate was twice as high as the literacy rate of the non-Indians in Indian Territory at the time. Also, most of the non-Indians did not send their children to school. Of course, educating girls and women was unusual during that time. George Ann >From: JohnnyMikeCraven@aol.com >Reply-To: CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST-L@rootsweb.com >To: CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [CHOCTAW-SE] parts of speech, word definitions, etc. >Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:44:17 EDT > >In a message dated 7/25/2002 1:13:58 PM Central Daylight Time, >wood_owl@hotmail.com writes: > > > > If you are referring to the story of Seqouia "inventing" a writing >system > > for the Cherokee, you might be interested to know that some traditinal > > Cherokee claim that the writing system pre-dates European contact. > > Apparently, it was used only by medicine people. Part of the reason, the > > Cherokee re-acted so badly to what Sequoia did was that they felt that >he > > had betrayed their traditions. > > > >George Ann, > > I wasn't specifically refering to Sequoia but that is a good >analogy >to what I was thinking. It seems to me that the Choctaw language in its >written form was a very recent development and not really something that >pre-dated the arrival of Europeans but something that was only a couple of >hundred years old if that old. You mention that Cyrus Byington had a lot >to >do with it. It seems thought that he was not an Indian at all or am I >wrong >in thinking that. > > Personally, I think Sequoia did a noble thing in putting the >Cherokee >language in writing and the same goes for Byington. > > The ptetroglyphs, I think that's what they are called, of the >Aztecs >and Mayans would be a form of heiroglyphic writing that also predated the >arrival of Europeans but it was of great importance, I think that the >Spanish >missionaries and the Aztecs themselves after the arrival of the >missionaries >set about developing and putting down on paper a written Nahuatl language >for >the Aztecs. That's my understanding of how the written Nahuatl language >came >about. > > John Craven > New Orleans > > >==== CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST Mailing List ==== >Need more CHOCTAW information. Try Judy White's NATIVE AMERICAN RESOURCE >CENTER at http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native for rolls, newsletters, >lookups, articles, etc. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com