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Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life [Hardcover]

Margaret Bender (Author)
RRP: £57.95
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (31 July 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 080782707X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0807827079
  • Product Dimensions: 15.6 x 1.9 x 23.5 cm

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Product Description

Synopsis

Based on extensive fieldwork in the community of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in western North Carolina, this book uses a semiotic approach to investigate the historic and contemporary role of the Sequoyan syllabary - the written system for representing the sounds of the Cherokee language - in Eastern Cherokee life. The Cherokee syllabary was invented in the 1820s by the respected Cherokee Sequoyah. The syllabary quickly replaced alternative writing systems for Cherokee and was reportedly in widespread use by the mid-nineteenth century. After that, literacy in Cherokee declined, except in specialized religious contexts. But as Bender shows, recent interest in cultural revitalization among the Cherokees has increased the use of the syllabary in education, publications, and even signage. Bender also explores the role played by the syllabary within the ever more important context of tourism. (The Eastern Cherokee Band hosts millions of visitors each year in the Great Smoky Mountains.)

English is the predominant language used in the Cherokee community, but Bender shows how the syllabary is used in special and subtle ways that help to shape a shared cultural and linguistic identity among the Cherokees. Signs of Cherokee Culture thus makes an important contribution to the ethnographic literature on culturally specific literacies.

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The syllabary has never been uniformly seen as a straightforward, innocent, or neutral technology. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

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Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars  2 reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read on modern Native cultures and language attitudes 23 July 2002
By Sean Burke - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is a fascinating book that everyone interested in Native American cultures should read, regardless of whether they have a particular interest in the Cherokees, or their language, or their writing system, which is the oldest living writing system native to the New World.

What makes this book fascinating is that not only does this book show how literacy (in its many functions) was invented by and is adapted to the perspectives of a living Native culture, but it also reveals many insightful things about that culture -- everything from ideas about modern tourism in the area, to the very very complex community attitudes toward what the "real Cherokee" language is -- whether it's the Cherokee of the Bible (and there's lots of religious attitudes involved in how the community thinks about the syllabary), or the Cherokee of spelling pronunciations, or of the faraway (from the Eastern Cherokee of this boo) Oklahoma Cherokee dialect.

My only real criticisms of the book are that it felt short (I liked it so much that I wanted more), and also that it occasionally descended pointlessly into overwrought prose and unrevealing semiotics jargon. For example: "In Cherokee tourism in the mid-1990s, semiotic potency, use-value, and exchange-value intersected in compelling ways. Syllabic objects were differentiated in terms of their semiotic use potential. The distinction had to do with whether syllabic objects were considered to possess symbolic use-value, which, in the case of texts, meant that they were considered to have significant and specific meanings or performative powers." So the bad news is that now and then, the book pops up with a few irritating sentences like that. But the good news is that the rest of the book is nice and clear.

Besides being great for reading on your own, this book is great reading for any university-level class involving sociolinguistics, Native fieldwork and Native community relations and literacy teaching, and maybe even modern Native cultures in general.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Truly disappointing 21 Dec 2006
By Uyvsdi - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Let me start by saying I find the subject matter of this book fascinating -- contemporary use of the Cherokee syllabary among Eastern Cherokees -- but I had to force myself to finish this book. With the research Bender performed, she could have given us a vivid account of how the language is used today. But only limited quotes or paraphrases of actual Cherokees make their way into the book, along with very few specific examples of the syllabary in use. Rather the book is an endless series of repetitions of her personal conclusions. Her dichotomy of "Christian" and "pagan" (spelled plainly on p. 37) is not only errant but also insulting.
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