Original subtitles

OLD RANGER: And now,Death Valley Days.

♪♪ [ trumpet ]

Ha. Yah.

Yah. Yah.

Howdy, folks, I'’m the Old Ranger

and I have another interesting true story for you

about the historic Death Valley country.

One of the great sites of the West,

indeed of the whole world,

is the big trees of California--

the largest and oldest living things on earth.

Tonight, I'’m going to tell you why

these giants were given the name...

Our story starts around the year 1770,

in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

where Tennessee and Georgia meet,

the home at that time of the Cherokee Nation.

It is a man-child.The first born.

It is good.

His father will rejoice when he returns.

His father will not return.Why do you say that?

My heart knows.

Some white men marry Indian maidens

and are content for the rest of their lives.

But not George Gist.

His work is trading.

Used to traveling from village to village.

It is only natural

if he is not here now.

No, was more than that.

He was homesick for the sight of white faces.

The sound of white man'’s talk.

I'’d hope your eyes would be blue like his.

Your hair the color of corn.

It is better he looks like Cherokee.

Little George Gist.

He must be given a Cherokee name.

What would be Cherokee for Gist?

Gist.

The nearest word...

in our tongue...

is Sequoyah.

Sequoyah.

So, I name you Sequoyah.

For the father you will never see.

[OLD RANGER] Perhaps it was because Sequoyah never knew the love

of a father himself that he was so devoted to his daughter, Ayoka.

Put it around my neck, Father.

Not yet.

First I must stamp my mark upon it.

Why?To show who made it.

This mark tells everybody for all times

Sequoyah made this necklace.

For his little girl, Ayoka.I'’m afraid not, Little One.

That would take writing.

Writing? What is writing?

A secret the white man has.

He puts his talk on paper. On talking leaves.

And the words talk back to him whenever he wishes.

Can I put the necklace on now, Father?

Isn'’t it pretty?

"Made by Sequoyah,"

the finest silversmith in the Cherokee Nation.

Oh.It'’s true.

You ask anyone,

"Who makes the handsomest headbands and breastplates?"

And who has the dearest little daughter?

[ laughs ]

WOMAN:So...

Playing games again when you should be busy.

I have been working.

See what he has just finished?

This is a beautiful piece of work.

Chief Pathkiller will gladly buy it for his wife.

No!

It looks far prettier on Ayoka.

It is not for sale.

You'’ve never given me anything half so beautiful.

I will start something for you at once.

From these old Spanish coins.

You'’ll do nothing of the kind.

You'’ll go out hunting like other Cherokee braves.

Bring back game we can eat.

Furs we can trade for the things we need.

As you wish.

How was it when I married you, Sequoyah,

I thought there was something great about you?

[ groans ]

[ grunts ]

[ grunting continues ]

[ grunts ] I thank you.

It is good to look up at the sky again

after being inside for long weeks.

Good to hear the wind and the trees.

The voices of the...of the birds.

[ sighs ]

He will get better.

The medicine man has done all he can.

The knee is shattered.

Sequoyah will always be a cripple.

Father?

The world is full of noises calling.

Even the grass speaks.

I have brought you a present.

From the mission school in the Valley.

Talking leaves.What do they say?

I do not know.

They speak only to the white man.

All my life, Ayoka, I have wondered

why it is the white man is superior to the Indian.

This-- This is the reason.

The Indian knows only what he hears

from the lips of those around him.

If he forgets, it is gone.

When he dies, it dies with him.

Yes, Father.

With the wisdom of the white man

is preserved forever.

Is it any wonder if the white man

is becoming master?

Master of the Cherokees?

Of the Cherokees, no.

For the Cherokees are going to have the same advantages

as the white man.

Bring me bark from the birch trees, Ayoka.

Some berries to make ink and a small stick.

I, Sequoyah, am going to give my people

a written language.

E...

E...

I...

I...

I...

I...

Well?

It is no use.

I have made a thousand signs.

One for each word in the Cherokee language

and now, I can'’t even remember them myself.

So, you have wasted a year.

There must be some way.

If the white man can do it, so can I.

You are only half white man.

I have more roots and berries, Father,

to make into ink.

Your father is all through with his writing.

He has come to his senses at last.

Now you can go back to your silversmithing again.

I'’ll get your things and bring them out

or do you prefer to work inside the wigwam?

There are a thousand words but only a few sounds.

If I could make a sign for each sound.

Sally, that might be the answer.

Idle daydreams, Sequoyah. Forget them.

You have a family to feed.Make me fresh ink, Ayoka.

No, I forbid it.

You'’re wasting your life, Sequoyah,

and ours too.

But, Sally, our whole tribe is in darkness

because they cannot read and write.

You will be in darkness, too,

the darkness of the blind if you do not stop using

your eyes for such foolishness.

Day by day, it'’s becoming more difficult

for you to see.

When it becomes too difficult,

I will get some spectacles.

Spectacles?

An invention of the white man

which restores strength to failing eyes.

What you need is something to restore strength

to a failing mind.

If our people wish to read and write,

let the missionaries teach them.

Teach them what, the white man'’s tongue?

It is the Cherokee'’s speech

I want to catch and make fast,

Cherokee thoughts and words, the laws our chiefs draw up,

the lullabies our women sing.

And I mean to do it

if it takes me the rest of my life.

Oh, no, you won'’t.

I'’m not going to stand for it.

Mother!

No, Sally.

Let them burn.You can'’t.

You'’ll break his heart.Oh, you'’re as bad as he is.

Taking his side in this foolishness.

Bringing him bark, making him ink.

She has burned them all.

Your writings have gone up in smoke.

It does not matter, Little One.

I'’m going to start all over again anyway.

[ mutters syllable ]

[ continuing ]

Witchman, witchman, bad medicine.

Stop it, stop it!

Sequoyah.What were they saying?

What they hear their elders say.

That you are practicing witchcraft.I?

Day after day, you sit here,

drawing signs, making strange sounds.

Sounds of the Cherokee language

that everyone utters.

See?

Last night, a cow died calving.

Last week, a hail storm cut down our corn.

They say it is you

who are casting these evil spells.

Do you believe that?

I'’m afraid for you, Sequoyah.

Give this up before the whole tribe

turns against you.

They can order you put to death.

Sequoyah?

Sequoyah, are you listening to me?

What you have just said

has given me a new sound to add to my list.

You are mad.

I...

SALLY: Sequoyah?

It has been hard for you, Sally.

I am sorry.

It does not matter.

I have put up with this for nine long years, Sequoyah.

Now I am through.

I'’m returning to my father'’s tent across the mountain.

Bear with me a little longer.

It is no use. You will not change.

This thing is like a disease with you.

It has crippled your mind.

You'’re like a child,

forever scratching senseless marks.

[ gasps ] Please, Sally, don'’t leave me.

I am so alone.

Ayoka will look after you.

[ sighs ] There.

Finished at long last.

Every sound in the Cherokee language

put down in written form.

Now you can rest, Father. Your work is finished.

It is just begun.

I still have to convince the Cherokee people

that this is something they can use.

And how will you do that, Father?

Bring the chief and the council

here to our wigwam

and give them a demonstration.

What if they refuse to come?

Oh, they will come...

to humor that poor, old mad man Sequoyah.

This represents the labor of the past 11 years?

Twelve.

One page of marks that any child could make?

And then read back again.

A month, a year, a lifetime later.

I will show you how it works.

Ayoka, wait outside until I call.

You will each, in turn, utter some sentiment.

I will write down the words

as they come from your mouth.

This is the land of the Cherokees.

The corn that grows in these fields, we planted.

Our gods dwell in these skies.

That is enough.

Ayoka? We are ready.

The braves have spoken. Read their words.

"This is the land of the Cherokees.

"The corn that grows in these fields,

"we planted.

Our gods dwell in these skies."

[ all murmuring ]

It is magic.

My first pupil.

There is some trick to it.

He has cast a spell upon the paper.

It is no trick.

Learn these 86 signs

and you can write any word in the Cherokee tongue.

Your speech as Chief Pathkiller

will be carried on paper

throughout the Cherokee Nation.

Your exploits as a warrior

will be set down and read by Cherokees

who are not yet born.

No longer will our treaties with the white man be misunderstood,

for they shall be in writing, Cherokee writing.

[ murmuring ] Good.

I will send my son to you at once, to learn.

He is a bright boy.

I will order all of the young of the Nation

to be taught.

And what of yourselves?We?

We'’re not too old?

Study with me

and I promise,

you will all be able to read and write.

Everyone is rushing to learn,

writing on anything they can find.

Trees, rocks, the walls of wigwams.

Chief Blackfox made a trip clear across the mountains

just so he could write a letter home.

They all say,

"Sequoyah has performed a miracle."

After 12 years, why not?

It took the white man hundreds of years, Mother.

While their women plowed the fields,

hulled the corn, chopped the wood?

Surely you can forgive him, now.

You were always on his side.

When you married him,

you felt there was something great about him,

and you were right.

Sequoyah today is the greatest man

in the Cherokee Nation.

Then he has no need of me. I told him I was through.

I will never go back.

Na.

La.

Sequoyah, the General Council of the Cherokee Nation

presents you with this silver medal,

made to our order in Washington

as a token of our gratitude and admiration

for your inventing the Cherokee alphabet.

Probably the greatest single contribution

that any red man has ever made his people.

But couldn'’t somebody else go in your place, Father?

A younger man?

Ayoka, it is my alphabet.

And already three quarters of the Cherokee Nation

has learned it.

Yes, but there are so many who have not even heard of it.

Those who went West,

some years ago behind the fall of waters.

It is to them, I must go.It is so far away.

I will write you.

I wish...Oh, Father.

Take care of yourself, my daughter.

I will go now.

The Great Spirit be with you.

This is a gift from the white man,

a printing press for the Cherokee alphabet.

With this machine

we will be able to print our writings

just as the white man does.

I have asked you all here

to this council to show you something

that we of the Cherokee Nation

can be proud.

And here it is, my brothers.

The Cherokee Phoenix.

The first newspaper

ever published by an Indian tribe.

[ reading ]

"Our Father, Heaven dweller,

"hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom, let it make its appearance."

Mother?Ayoka?

What brings you here?

A letter for you.For me?

A messenger brought it all the way from Arkansas.

Your father?Yes.

Shall I read it for you?No, no.

Let me have it.

The signs he used to sit there drawing.

Shall I tell you what they say?

I can read it myself.Mother.

When did you learn to read?

SEQUOYAH: Wherever I go,

crowds flock around me.

Yet, I'’m always alone.

My life is full, but my heart is empty.

What I have gained suddenly seems nothing

compared to what I have lost.

He'’s saying things he never said before.

Perhaps, it is easier to write them

than to say them.

I am going to him, Ayoka.Oh, Mother.

I'’m so happy.

We must send him word at once.

And I, myself, shall write the letter.

OLD RANGER: What has this story I'’ve just told you

got to do with these big trees?

Because they were centuries old

when Christ walked the shores of Galilee.

Because of all living things,

they come closest to possessing immortality,

it was suggested by an Austrian botanist

who saw them

that they be named for a man

who ranks among the immortals--

an American since they are found nowhere on earth

except our own Pacific coast,

a red man since they are redwood trees.

Who but Sequoyah, the self-taught Indian

who in turn taught his whole people

to read and write?

These, then, are his monument.

TheSequoia giganteum,

known simply as Sequoias.

And most beautiful of them all,

the Sequoia known as Abraham Lincoln.

Standing alone, a symbol of the loneliness

of all great men,

who, in the face of ridicule and hostility,

strive to serve their people.

♪♪ [ trumpet ]