Re: "Tell Them They Lie"

[Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx wrote:

> I'm not about to get in an argument with either Cherokee or Mormon true 
> believers about any of this -
> 
> The Cree syllabary is an Evans syllabary - this syllabary was invented by a 
> mid 19th century missionary and has been used to write languages in the 
> Algonkian, Athapaskan, and Inuit families, and is still in use.

Being a linguist, I'm well aware of the standard Invader story of the
origin of the Cree syllabary -- as aware as I am of how missionaries took
credit worldwide for indigenous writing systems just by being the first
European to write God's words in the script.

I'm also aware of the Natives' side of the story -- Cherokee, as we've
discussed, Micmac birchbark writing, and Blackfoot/Cree; the Blackfoot say
the Cree 'stole' the writing from them long ago, and the evidence I've
seen suggests the Blackfoot Syllabarium could go back 7000 years or so.

Am I a true believer? No -- of neither Invaders' nor Indigenes' stories.
But I keep my ears open, and I keep questioning what I hear: such as why
would Evans, a whiteman, develop a 'primitive' writing system, a syllabary
whose letters showed vowels by twirling around to honor the sacred Four
Directions, instead of a far simpler and more customary Roman alphabet?

> >>Come the millennium, month 12, In the home of greatest power,
> the village idiot will come forth to be acclaimed the leader.<<
>
> According to what looks like an authoritative Nostradamus site
> http://esoterism.com/nostradamus/bien2.htm
> this widely circulating "quotation" is a fabrication.

Good for scholarship; bad for humor. ;->

warm regards, moonhawk

Come the millennium, month 12, In the home of greatest power,
  the village idiot will come forth to be acclaimed the leader.
                                                  -- Nostradamus, 1555