Researchers Potdukha Carroll and Julie Reed studied Manito Cave in Alabama, which has Cherokee syllables on its walls for nearly 200 years. A new study found that nearly 200 years ago, Cherokee people gathered in a cave in Alabama to write ritual messages on walls and ceilings with their newly created letters. These words include descriptions of the ancestors of Cherokee and Stick Ball (the predecessor of LaCrosse). Some religious information was written back to its original place, probably to make the soul in this cave-Cherokee people may regard it as the gateway to the spiritual world-understand them, the researchers said.

Modern researchers have known these characters since explorers discovered them in Manito Cave in 2006, but now a group of archaeologists, including those from three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, have made concerted efforts to translate the information in Qi Xin. 10 what we learned about the first Americans in 20 18.

Jane Simek, the chief archaeologist of this study, a famous professor of anthropology and honorary president of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said that it is rare to find historical cave characters in a tribe's own alphabet.

"Here, we use" caves and the decorations on cave walls by Native Americans, but we can read (in writing), "Simek told field science, and we can hear what they are doing with their own voices.

This information is written in Cherokee syllables (syllables are a set of written characters representing syllables in spoken language). The Cherokee writing system was invented by a Cherokee named Sequoia in the early19th century. At that time, Sequoia lived in Wilston (now Fort Pemberg, Alabama), a large Cherokee refugee community. After Europeans and Americans began to occupy the area, they fled their farming and hunting homes in the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and parts of Tennessee. Simek said:

This handwritten list of Cherokee phonetic symbols was written by Sequoia itself. Gilchris Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Reproduction with permission; The researchers said that the syllable Sequoia was so successful that the Cherokee people adopted it as their writing system in 1825 and it was widely used. Even so, it is surprising to find these characters in Manitu Cave, and some of the marks were found about 1 mile (1.5 km) away from the entrance.

About the time Sequoia developed this alphabet, the Cherokee people were under great pressure from the United States, which forcibly removed them from their hometown. Beau Carroll, the head of this study and an archaeologist in the Eastern District of the Cherokee Indian Tribe Historical Protection Office, said that in the land in the southeast of the Tears Road in the 65438+ 1930 s, "In these turbulent times, Manitu Cave may have new spiritual significance. In an interview with Live Science, Carol said that it was like an inscription translated by the Cherokee people with the help of other tribes when they were looking for a place where they could continue to practice traditional ways without interference.

Cherokee information, Cherokee people wrote a ceremony to stick to the wall, which happened in 1828. The researchers said that one translation was "April 30th, 1828, the leader of the baseball team", while another nearby news said, "We are people who are bleeding from our noses and mouths." The "they" in the first sentence probably refers to Europeans and Americans who use the name of Yueyue. The other line refers to the Cherokee LaCrosse's injury, which is a complicated ceremonial game that may last for several days.

Before each game, the baseball players will receive a ceremony and holy water. Archaeologists and players seem to use groundwater in caves for purification ceremonies.

A part of the Cherokee speech schedule, about 1 mile (1.5km), was found in Manito Cave, Alabama. Crissler; Antique publishing co., ltd.) another series of information, scrawled on the ceiling near the hole, is written backwards, with religious nature. Simek said, because Cherokee people still think these works are sacred to the spiritual world, out of respect for Cherokee people, archaeologists decided not to provide translation in their research. However, the researchers did say that these words may have been written at the back so that supernatural beings and Cherokee ancestors could recognize them.

The cave also bears the signatures of Cherokee ceremony leaders, including Richard Gus, the child of Sequoia, who wrote in a message, "I am a respectable authority". "

This study was published online in Antiquities magazine today (April 10).

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