Simek recounts the drama behind Manitou’s Cherokee inscriptions

Simek detailed several of the inscriptions and the larger meaning assigned to the crude scrawlings that were left on the cave walls using mud, paint or engravings. The markings indicate an effort by the Cherokees to preserve their culture as it came under siege.

Fort Payne was then known as Willstown, and northeast Alabama was the 36th and last of the Cherokee territories surrendered to European settlers during the mass displacement of natives historically known as the Trail of Tears.

Simek noted Cherokee educators named Beau Carroll, Tom Belt and Julie Reed who’ve collaborated on identifying and documenting the markings on the walls of Manitou and other caves over the past 35 years. Without their help, the significance of the markings would likely be lost to history.

“We have a lot to look at, as there are 11,000 caves in Tennessee, 8,000 caves in Alabama,” Simek said.

For all that has been written about Sequoyah, also known as George Gist Guess, little is actually known, Simek said. “He was a shadow. He wanted to preserve his culture. It says something about him that he wanted to create a language that Cherokees could speak but white settlers couldn’t.”

Sequoyah, a blacksmith, created his syllabary in 1821 -- one of the few times in recorded history that an individual who was a member of a pre-literate group created an original, effective writing system. His creation allowed the Cherokee nation to be one of the first North American indigenous groups to have a written language. He was inspired to create it after seeing white settlers use written notes to transmit information to other people in distant places.

Within three years, 70% of Cherokees had gained the ability to read using his syllabary, but the precise meaning of words varied based on the exact dialect used.

“You needed to know who wrote something to know exactly what it meant,” Simek said.

He said some of the inscriptions clearly indicate that the caves were viewed as a special underworld where the Cherokees could speak to those who came before them.

“The caves were viewed as sacred spaces,” Simek said.

He detailed some inscriptions detailing tribal “stick ball” games, competitive contests that involved spirited play. The markings were signed by a tribal leader 194 years, eight months and 22 days ago.

“The inscriptions are small and have some particular characteristics,” Simek said. “Cherokees came to the caves to communicate with the dead. It is written upside down and backwards – not so the people in the passageway can read it but so that people inside of rock can.”

By the time federal troops rounded up the Cherokee in Alabama and held detainees in Fort Payne in June 1838, Sequoyah was long gone. On Oct. 1 of that year, the party of John Benge departed from Fort Payne. The U.S. government, with assistance from state militias, forced most of the Cherokees west as they endured heavy rains, snow and freezing temperatures.

By 1914, the last vestiges of the government of the Cherokee Nation were dismantled. In 1976, the constitution of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma gained federal recognition.

Simek said inscriptions found after the Trail of Tears are evidence of Cherokees returning to the area.

“This was their homeland, and they loved it,” he said. “We find testimony of the spiritual bond of the Cherokee people. They contain memories and interactions with the spiritual world. They are remarkable in that the Cherokees recognized them and labeled them as that. The more recent inscriptions are among the most important. We learn that Cherokees have been a part of this landscape forever. They are still here. The richness of what we’ve learned has been extraordinary. Cherokee people are all around us. They are the first Americans and always will be.”

Simek has published over 100 scholarly works, with a great deal of focus on the caves of France, as well as those of the Cumberland Plateau and Appalachian Mountains.