“That was what he was doing all those years in his little cabin, drawing pictures of our Tsalagi words. He did that until his neighbors became frightened—just like now—thinking he was doing sorcery. That was when they burned his cabin and all of the word pictures he had drawn.”

“Ah,” Yugi says, rubbing his hands together. He’s still in agreement with me, but even this brief mention of witchcraft and the way our people respond to it is making him nervous.

“But then my father got another idea. He saw how the Aniyonega used little signs to make their words.”

I pause, then sing, “A, B, C, D . . .”

Yugi nods. After all, he too has been taking those lessons in English at the missionary’s cabin. Except he has continued and gone further than me.

“E, F, G,” he sings back to me. “The alphabet.”

“That is right,” I say. “But instead of using letters to spell words, my father got another idea. His idea was to use alphabet letters and new designs he invented to stand for Tsalagi sounds.”

“Sounds?” Yugi says. There is confusion on his face again. But I am no longer worried. He has come this far with me. He is not going to turn and run away.

“Look at this,” I say.

I have not yet mastered all of the signs for my father’s way of writing, but I know enough of them now to be able to do what needs to be done next.

I use the charcoal to draw the sign for Yu. .

“,” I say.

Then I draw the next syllable. “.” Gi.

“Aha!” Yugi says. “My name?”

“Yes!”

I draw three more of my father’s designs below the two that have spoken my friend’s name. “And here is how we write the name of our people. Tsalagi.”

Yugi studies the symbols. A look has come over his face. It is like that of someone seeing the full light of dawn for the first time. His two hands let go of each other. He reaches out one finger to touch the signs for his own name. Then he touches the signs written in charcoal below it.

“ . . . ?” he reads aloud. Then “ . . .  . . . ?”

He looks up at me. “Is it that easy?”

“Yes,” I say. “It is that easy to read our language once you learn those symbols.”

My friend has grasped some of what I have just shown him. But I can sense that he is not yet convinced of its importance—aside from the fact that he no longer worries that my father’s work is witchcraft. However, I can understand why he has not yet realized what my father’s creation means. It was not easy for me to realize just how vital having our own talking leaves could be.

“Do you remember what the missionary has often told us? How reading and writing is a useful thing?” I ask.