26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



"I wonder how I made such a mistake," I told him. "This is 

 what they say: 'When one pulls the fodder he doesn't have to bum 

 it,' they always say. Now! All right! I suppose all of you will 

 Idll my doing the right thing." 



All of you over there will hear about it from me. When all of you 

 over there begin, you will speak to the Council of my writings. All of 

 you make it that way. Let it be thus. All of you remember that you 

 asked me. I taught and I wrote. 



Now! Inodi, this week you must write me a letter. That you 

 must do. But now it is time to pull the fodder. 



"All of you have stopped all day, and now it is late afternoon in 

 your mountains." 



Now! Inodi, this letter that I, Sdhiiwi, just wiote is for 3^ou to 

 read. 



(on verso, first notation) 



Now! Tsi:sgwani:da, I am to give you everything. 



(on verso, second notation) 

 You must read this, Inodi. If you can understand it, let it be 

 understood. 



COMMENT AEY 



Sdhi.'wi^s gossipy letter is replete with confidences difficult to 

 enter into by an outsider over a century later. The three individuals 

 addressed by the township chief — Sdhi:wi, Dila:sge:sgi ('One-Who- 

 Tramps'), and Di:ghuyi:sgi ('One-Who-Pays') — may be the personnel 

 of a school board of sorts. If the teacher, U:sgwaniye:dv ('He- 

 Observed-It-With-Amazement'), could not begin his tutorial duties 

 until he had his farm work done, it is not clear why it became the 

 duty of Sdhi:wi (and probably the other two aforementioned) to 

 assist him. That there was such an obligation is attested to by: 

 "All of you [councilmen] made it that way." 



Certainly Sdhiiwi is not happy with the arrangement, and he 

 prompts Inodi to air the matter in the Wolf town Council. And 

 one gathers that Sdhi:wi was U:sgwaniye:dv's predecessor as teacher: 

 "I taught and I wrote (i.e., I was also the clerk)," he states. 



The "All of you have stopped all day, etc." appears to be a quotation 

 from an equally disenchanted U:sgwaniye:dv. The verso reference 

 to Tsi:sgwani:da ('Young Birds') is entirely obscure. 



The literature gives us no information as to what sort of school was 

 maintained on Qualla Boundary in 1854, and we add very little 

 knowledge from The Inoli Letters. We may be sure that it did not 

 measure up to the standards of the Western Cherokees. Since it is 

 quite unlikely that many of the children knew much EngHsh, the 



