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1. 1 2021-02-16T20:07:58+00:00 Joelle Thomas 0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141 Index Joelle Thomas 9 Index of all pages vispath 2021-02-16T21:22:00+00:00 Joelle Thomas 0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141

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• 1 2019-07-17T10:39:13+00:00 A Hidden Support System 3 Cushman Page 4 plain 2021-03-12T16:14:50+00:00 We know as well that Walter is in the good company of four Cherokee-speaking prisoners, including Ama the scribe, all of whom seem to be responding to Dollie’s previous queries in line 14 of this letter: “This is what Johnson said, he is really craving huckleberry pies and said for you to bring some, he’s telling you to.” By the end of the letter in lines 20 and 21 respectively, two additional Cherokee-speaking prisoners say hello to Dollie: “I, a prisoner, ᏃᏈᏏ /noquisi/ Star. Also I greet you hello are you well.” And ᏚᏯ /Tuya/ Bean says: “As for me, no, they still haven’t killed me.” They look forward, we learn in line 16, to Dollie’s visit planned for next Sunday. The friendly way they address Walter’s mother and familiarity they have with her suggests that Walter has found a small community of what literacy scholar Deborah Brandt may call literacy sponsors in the penitentiary (Brandt). Sponsors support the reading and writing of those in institutions when such sponsorship might produce a benefit for the sponsor. In this case, Ama was scribe for Walter and the others, while ᎠᎵᏍᏓᏩᏘ /Aliswadawati/ was helping Walter find his way into a new position. Those must have been good huckleberry pies. More can be made of this point of sponsorship in learning to read and write in Cherokee in this prison, especially since at least five other such letters from Walter Duncan to his mother Dollie, some as long as two pages, are also included in the Yale collection.4 Suffice it to say, this group of Cherokee men were finding ways to support each other with gifts that carried with them the obligation of reciprocity.
  
  What remains illegible to the guards who might have read this letter was an entire system of support that extends beyond the prison and coheres in and through the Cherokee language. The ability to describe their positions and reveal their exchange systems in this letter seems particularly telling in light of the context of this being a trusty system in a maximum security prison. These men were able to converse with each other in a code, written and oral, that few other would fin legible, and in doing so, they found ways to connect themselves to each other through systems of sharing and mutual benefit. In the end, this remarkably legible letter presents as much as it obscures, and sheds light on a small community of Cherokee men in this prison who were legible to each other but not to their guards.