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HIᏍGI (2024)

By Eric Gaither

The decennial census of 1870 has been regarded in genealogical circles as the proverbial brick wall for Black people(s) in the United States. Enslavement prior to the Civil War rendered black men, women, and children invisible. In the HIᏍGI project, descendants of a captured, enslaved common ancestor use testamentary records—“evidence of a specified fact or event” emanating from documents managed by the National Archives and the U.S. Department of the Interior—to push 100 years beyond this barrier.

HIᏍGI convenes distant, biologically related cousin-listeners and cousin-narrators for the first time to answer a question that stumped professional genealogists and the "Finding Your Roots" franchise. Who is the progenitor of the shared line of descent, and what circumstances made that possible? Stories, remembrances, and embodied DNA knowledge shared between relatives coalesce to solve a nearly 250-year old riddle about the origin of an ancestral line.

Past event: As part of the 2024 exhibition, Eric hosted a private event.

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2024 Promo Gaither HIᏍGI BLIND AND/OR LOW-VISION USERS A shape description of HIᏍGI for blind users includes a visual consisting of five panels, or units, contributing to the whole. Panel 1, a rectangle measuring approximately 8.5" x 11", is a solid, smooth surface. Panel 2, a horizontal, centered title bar, consists of five symbols (four from the English alphabet and one from the Cherokee syllabary). Placement of each symbol is approximately one inch from the symbol adjacent to it. The surface of each symbol is smooth, and the color black, in contrast to Panel 1. H and I are the first two symbols; Ꮝ, which sounds like "ss," in hiss, appears in the middle of the word, and is third; and the final two symbols G and I complete the set. The font and point size, respectively, are Bangle MN and 120. An image appearing in the center of the word HIᏍGI is as wide as the symbols and twice as high. The image forming Panel 3 is Young Warrior, an eighteenth century Cherokee man created by Watson Harlan, of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and Malaciah Taylor, of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. As part of the National Endowment for the Humanities funded "Salem Pathways" exhibit, Young Warrior provided a narrative of life in the Cherokee Lands in the seventeen hundred and seventy-seven, a year prior to the birth of HIᏍGI. The illustration, as tactile, may be represented with a textured and bejeweled rectangle for the body; the head of Young Warrior should be an oval with a feather tucked into a head bank, and the upper half of the face covered in a natural paint: use a greasy substance on the upper half of the oval to contrast from the lower half of the face. Metallic and beaded circular hoops and oblong metallic hoops, for earrings; and metallic hoops for nose rings, may be placed accordingly. Panel 4, a leaf voice box, replaces the bubble text box and pays homage to Sequoyah and his innovation of the Cherokee syllabary from observation of the "talking leaves." Imprinted on each leaf is the Cherokee symbol for the number five. In the middle of the five leaves appears the Ꮝ symbol, being articulated by Young Warrior. Each panel re-orients the past to be present and at the forefront. A family tree assembled from small horizontal boxes extending from the right side (or viewer's left) of Young Warrior's head, downward, below his shoulder, Panel 5 identifies family members using spellings from the Cherokee syllabary. Above and below each box with a name in it appears a number resembling a time code stamp; the number, in fact, is the birthdate of the ancestor. The first entry, 1771, for HIᏍGI, appears in the Cherokee syllabary. All other entries, demarcating the removal of HIᏍGI from Cherokee Lands, appear in English.
2024 Bio Eric Gaither