From Whee to Wi
If you have looked at the new statue of a "bigger, meaner, more ferocious catamount" near the main entrance to campus, you might have noticed the presence of Cherokee syllabary on the statue鈥檚 base.
Just below the cat鈥檚 front left foot, sculptor Jon Hair has placed the syllabary character 釓� or wi 鈥� pronounced like the pronoun 鈥渨e.鈥� Hair said that he included the character as a way of recognizing that the university occupies Cherokee land.
This use of the wi character has a history at Western. In the Cherokee Studies program, we have been employing the character in this way for some time, as an all-purpose symbol of the Indigenous identity and heritage of the campus.
It started as a kind of visual pun. Someone here in Cullowhee used to produce stickers for cars that read 鈥淲HEE鈥� in big capital letters, with smaller script reading 鈥淐ullowhee, NC.鈥� Faculty in the Cherokee language program decided to produce their own stickers, with 鈥淲HEE鈥� replaced by the wi character, and 鈥淐ullowhee, NC鈥� replaced by 鈥淛udacullawi.鈥� The name Cullowhee refers to Judaculla, an important figure from Cherokee tradition, with the suffix 鈥渨i鈥� denoting place. The name indicates that this section of the Tuckaseegee River Valley is Judaculla鈥檚 place. Replacing 鈥淲HEE鈥� with the syllabary character wi was meant to provide a reminder that this place 鈥� this wi 鈥� is a Cherokee place in the deepest sense possible.
Soon we found ways to repeat this gesture. Faculty in the Cherokee language program designed a logo for Cherokee Studies featuring the wi character (right). Sky Sampson, then director of the WCU Cherokee Center, began using the wi character on a variety of WCU swag.
In 2018, art student Todd Martin designed the most prominent wi yet, a large metal sculpture standing today near the Killian Building.
And now it seems the wi has become an unofficial element of the university鈥檚 brand. I'm not sure what that means, but hopefully it indicates that our work in Cherokee Studies, conducted in partnership with the Eastern Band, has gained some traction within the institution.