one good man and gave him some songs. When he mastered them, they taught him how to make a type of ink and then showed him how to write on white birch bark." He also received many teachings about the spirits which he recorded in a birch bark book. When the one good man returned to his people he taught them how to read and write. "The Cree were very pleased with their new accomplishment, for by now the white men were in this country. The Cree knew that the white traders could read and write, so now they felt that they too were able to communicate among themselves just as well as did their white neighbors." (Stevenson 21) Stevenson (aka Wheeler) comments that the legend is commonly known among the Cree. Linguist Chris Harvey believes that the syllabics were a collaboration between English missionaries and Indigenous Cree- and Ojibwe-language experts. There is no known surviving physical evidence of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics before Norway House. Basic principles Canadian "syllabic" scripts are not syllabaries, in which every consonant–vowel sequence has a separate glyph, but abugidas, in which consonants are modified in order to indicate an associated vowel—in this case through a change in orientation (which is unique to Canadian syllabics). In Cree, for example, the consonant p has the shape of a chevron. In an upward orientation, ᐱ, it transcribes the syllable pi. Inverted, so that it points downwards, ᐯ, it transcribes pe. Pointing to the left, ᐸ, it is pa, and to the right, ᐳ, po. The consonant forms and the vowels so represented vary from language to language, but generally approximate their Cree origins. {| class="wikitable" |+ The 1840 inventory of Evans' script ! !! -e !! -ē !! -i !! -ī !! -o !! -ō !! -a !! -ā !! final !! rotation |- align=center ! (none) | ᐁ || ᐁ || ᐃ || ᐃ || ᐅ || ᐅ || ᐊ || ᐊ || || align=left | symmetric |- align=center ! p- | ᐯ || ᐯ || ᐱ || ᐱ || ᐳ || ᐳ || ᐸ || ᐸ || ᑊ || align=left | symmetric |- align=center ! t- | ᑌ || ᑌ || ᑎ || ᑎ || ᑐ || ᑐ || ᑕ || ᑕ || ᐟ || align=left | symmetric |- align=center ! k- | ᑫ || ᑫ || ᑭ || ᑭ || ᑯ || ᑯ || ᑲ