in northern Quebec. They were very interested in adapting Cree syllabics to their language. He prepared a few based on their pronunciation of Inuktitut, but it quickly became obvious that the number of basic sounds and the simple model of the syllable in the Evans system was inadequate to the language. With the assistance of Edwin Arthur Watkins, he dramatically modified syllabics to reflect these needs. In 1876, the Anglican church hired Edmund Peck to work full-time in their mission at Great Whale River, teaching syllabics to the Inuit and translating materials into syllabics. His work across the Arctic is usually credited with the establishment of syllabics among the Inuit. With the support of both Anglican and Catholic missionary societies, by the beginning of the 20th century the Inuit were propagating syllabics themselves. In the 1880s, John William Tims, an Anglican missionary from Great Britain, invented a number of new forms to write the Blackfoot language. French Roman Catholic missionaries were the primary force for expanding syllabics to Athabaskan languages in the late 19th century. The Oblate missionary order was particularly active in using syllabics in missionary work. Oblate father Adrien-Gabriel Morice adapted syllabics to Dakelh, inventing a large number of new basic characters to support the radically more complicated phonetics of Athabaskan languages. Father Émile Petitot developed syllabic scripts for many of the Athabaskan languages of the Northwest Territories, including Slavey and Chipewyan. Cree influenced the design of the Pollard script in China. Cree oral traditions Cree oral traditions state that the script was gifted to the Cree through the spirit world, rather than being invented by a missionary. In the 1930s, Chief Fine Day of the Sweetgrass First Nation told Mandelbaum the following account: A Wood Cree named Badger-call died and then became alive again. While he was dead he was given the characters of the syllabary and told that with them he could write Cree. Strike-him-on-the-back learned this writing from Badger-call. He made a feast and announced that he would teach it to anyone who wanted to learn. That is how I learned it. Badger-call also taught the writing to the missionaries. When the writing was given to Badger-call he was told 'They [the missionaries] will change the script and will say that the writing belongs to them. But only those who know Cree will be able to read it.' That is how we know that the