so ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and are entirely different from those of the Wyrick Stones and other sup- 

 posed Hebrew relics. This is the Yarmouth inscription : 



It consists of twelve symbols, that preceding the V> which is fourth from 

 the end of the line, being formed of two angles that, properly repre- 

 sented, should be parallel and close together. They are syllabic, like the 

 Mexican hieroglyphics, and are transliterated as follows : 



hu hi de ka ku tu ra de bu shl ku ka. 



In old Japanese this reads, 



nabi deka Kuturade bushi goku, 

 Peacefully has gone out Kuturade, warrior eminent, 



which may be rendered, 



" Kuturade, the eminent warrior, has died in peace." 



It may very naturally be asked how it is known that such is the read- 

 ing, and how a Japanese inscription could be found in Nova Scotia? The 

 answer to the first question is that the identical writing in question has 

 been found in Siberia, Mongolia, and Japan, and the representations of 

 numerous inscriptions in it published in St. Petersburg, Helsingfors. and 

 other points in the Russian empire afford ample opiiortunity for detecting 

 the original of the American Mound Builder syllabary. As for the 

 appearance of old Japanese in America, I have shown repeatedly that the 

 Choctaw, the Creek or Maskoki, the Chicasa and all their related tongues 

 are simply Japanese dialects. That linguistic family, probably by means 

 of such literary compositions as The Migration Legend, preserved the 

 purity of ancient speech, so much corrupted in other tribes of the same 

 origin as to exhibit to the casual observer no trace of its family relation- 

 ship. It is not at all likely that an ancient Choctaw ever found his way 

 to Nova Scotia, nor is it necessary to suppose that the inscriptions in the 

 mounds of the United States were the work of members of the Creek 

 Confederacy. Japanese was the classical or literary speech of the Mound 

 Builders, whatever may have been their vulgar dialects. It was doubt- 

 less confined to their medicine men or scribes, originally a ])rie8tly caste, 

 and was the Latin of their religious formulas and mortuary inscriptions, 

 Kuturade was apparently an Iroquois, whose modern name would be 

 Katorats, The Hunter. Of course, he may have been a Huron, and there 

 is reason for thinking that his memorial might belong to the earl}^ 

 historical period of French colonization. We cannot tell when our Indians 



