62 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol, VII. 



" I, the bereaved, place the desire to have help to carry the child (in 

 remembrance). In hearing, look at the child ; behold (thine) own 

 (and) in beholding, pity. Take a look, thou Menera; with justice 

 compassionate Caius by remembering. 



Line g. — ka ol au mi ni o, er ka ka ni o du en ar ba mi o bi ne au pa 

 be ba. 

 achol au inii nio, erruki egi nio duen Arba inii obi ne an 



pabe ba. 

 care this place I to him, pity make I to him it is who Arba 

 places tomb to this help place. 



" I place this attention to him ; I make pity for him ; it is I, Arba, 

 who set at the tomb a place of help." 



This inscription, or series of inscriptions, is as Etruscan as if it had 

 come from a Tuscan cemetery, in vvhich the bones of many a Caius lie. 

 The image is that of the goddess Menera and her son, the first of whom 

 can hardly be Minerva, a virgin deity, but some mother goddess, whose 

 name is compounded of the Basque men, " power, authority." The 

 name of the father of Kai or Caius, namely Arba, is, as has already 

 appeared, one of the chief personal designations of the xoydX line of the 

 Canary Island Iberians, who named the Teldes, and in migration 

 became the Toltecs. There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the 

 image foreign to the islands, but rather is there reason to regard it as 

 a survival of the mortuary votive offerings made by their Iberic 

 inhabitants in ancient times. The image of Menera and her son, with 

 the inscribed prayer, was originally attached to the sepulchre of young 

 Kai or Caius by his father, Arba, and his mother, Sotoberri, as a 

 phylactery^ Wherever the Celtic Guanches first obtained it, there 

 seems to be little doubt that they were ignorant of its real nature, and 

 regarded it as one of their mother-goddesses, that the Abbe Banier, 

 in his " Mythology Explained by History," and other writers, show to 

 have been common throughout the Celtic area of Europe. Judging 

 it alike by the form of its characters and the simplicity of its language, 

 the image and its inscription must have been of much antiquity, 

 perhaps a century before the Christian era. The grammatical forms 

 dio, nio and djien denote attention to literary style such as does not 

 characterize many of the inscriptions of the same region. 



The next inscription is from Canaria, and reads in Japanese order 

 from top to bottom, but, unlike Japanese, the columns begin at the left. 



