igoo-i.] Spanish Documents Relative to the Canary Islands. 69 



whose time the Roman envoy Lamia visited Hierro. This l^pces 

 Tabera four generations before that event, and if Arbe be his 

 progenitor, as is probable, this must be a very ancient monument 

 indeed. 



INSCRIPTION IX. 



This reads from left to right in both lines, save in the case of the 

 solitary subscribed character at the end of the first : 



ma mu ta ma i ta ta mo 

 be 

 si ta si ta tu 



Mainuta niai Tatamobe Chitachi edatu. 

 funereal tablet Tatamobe Chitachi erects. 



" Chitachi erects a sepulchral tablet to Tatamobe." 



A name like Chitachi is Chisetachi of M. O'Shea's No. XXIII. It 

 may connect with chichtatii, sistatu, sistatze, "to pierce, strike with a 

 pointed weapon." Chisetachi erected a monument to Chioko. 

 Tatamobe may be edat-ainbe, "great extent," or it may connect with 

 tunipa, " the sound made by a slight blow." 



INSCRIPTION X. 

 This is to be read perpendicularly : 



be ma 

 la ka 

 Bela-Jiiaka. 



"Bela-Maka." 



Bela-Maka or Maka-Bela is a common Hittite name, found on the 

 Mound-Builder tablets of Davenport, Iowa, as Wala-Maka and Maka- 

 Wala. Its first appearance in history is in Genesis xxiii, 9, 17, 19 

 where it has the form Machpelah. It thus appears to have been a 

 Zocharite or Teucrian name, rather than Zerethite or Dardanian. In 

 the form Belamaka it may possibly relate to that strange Basque word 

 palmika, palenka, "bar of iron." The Japanese inaki-wari, an axe, 

 suggests some form of the Basque inaka, inakatii, to strike, in 

 connection with niakilla, a stick, as if it had been originally niak-pilla, 

 a striking instrument. 



