Page:Anthropology.djvu/98

Rh We are at a loss to suggest a satisfactory interpretation of the inscription appearing in the center of one of the faces of the cross which still retains its ring for suspension. Can it be a rude tracing by the donor, on the spur of the moment, of the name of the Indian to whom the cross was presented? This inscription has an illiterate, unskillful, and hasty look about it. It is not a of a kind with the rest of the engraving, and was certainly added after the completion of the object. Written from left to right, it runs as follows: IYNKICIDU.



Read from right to left, we have UDICIKNYI. In either case, by a slight exercise of the imagination, we have a name with a traditional aboriginal ring about it. Manifestly these letters were not within the double circle when the cross passed from the shop of the silversmith, and we are persuaded that both a clumsy tool and an unskilled hand were employed in their superscription.

As we well know, the Florida tribes were wholly unacquainted with the horse prior to the advent of the European. To them, therefore, on its first appearance, this quadruped must have proved an object of special interest and wonder. These silver ornaments, too, were