The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1913-09-25

Indian Spoke Welsh.
Here's something new" one OF
them said to me. Here's a Creek In
dian doing his best to speak Welsh
II he's doing pretty well at 1t, too"
4, myself. knew no Welsh, yet those
Welshmen n that Indian managed to
carry on n sort of conversation. Their
pronunciation differed widely and the
red man knew comparatively few
words of the Welsh tongue, but he
knew those few well and thoroughly.
Afterwards, he told me about it. First
same that / had heard among the
Arizona Indians 10 years before. There
was the coming of a number of white
men in q big n up the river. They
had been adopted into the different
tribes and finally the white blood en-
tirely died out. They had promised the
indians that sometimes more white
men speaking the same language
would cor and had adjured the red
men to transmit a few words of their
language, and their story, to these
whites. This tradition and these
generation to generation, as the
American red men have demonstrated
their ability to do, word for word. Ac-
cording TO the Creek chief, the coming
of the white men was about 600 years
ago-sometime about the year 1900.
1SAA-S NA NtAAS AshN ~
yestigations in Wales and found that
some time about the end of the Thir-
teenth century three shtploads OF
Welshmen had sailed away from that
country for the west, seeking adven-
ture toward the sunset. They never
returned. There is nothing more prob
able than that these people, having
heard of the discoveries of Lief Erick-
son.. attempted to follow in his track,
but We're blown southwards and into
the Gulf of Mexico. From here they
entered the Mississippi and then sailed
up the Arkansas.
But I had no proof, [ had traditions
of the Welshmen leaving Wales and
never returning. l had traditions Of
white men coming from the east to
these Indians. And I had found an
Indian who could speak Welsh, which
had been handed down from ~fathe<>to
son for 500 or 900 years.
Then, one day, I found myself in
Sulphur Springs, Ark. There Charles
H. HELLER, q druggist, told me he had
an odd looking piece OF thick sulphur.
which he had taken from an Indian
mound a short time previous. He
showed it to me. IT looked like a
knife blade. We scraped away the de-
post Of sulphur, which was half an
inch thick on each side inc there re-
NAMED the iron blade OF an old knife
Clearly cut on one side was the date
1881" 1t was my missing link
From Investigations I had made, I
found that 500 or 700 years ago the
Welsh Were the only people who made
iron implements and placed the date
thereon. This fact, the Welsh tradi-
tions of the three ships which never
returned, the traditions Of the Arizona
Indians, those OF the Creeks, the Creek
chief who spoke the Welsh tongue, and
the Did iron knife with the date, all
70 TO c~orroborate the story that
WelshTuen beat Columbus TO the great
discovery by something like 200 years"
Among all the queer implements and
relies Mr.. Barton has picked up in his
80 years of archaeological research
among the Indians, ne values the old
knife above ali. In fact. he keeps the
old knife blade locked up in a fire.
Proof safe and guards il as though it
were gold.
Its worth far more than SO much
gold 70 ne he savs.