Domingo Domingo, March 4, 2007

MHC's crack cryptographers--Lucy, Franklin, and Bret--painstakingly retraced a January hike in search of an un-GPSed mystery inscription (skipping only the cliff-face at which Lucy insisted Bret had copied inscriptions on that fateful January 14 and which she and Bret had scrutinized twice to no avail on Thursday afternoon). Our analysts found and deciphered messages inscribed between 1921 and 1949 by northern New Mexicans Max Ortiz, Max Garcia, Domingo Domingo (a founding member of the Sunday Club), JN Martinez, and Moises M. They learned that Ed Taylor had "gone to Little Valley" and "(did not ?) find any." But the mystery message eluded them as the sun sank slowly...had the Basque missal become lost in the mists of time? MHC's sheepish historians huddled in dwindling light to squeeze truth from a handful of clues: 1. Bret never leaves the first page of a notebook blank. 2. "Estubo Yo Jacobo" and "Tom Archuleta," recorded on the SECOND page, had yet to be relocated. 3. Lucy continued to claim she had waited near "no avail" wall as Bret lagged on that January day, presumably copying Jacobo, Archuleta, and the Basque. 4. Franklin had a feeling it was up that way. So our team returned to the twice-checked wall, Franklin found Jacobo, and then, finally, "The Basque" appeared!

































Four Basque lines, a date (maybe 1920), and a cursive signature--invisible in sunlight, barely legible in shade:
ESBADA.MANERA.HOBERIK
MERIKETAN.BAPATUKO 1920
??RA.ENE HEZURAK
?DIOS.ESKUADUNHAUIPAKURZENDUTEN
?????y (cursive signature)
(note: "P" might be "R", the 9 and 2 of 1920 are uncertain)

Back in the MHC crisis room, our team of analysts applied advanced crypto-algorithmics to the Basque's words, revealing that manera = manner (a loanword from Spanish), hoberik = somewhat better, merikatan = America, hezurrak = bones. Da, ipak, urzen, and duten were found to be valid Basque words, but remained untranslated. The MHC rare words division then turned to their top Basque language and history consultant, Prof Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe of U Nevada Reno's Center for Basque Studies, who had previously tipped the Club that eskualdun hau = "this speaker of Basque." Professor Mallea-Olaetxe's translation:

EZBADA MANERA HOBERIK                 IF THINGS DO NOT GET ANY BETTER
AMERIKETAN GERATUKO   1920            IN AMERICA WILL  
DIRA ENE HEZURAK        RESIDE MY BONES (he means "will rot")
ADIOS ESKUALDUN HAU IRAKURZEN DUTEN-  GOOD-BYE TO THE BASQUE SPEAKERS
    WHO READ (..ERY THIS)

The Professor wrote that DUTEN (read) should be DUTENERY (read this). 
He was not able to make sense of the cursive line that I took to be the Basque's signature.

We hope things got much better! 
It is striking that both the Basque and Max Ortiz, who wrote in Spanish on a nearby cliff
more than 30 years later, left inscriptions reflecting on their passing.