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ATLANTIS: THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
BY IGNATIUS DONNELLY.
The world has made such comet-like advance
Lately on science, we may almost hope,
Before we die of sheer decay, to learn
Something about our infancy; when lived
That great, original, broad-eyed, sunken race,
Whose knowledge, like the sea-sustaining rocks,
Hath formed the base of this world's fluctuous lore
--FESTUS.
Frontpiece: The Profile of Atlantis
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
I. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK
II. PLATO'S HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
III. THE PROBABILITIES OF PLATO'S STORY
IV. WAS SUCH A CATASTROPHE POSSIBLE?
V. THE TESTIMONY OF THE SEA
VI. THE TESTIMONY OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA
PART II.
THE DELUGE.
I. THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS DESCRIBED IN THE DELUGE LEGENDS
II. THE DELUGE OF THE BIBLE
III. THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS
IV. THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF OTHER NATIONS
V. THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF AMERICA
VI. SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE DELUGE LEGENDS
PART III
THE CIVILIZATION OP THE OLD WORLD AND NEW COMPARED.
I. CIVILIZATION AN INHERITANCE
II. THE IDENTITY OF THE CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
III. AMERICAN EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPE OR ATLANTIS
IV. CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES
V. THE QUESTION OF COMPLEXION
VI. GENESIS CONTAINS A HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
VII. THE: ORIGIN OF OUR ALPHABET
VIII. THE BRONZE AGE IN EUROPE
IX. ARTIFICIAL DEFORMATION OF THE SKULL
PART IV.
THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE OLD WORLD A RECOLLECTION OF ATLANTIS.
I. TRADITIONS OF ATLANTIS
II. THE KINGS OF ATLANTIS BECOME THE GODS OF THE GREEKS
III. THE GODS OF THE PHOENICIANS ALSO KINGS OF ATLANTIS
IV. THE GOD ODIN, WODEN, OR WOTAN
V. THE PYRAMID, THE CROSS, AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN
VI. GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS
PART V.
THE COLONIES OF ATLANTIS.
I. THE CENTRAL AMERICAN AND MEXICAN COLONIES
II. THE EGYPTIAN COLONY
III. THE COLONIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
IV. THE IBERIAN COLONIES OF ATLANTIS
V. THE PERUVIAN COLONY
VI. THE AFRICAN COLONIES
VII. THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS
VIII. THE OLDEST SON OF NOAH
IX. THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS
X. THE ARYAN COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS
XI. ATLANTIS RECONSTRUCTED
PART I. THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.
This book is an attempt to demonstrate several distinct and novel
propositions. These are:
1. That there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the mouth
of the Mediterranean Sea, a large island, which was the remnant of
an Atlantic continent, and known to the ancient world as Atlantis.
2. That the description of this island given by Plato is not, as
has been long supposed, fable, but veritable history.
3. That Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state
of barbarism to civilization.
4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty
nation, from whose overflowings the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
the Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South
America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the
Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized
nations.
5. That it was the true Antediluvian world; the Garden of Eden;
the Gardens of the Hesperides; the Elysian Fields; the Gardens of
Alcinous; the Mesomphalos; the Olympos; the Asgard of the traditions
of the ancient nations; representing a universal memory of a great
land, where early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness.
6. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians,
the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens,
and heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology
are a confused recollection of real historical events.
7. That the mythology of Egypt and Peru represented the original
religion of Atlantis, which was sun-worship.
8. That the oldest colony formed by the Atlanteans was probably in
Egypt, whose civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic
island.
9. That the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived
from Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers
of iron.
10. That the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all the European
alphabets, was derived from au Atlantis alphabet, which was also
conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.
11. That Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or Indo-European
family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly
also of the Turanian races.
12. That Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in
which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its
inhabitants.
13. That a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts, and, carried
to the nations east and west the tidings of the appalling catastrophe,
which has survived to our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends
of the different nations of the old and new worlds.
If these propositions can be proved, they will solve many problems
which now perplex mankind; they will confirm in many respects the
statements in the opening chapters of Genesis; they will widen the
area of human history; they will explain the remarkable resemblances
which exist between the ancient civilizations found upon the opposite
shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in the old and new worlds; and they
will aid us to rehabilitate the fathers of our civilization, our
blood, and our fundamental ideas--the men who lived, loved, and
labored ages before the Aryans descended upon India, or the Phoenician
had settled in Syria, or the Goth had reached the shores of the
Baltic.
The fact that the story of Atlantis was for thousands of years
regarded as a fable proves nothing. There is an unbelief which
grows out of ignorance, as well as a scepticism which is born of
intelligence. The people nearest to the past are not always those
who are best informed concerning the past.
For a thousand years it was believed that the legends of the buried
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths: they were spoken of
as "the fabulous cities." For a thousand years the educated world
did not credit the accounts given by Herodotus of the wonders of
the ancient civilizations of the Nile and of Chaldea. He was called
"the father of liars." Even Plutarch sneered at him. Now, in the
language of Frederick Schlegel, "the deeper and more comprehensive
the researches of the moderns have been, the more their regard
and esteem for Herodotus has increased." Buckle says, "His minute
information about Egypt and Asia Minor is admitted by all geographers."
There was a time when the expedition sent out by Pharaoh Necho to
circumnavigate Africa was doubted, because the explorers stated that
after they had progressed a certain distance the sun was north of
them; this circumstance, which then aroused suspicion, now proves
to us that the Egyptian navigators had really passed the equator,
and anticipated by 2100 years Vasquez de Gama in his discovery of
the Cape of Good Hope.
If I succeed in demonstrating the truth of the somewhat startling
propositions with which I commenced this chapter, it will only
be by bringing to bear upon the question of Atlantis a thousand
converging lines of light from a multitude of researches made by
scholars in different fields of modern thought. Further investigations
and discoveries will, I trust, confirm the correctness of the
conclusions at which I have arrived.
CHAPTER II.
PLATO'S HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
Plato has preserved for us the history of Atlantis. If our views
are correct, it is one of the most valuable records which have come
down to us from antiquity.
Plato lived 400 years before the birth of Christ. His ancestor,
Solon, was the great law-giver of Athens 600 years before the
Christian era. Solon visited Egypt. Plutarch says, "Solon attempted
in verse a large description, or rather fabulous account of the
Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men of Sais,
and which particularly concerned the Athenians; but by reason
of his age, not want of leisure (as Plato would have it), he was
apprehensive the work would be too much for him, and therefore did
not go through with it. These verses are a proof that business
was not the hinderance:
"'I grow in learning as I grow in age.'
And again:
"'Wine, wit, and beauty still their charms bestow,
Light all the shades of life, and cheer us as we go.'
"Plato, ambitious to cultivate and adorn the subject of the Atlantic
Island, as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, to which
also be had some claim by reason of his being related to Solon,
laid out magnificent courts and enclosures, and erected a grand
entrance to it, such as no other story, fable, or Poem ever had.
But, as he began it late, he ended his life before the work, so
that the more the reader is delighted with the part that is written,
the more regret he has to find it unfinished."
There can be no question that Solon visited Egypt. The causes of
his departure from Athens, for a period of ten years, are fully
explained by Plutarch. He dwelt, be tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There be conversed upon points of philosophy and history with the
most learned of the Egyptian priests. He was a man of extraordinary
force and penetration of mind, as his laws and his sayings, which
have been preserved to us, testify. There is no improbability in
the statement that be commenced in verse a history and description
of Atlantis, which be left unfinished at his death; and it requires
no great stretch of the imagination to believe that this manuscript
reached the bands of his successor and descendant, Plato; a scholar,
thinker, and historian like himself, and, like himself, one of the
profoundest minds of the ancient world. the Egyptian priest had
said to Solon, "You have no antiquity of history, and no history of
antiquity;" and Solon doubtless realized fully the vast importance
of a record which carried human history back, not only thousands
of years before the era of Greek civilization, but many thousands
of years before even the establishment of the kingdom of Egypt; and
be was anxious to preserve for his half-civilized countrymen this
inestimable record of the past.
We know of no better way to commence a book about Atlantis than by
giving in full the record preserved by Plato. It is as follows:
'Critias'. Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which is, however,
certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages,
declared. He was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather,
Dropidas, as be himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas
told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that
there were of old great and marvellous actions of the Athenians,
which have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction
of the human race and one in particular, which was the greatest
of them all, the recital of which will be a suitable testimony of
our gratitude to you....
'Socrates'. Very good; and what is. this ancient famous action of
which Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action
of the Athenian State, which Solon recounted!
'Critias'. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an
aged man; for Critias was, as be said, at that time nearly ninety
years of age, and I was about ten years of age. Now the day was that
day of the Apaturia which is called the registration of youth; at
which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations,
and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many
of us sung the poems of Solon, which were new at the time. One of
our tribe, either because this was his real opinion, or because he
thought that he would please Critias, said that, in his judgment,
Solon was not only the wisest of men but the noblest of poets. The
old man, I well remember, brightened up at this, and said, smiling:
"Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry
the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought
with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the
factions and troubles which he found stirring in this country when
he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion be would
have been as famous as Homer, or Hesiod, or any poet."
"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the person who
addressed him.
"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which
ought to have been most famous, but which, through the lapse of
time and the destruction of the actors, has not come down to us."
"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and bow and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition."
He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile
divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais,
and is the city from which Amasis the king was sprung. And the
citizens have a deity who is their foundress: she is called in
the Egyptian tongue Neith, which is asserted by them to be the same
whom the Hellenes called Athene. Now, the citizens of this city
are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some
way related to them. Thither came Solon, who was received by them
with great honor; and be asked the priests, who were most skilful
in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither
he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the
times of old. On one occasion, when he was drawing them on to
speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things
in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called 'the
first,' and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to tell of the
lives of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their
descendants, and attempted to reckon bow many years old were the
events of which he was speaking, and to give the dates. Thereupon,
one of the priests, who was of very great age; said, 'O Solon,
Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man
who is an Hellene.' Solon, bearing this, said, 'What do you mean?'
'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young;
there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition,
nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you the
reason of this: there have been, and there will be again, many
destructions of mankind arising out of many causes. There is a
story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaëthon,
the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot,
because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father,
burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed
by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really
signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and
in the heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth
recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who
live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable
to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore;
and from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing savior,
saves and delivers us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the
earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on
the mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in
cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country
neither at that time nor at any other does the water come from above
on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below, for
which reason the things preserved here are said to be the oldest.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing
at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers. And whatever
happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region
of which we are informed--if any action which is noble or great,
or in any other way remarkable has taken place, all that has been
written down of old, and is preserved in our temples; whereas you
and other nations are just being provided with letters and the
other things which States require; and then, at the usual period,
the stream from heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only
those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and thus
you have to begin all over again as children, and know nothing of
what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.
As for those genealogies of yours which you have recounted to us,
Solon, they are no better than the tales of children; for, in the
first place, you remember one deluge only, whereas there were many
of them; and, in the next place, you do not know that there dwelt
in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived,
of whom you and your whole city are but a seed or remnant. And
this was unknown to you, because for many generations the survivors
of that destruction died and made no sign. For there was a time,
Solon, before that great deluge of all, when the city which now is
Athens was first in war, and was preeminent for the excellence of
her laws, and is said to have performed the noblest deeds, and to
have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells,
under the face of heaven.' Solon marvelled at this, and earnestly
requested the priest to inform him exactly and in order about these
former citizens. 'You are welcome to hear about them, Solon,' said
the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of the city; and,
above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and
protector and educator of both our cities. She founded your city
a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephæstus
the seed of your race, and then she founded ours, the constitution
of which is set down in our sacred registers as 8000 years old.
As touching the citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform
you of their laws and of the noblest of their actions; and the
exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at
our leisure. in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare
these very laws with your own, you will find that many of ours are
the counterpart of yours, as they were in the olden time. In the
first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from
all the others; next there are the artificers, who exercise their
several crafts by themselves, and without admixture of any other;
and also there is the class of shepherds and that of hunters, as
well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the
warriors in Egypt are separated from all the other classes, and are
commanded by the law only to engage in war; moreover, the weapons
with which they are equipped are shields and spears, and this the
goddess taught first among you, and then in Asiatic countries, and
we among the Asiatics first adopted.
"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe what care the law took from
the very first, searching out and comprehending the whole order
of things down to prophecy and medicine (the latter with a view to
health); and out of these divine elements drawing what was needful
for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was
connected with them. All this order and arrangement the goddess
first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose
the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the
happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the
wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war
and of wisdom, selected, and first of all settled that spot which
was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you
dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled
all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples
of the gods. Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your
State in our histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in
greatness and valor; for these histories tell of a mighty power
which was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia,
and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of
the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable;
and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you
call the Columns of Heracles: the island was larger than Libya and
Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from the
islands you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent
which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the
Straits of Heracles is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance,
but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most
truly called a continent. Now, in the island of Atlantis there was
a great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island
and several others, as well as over parts of the continent; and,
besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya within the Columns
of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
The vast power thus gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at one
blow our country and yours, and the whole of the land which was
within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth,
in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind;
for she was the first in courage and military skill, and was the
leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being
compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity
of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and
preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjected, and freely
liberated all the others who dwelt within the limits of Heracles.
But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and
in a single day and night of rain all your warlike men in a body
sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner
disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is the reason
why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because
there is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was
caused by the subsidence of the island.' ("Plato's Dialogues," ii.,
617, Timæus.....
"But in addition to the gods whom you have mentioned, I would
specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of what I
have to tell is dependent on her favor, and if I can recollect and
recite enough of what was said by the priests, and brought hither
by Solon, I doubt not that I shall satisfy the requirements of this
theatre. To that task, then, I will at once address myself.
"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was
the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to
have taken place between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars
of Heracles and those who dwelt within them: this war I am now
to describe. Of the combatants on the one side the city of Athens
was reported to have been the ruler, and to have directed the
contest; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of
the islands of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent
greater than that of Libya and Asia; and, when afterward sunk
by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers
sailing from hence to the ocean. The progress of the history will
unfold the various tribes of barbarians and Hellenes which then
existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must begin
by describing, first of all, the Athenians as they were in that
day, and their enemies who fought with them; and I shall have to
tell of the power and form of government of both of them. Let us
give the precedence to Athens....
Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years,
for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time
of which I am speaking; and in all the ages and changes of things
there has never been any settlement of the earth flowing down from
the mountains, as in other places, which is worth speaking of; it
has always been carried round in a circle, and disappeared in the
depths below. The consequence is that, in comparison of what then
was, there are remaining in small islets only the bones of the wasted
body, as they may be called, all the richer and softer parts of
the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the country
being left....
"And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when I was a child,
I will impart to you the character and origin of their adversaries;
for friends should not keep their stories to themselves, but have
them in common. Yet, before proceeding farther in the narrative,
I ought to warn you that you must not be surprised if you should
bear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the
reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his
poem, made an investigation into the meaning of the names, and
found that the early Egyptians, in writing them down, had translated
them into their own language, and be recovered the meaning of the
several names and retranslated them, and copied them out again in
our language. My great-grandfather, Dropidas, had the original
writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied
by me when I was a child. Therefore, if you bear names such as are
used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told
you the reason of them.
"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows: I have
before remarked, in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that
they distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent,
and made themselves temples and sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving
for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman,
and settled them in a part of the island which I will proceed to
describe. On the side toward the sea, and in the centre of the
whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the
fairest of all plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again,
and also in the centre of the island, at a distance of about fifty
stadia, there was a mountain, not very high on any side. In this
mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that
country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe,
and they had an only daughter, who was named Cleito. The maiden was
growing up to womanhood when her father and mother died; Poseidon
fell in love with her, and had intercourse with her; and, breaking
the ground, enclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making
alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling
one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he
turned as with a lathe out of the centre of the island, equidistant
every way, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and
voyages were not yet heard of. He himself, as be was a god, found
no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island,
bringing two streams of water under the earth, which he caused to
ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold, and
making every variety of food to spring up abundantly in the earth.
He also begat and brought up five pairs of male children, dividing
the island of Atlantis into ten portions: he gave to the first-born
of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding
allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over
the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many
men and a large territory. And he named them all: the eldest,
who was king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and
the ocean received the name of Atlantic. To his twin-brother, who
was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the
island toward the Pillars of Heracles, as far as the country which
is still called the region of Gades in that part of the world, be
gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the
language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the
second pair of twins, he called one Ampheres and the other Evæmon.
To the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus to the elder,
and Autochthon to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair
of twins he called the elder Elasippus and the younger Mestor, And
of the fifth pair be gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to
the younger Diaprepes. All these and their descendants were the
inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also,
as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction
over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia.
Now Atlas had a numerous and honorable family, and his eldest branch
always retained the kingdom, which the eldest son handed on to his
eldest for many generations; and they had such an amount of wealth
as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not
likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything
which they could have, both in city and country. For, because of
the greatness of their empire, many things were brought to them
from foreign countries, and the island itself provided much of what
was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place,
they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, mineral
as well as metal, and that which is now only a name, and was then
something more than a name--orichalcum--was dug out of the earth
in many parts of the island, and, with the exception of gold, was
esteemed the most precious of metals among the men of those days.
There was an abundance of wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient
maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a
great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision
for animals of every kind, both for those which live in lakes and
marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and
on plains, and therefore for the animal which is the largest and
most voracious of them. Also, whatever fragrant things there are
in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or distilling
drops of flowers or fruits, grew and thrived in that land; and
again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible fruit
and other species of food, which we call by the general name of
legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks, and
meats, and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like,
which may be used to play with, and are fruits which spoil with
keeping--and the pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after
dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these that sacred
island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and wondrous in
infinite abundance. All these things they received from the earth,
and they employed themselves in constructing their temples, and
palaces, and harbors, and docks; and they arranged the whole country
in the following manner: First of all they bridged over the zones
of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made a passage
into and out of they began to build the palace in the royal palace;
and then the habitation of the god and of their ancestors. This
they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king
surpassing the one who came before him to the utmost of his power,
until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for
beauty. And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred
feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in
length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a
passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving
an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress.
Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of
sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage
for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed
them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the
banks of the zones were raised considerably above the water. Now
the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea
was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next
of equal breadth; but the next two, as well the zone of water as
of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central
island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace
was situated had a diameter of five stadia. This, and the zones
and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width,
they surrounded by a stone wall, on either side placing towers,
and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which
was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre
island and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the
inner side. One kind of stone was white, another black, and a
third red; and, as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed
out docks double within, having roofs formed out of the native
rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put
together different stones, which they intermingled for the sake of
ornament, to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit
of the wall which went round the outermost one they covered with
a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated
with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel flashed with
the red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the
citadel were constructed in this wise: In the centre was a holy
temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible,
and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot in
which they originally begat the race of the ten princes, and thither
they annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from
all the ten portions, and performed sacrifices to each of them.
Here, too, was Poiseidon's own temple, of a stadium in length and
half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having
a sort of barbaric splendor. All the outside of the temple, with
the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the
pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was
of ivory, adorned everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum;
all the other parts of the walls and pillars and floor they lined
with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold: there
was the god himself standing in a chariot--the charioteer of six
winged horses--and of such a size that be touched the roof of the
building with his bead; around him there were a hundred Nereids
riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them
in that day. There were also in the interior of the temple other
images which had been dedicated by private individuals. And
around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all
the ten kings and of their wives; and there were many other great
offerings, both of kings and of private individuals, coming both
from the city itself and the foreign cities over which they held
sway. There was an altar, too, which in size and workmanship
corresponded to the rest of the work, and there were palaces in
like manner which answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the
glory of the temple.
"In the next place, they used fountains both of cold and hot springs;
these were very abundant, and both kinds wonderfully adapted to use
by reason of the sweetness and excellence of their waters. They
constructed buildings about them, and planted suitable trees; also
cisterns, some open to the heaven, other which they roofed over, to
be used in winter as warm baths, there were the king's baths, and
the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; also separate
baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle, and to
them they gave as much adornment as was suitable for them. The
water which ran off they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon,
where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and
beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was
conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer
circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated to many
gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some
set apart for horses, in both of the two islands formed by the zones;
and in the centre of the larger of the two there was a race-course
of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round
the island, for horses to race in. Also there were guard-houses
at intervals for the body-guard, the more trusted of whom had their
duties appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the
Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them
within the citadel, and about the persons of the kings. The docks
were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite
ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace. Crossing
the outer harbors, which were three in number, you would come to a
wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere
distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed
the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea. The
entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal
and the largest of the harbors were full of vessels and merchants
coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous
sound of human voices and din of all sorts night and day. I have
repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts about the
ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must endeavor to
describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country.
The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous
on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about
and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by
mountains which descended toward the sea; it was smooth and even,
but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand
stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre
of the island two thousand stadia; the whole region of the island
lies toward the south, and is sheltered from the north. The
surrounding mountains he celebrated for their number and size and
beauty, in which they exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere;
having in them also many wealthy inhabited villages, and rivers and
lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or
tame, and wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated during
many ages by many generations of kings. It was rectangular, and
for the most part straight and oblong; and what it wanted of the
straight line followed the line of the circular ditch. The depth
and width and length of this ditch were incredible and gave the
impression that such a work, in addition to so many other works,
could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man. But I must
say what I have heard. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred
feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried
round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length.
It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and
winding round the plain, and touching the city at various points,
was there let off into the sea. From above, likewise, straight
canals of a hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and
again let off into the ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at
intervals of a Hundred stadia, and by them they brought, down the
wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the
earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into
another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the
fruits of the earth--in winter having the benefit of the rains,
and in summer introducing the water of the canals. As to the
population, each of the lots in the plain had an appointed chief
of men who were fit for military service, and the size of the lot
was to be a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of
all the lots was sixty thousand.
"And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the
country there was also a vast multitude having leaders, to whom
they were assigned according to their dwellings and villages. The
leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of
a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots;
also two horses and riders upon them, and a light chariot without
a seat, accompanied by a fighting man on foot carrying a small
shield, and having a charioteer mounted to guide the horses; also,
be was bound to furnish two heavy-armed men, two archers, two
slingers, three stone-shooters, and three javelin men, who were
skirmishers, and four sailors to make up a complement of twelve
hundred ships. Such was the order of war in the royal city--that
of the other nine governments was different in each of them,
and would be wearisome to narrate. As to offices and honors, the
following was the arrangement from the first: Each of the ten
kings, in his own division and in his own city, had the absolute
control of the citizens, and in many cases of the laws, punishing
and slaying whomsoever be would.
"Now the relations of their governments to one another were regulated
by the injunctions of Poseidon as the law had handed them down.
These were inscribed by the first men on a column of orichalcum,
which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of
Poseidon, whither the people were gathered together every fifth and
sixth years alternately, thus giving equal honor to the odd and to
the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted
about public affairs, and inquired if any one had transgressed in
anything, and passed judgment on him accordingly--and before they
passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another in this wise:
There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and
the ten who were left alone in the temple, after they had offered
prayers to the gods that they might take the sacrifices which were
acceptable to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but with
staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to
the column; the victim was then struck on the head by them, and
slain over the sacred inscription, Now on the column, besides the
law, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the
disobedient. When, therefore, after offering sacrifice according
to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of the bull, they mingled
a cup and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the
victim they took to the fire, after having made a purification of
the column all round. Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels,
and, pouring a libation on the fire, they swore t hat they would
judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish any
one who had previously transgressed, and that for the future they
would not, if they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions,
and would not command or obey any ruler who commanded them to act
otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon.
This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and
for his family, at the same time drinking, and dedicating the vessel
in the temple of the god; and, after spending some necessary time
at supper, when darkness came on and the fire about the sacrifice
was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting
on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifices on which
they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple,
they received and gave judgement, if any of them had any accusation
to bring against any one; and, when they had given judgment, at
daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and
deposited them as memorials with their robes. There were many special
laws which the several kings had inscribed about the temples, but
the most important was the following: That they were not to take up
arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue
if any one in any city attempted to over. throw the royal house.
Like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war
and other matters, giving the supremacy to the family of Atlas;
and the king was not to have the power of life and death over any
of his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the majority of the
ten kings.
"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island
of Atlantis; and this he afterward directed against our land on
the following pretext, as traditions tell: For many generations,
as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient
to the laws, and well-affectioned toward the gods, who were their
kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits,
practising gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life,
and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything
but virtue, not caring for their present state of life, arid thinking
lightly on the possession of gold and other property, which seemed
only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury;
nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were
sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtuous
friendship with one another, and that by excessive zeal for them,
and honor of them, the good of them is lost, and friendship perishes
with them.
"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine
nature, all that which we have described waxed and increased in
them; but when this divine portion began to fade away in them, and
became diluted too often, and with too much of the mortal admixture,
and the human nature got the upper-hand, then, they being unable
to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye
to see, they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of
their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true
happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time
when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power. Zeus,
the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such
things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a most wretched
state, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might
be chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his most
holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world,
sees all things that partake of generation. And when he had called
them together he spake as follows:"
[Here Plato's story abruptly ends.]
CHAPTER III.
THE PROBABILITIES OF PLATO'S STORY.
There is nothing improbable in this narrative, so far as it describes
a great, rich, cultured, and educated people. Almost every part
of Plato's story can be paralleled by descriptions of the people
of Egypt or Peru; in fact, in some respects Plato's account of
Atlantis falls short of Herodotus's description of the grandeur
of Egypt, or Prescott's picture of the wealth and civilization of
Peru. For instance, Prescott, in his "Conquest of Peru" (vol. i.,
p. 95), says:
"The most renowned of the Peruvian temples, the pride of the
capital and the wonder of the empire, was at Cuzco, where, under
the munificence of successive sovereigns, it had become so enriched
that it received the name of 'Coricancha', or 'the Place of Gold.....
The interior of the temple was literally a mine of gold. On the
western wall was emblazoned a representation of the Deity, consisting
of a human countenance looking forth from amid innumerable rays of
light, which emanated from it in every direction, in the same manner
as the sun is often personified with us. The figure was engraved
on a massive plate of gold, of enormous dimensions, thickly powdered
with emeralds and precious stones.... The walls and ceilings
were everywhere incrusted with golden ornaments; every part of the
interior of the temple glowed with burnished plates and studs of
the precious metal; the cornices were of the same material."
There are in Plato's narrative no marvels; no myths; no tales of
gods, gorgons, hobgoblins, or giants. It is a plain and reasonable
history of a people who built temples, ships, and canals; who lived
by agriculture and commerce: who in pursuit of trade, reached
out to all the countries around them. The early history of most
nations begins with gods and demons, while here we have nothing of
the kind; we see an immigrant enter the country, marry one of the
native women, and settle down; in time a great nation grows up
around him. It reminds one of the information given by the Egyptian
priests to Herodotus. "During the space of eleven thousand three
hundred and fort years they assert," says Herodotus, "that no
divinity has appeared in human shape.... they absolutely denied
the possibility of a human being's descent from a god." If Plato
had sought to draw from his imagination a wonderful and pleasing
story, we should not have had so plain and reasonable a narrative.
He would have given us a history like the legends of Greek mythology,
full of the adventures of gods and goddesses, nymphs, fauns, and
satyrs.
Neither is there any evidence on the face of this history that
Plato sought to convey in it a moral or political lesson, in the
guise of a fable, as did Bacon in the "New Atlantis," and More in
the "Kingdom of Nowhere." There is no ideal republic delineated
here. It is a straightforward, reasonable history of a people ruled
over by their kings, living and progressing as other nations have
lived and progressed since their day.
Plato says that in Atlantis there was "a great and wonderful
empire," which "aggressed wantonly against the whole of Europe and
Asia," thus testifying to the extent of its dominion. It not only
subjugated Africa as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Italy,
but it ruled "as well 'over parts of the continent'," to wit, "the
opposite continent" of America, "which surrounded the true ocean."
Those parts of America over which it ruled were, as we will show
hereafter, Central America, Peru, and the Valley of the Mississippi,
occupied by the "Mound Builders."
Moreover, be tells us that "this vast power was gathered into one;"
that is to say, from Egypt to Peru it was one consolidated empire.
We will see hereafter that the legends of the Hindoos as to Deva
Nahusha distinctly refer to this vast empire, which covered the
whole of the known world.
Another corroboration of the truth of Plato's narrative is found
in the fact that upon the Azores black lava rocks, and rocks red
and white in color, are now found. He says they built with white,
red, and black stone. Sir C. Wyville Thomson describes a narrow
neck of land between Fayal and Monte da Guia, called "Monte
Queimada" (the burnt mountain), as follows: "It is formed partly
of stratified tufa of a dark chocolate color, and partly of lumps
of 'black' lava, porous, and each with a large cavity in the centre,
which must have been ejected as volcanic bombs in a glorious display
of fireworks at some period beyond the records of Acorean history,
but late in the geological annals of the island" ("Voyage of the
Challenger," vol. ii., p. 24). He also describes immense walls of
black volcanic rock in the island.
The plain of Atlantis, Plato tells us, "had been cultivated
during many ages by many generations of kings." If, as we believe,
agriculture, the domestication of the horse, ox, sheep, goat, and
bog, and the discovery or development of wheat, oats, rye, and barley
originated in this region, then this language of Plato in reference
to "the many ages, and the successive generations of kings," accords
with the great periods of time which were necessary to bring man
from a savage to a civilized condition.
In the great ditch surrounding the whole land like a circle, and
into which streams flowed down from the mountains, we probably see
the original of the four rivers of Paradise, and the emblem of the
cross surrounded by a circle, which, as we will show hereafter,
was, from the earliest pre-Christian ages, accepted as the emblem
of the Garden of Eden.
We know that Plato did not invent the name of Poseidon, for the
worship of Poseidon was universal in the earliest ages of Europe;
"Poseidon-worship seems to have been a peculiarity of all the
colonies previous to the time of Sidon" ("Prehistoric Nations," p.
148.) This worship "was carried to Spain, and to Northern Africa,
but most abundantly to Italy, to many of the islands, and to the
regions around the Ægean Sea; also to Thrace." ('Ibid'., p. 155.)
Poseidon, or Neptune, is represented in Greek mythology as a
sea-god; but he is figured as standing in a war-chariot drawn by
horses. The association of the horse (a land animal) with a sea-god
is inexplicable, except with the light given by Plato. Poseidon
was a sea-god because he ruled over a great land in the sea, and
was the national god of a maritime people; be is associated with
horses, because in Atlantis the horse was first domesticated; and,
as Plato shows, the Atlanteans had great race-courses for the
development of speed in horses; and Poseidon is represented as
standing in a war-chariot, because doubtless wheeled vehicles were
first invented by the same people who tamed the horse; and they
transmitted these war-chariots to their descendants from Egypt
to Britain. We know that horses were the favorite objects chosen
for sacrifice to Poseidon by the nations of antiquity within the
Historical Period; they were killed, and cast into the sea from high
precipices. The religious horse-feasts of the pagan Scandinavians
were a survival of this Poseidon-worship, which once prevailed along
all the coasts of Europe; they continued until the conversion of
the people to Christianity, and were then suppressed by the Church
with great difficulty.
We find in Plato's narrative the names of some of the Phoenician
deities among the kings of Atlantis. Where did the Greek, Plato,
get these names if the story is a fable?
Does Plato, in speaking of "the fruits having a hard rind, affording
drinks and meats and ointments," refer to the cocoa nut?
Again: Plato tells us that Atlantis abounded in both cold and hot
springs. How did he come to hit upon the hot springs if be was
drawing a picture from his imagination? It is a singular confirmation
of his story that hot springs abound in the Azores, which are the
surviving fragments of Atlantis; and an experience wider than that
possessed by Plato has taught scientific men that hot springs are
a common feature of regions subject to volcanic convulsions.
Plato tells us, "The whole country was very lofty and precipitous
on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about
and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by
mountains which descended toward the sea." One has but to look at
the profile of the "Dolphin's Ridge," as revealed by the deep-sea
soundings of the Challenger, given as the frontispiece to this
volume, to see that this is a faithful description of that precipitous
elevation. "The surrounding mountains," which sheltered the plain
from the north, are represented in the present towering peaks of
the Azores.
Plato tells us that the destruction of Atlantis filled the sea
with mud, and interfered with navigation. For thousands of years
the ancients believed the Atlantic Ocean to be "a muddy, shallow,
dark, and misty sea, 'Mare tenebrosum'." ("Cosmos," vol. ii., p.
151.)
The three-pronged sceptre or trident of Poseidon reappears constantly
in ancient history. We find it in the hands of Hindoo gods, and
at the base of all the religious beliefs of antiquity.
"Among the numerals the sacred three has ever been considered the
mark of perfection, and was therefore exclusively ascribed to the
Supreme Deity, or to its earthly representative--a king, emperor,
or any sovereign. For this reason triple emblems of various shapes
are found on the belts, neckties, or any encircling fixture, as can
be seen on the works of ancient art in Yucatan, Guatemala, Chiapas,
Mexico, etc., whenever the object has reference to divine supremacy."
(Dr. Arthur Schott, "Smith. Rep.," 1869, p. 391.)
We are reminded of the, "tiara," and the "triple round of sovereignty."
In the same manner the ten kingdoms of Atlantis are perpetuated in
all the ancient traditions.
"In the number given by the Bible for the Antediluvian patriarchs we
have the first instance of a striking agreement with the traditions
of various nations. Ten are mentioned in the Book of Genesis.
Other nations, to whatever epoch they carry back their ancestors,
whether before or after the Deluge, whether the mythical or historical
character prevail, they are constant to this sacred number ten,
which some have vainly attempted to connect with the speculations
of later religious philosophers on the mystical value of numbers.
In Chaldea, Berosus enumerates ten Antediluvian kings whose fabulous
reign extended to thousands of years. The legends of the Iranian
race commence with the. reign of ten Peisdadien (Poseidon?) kings,
'men of the ancient law, who lived on pure Homa (water of life)'
(nectar?), 'and who preserved their sanctity.' In India we meet
with the nine Brahmadikas, who, with Brahma, their founder, make
ten, and who are called the Ten Petris, or Fathers. The Chinese
count ten emperors, partakers of the divine nature, before the dawn
of historical times. The Germans believed in the ten ancestors
of Odin, and the Arabs in the ten mythical kings of the Adites."
(Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. i., p.
13.)
The story of Plato finds confirmation from other sources.
An extract preserved in Proclus, taken from a work now lost, which
is quoted by Boeckh in his commentary on Plato, mentions islands
in the exterior sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and says it
was known that in one of these islands "the inhabitants preserved
from their ancestors a remembrance of Atlantis, all extremely large
island, which for a long time held dominion over all the islands
of the Atlantic Ocean."
Ælian, in his "Varia Historia" (book iii., chap. xviii.), tells us
that Theopompus (400 B.C.) related the particulars of an interview
between Midas, King of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus
reported the existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic,
"larger than Asia, Europe, and Libya together." He stated that a
race of men called Meropes dwelt there, and had extensive cities.
They were persuaded that their country alone was a continent. Out of
curiosity some of them crossed the ocean and visited the Hyperboreans.
"The Gauls possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which
were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the
first century before Christ. He represents that three distinct
people dwelt in Gaul: 1. The indigenous population, which I suppose
to be Mongoloids, who had long dwelt in Europe; 2. The invaders
from a distant island, which I understand to be Atlantis; 3. The
Aryan Gauls." ("Preadamites," p. 380.)
Marcellus, in a work on the Ethiopians, speaks of seven islands lying
in the Atlantic Ocean--probably the Canaries--and the inhabitants
of these islands, he says, preserve the memory of a much greater
island, Atlantis, "which had for a long time exercised dominion
over the smaller ones." (Didot Müller, "Fragmenta Historicorum
Græcorum," vol. iv., p. 443.)
Diodorus Siculus relates that the Phoenicians discovered "a large
island in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, several
days' sail from the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all
manner of riches. The soil was exceedingly fertile; the scenery was
diversified by rivers, mountains, and forests. It was the custom
of the inhabitants to retire during the summer to magnificent
country-houses, which stood in the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish
and game were found in great abundance; the climate was delicious,
and the trees bore fruit at all seasons of the year." Homer,
Plutarch, and other ancient writers mention islands situated in the
Atlantic, "several thousand stadia from the Pillars of Hercules."
Silenus tells Midas that there was another continent besides
Europe, Asia, and Africa--"a country where gold and silver are so
plentiful that they are esteemed no more than we esteem iron." St.
Clement, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says that there were
other worlds beyond the ocean.
Attention may here be called to the extraordinary number of instances
in which allusion is made in the Old Testament to the "islands of
the sea," especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel. What had an inland
people, like the Jews, to do with seas and islands? Did these
references grow out of vague traditions linking their race with
"islands in the sea?"
The Orphic Argonaut sings of the division of the ancient Lyktonia
into separate islands. He says," When the dark-haired Poseidon, in
anger with Father Kronion, struck Lyktonia with the golden trident."
Plato states that the Egyptians told Solon that the destruction of
Atlantis occurred 9000 years before that date, to wit, about 9600
years before the Christian era. This looks like an extraordinarily
long period of time, but it must be remembered that geologists
claim that the remains of man found in the caves of Europe date
back 500,000 years; and the fossil Calaveras skull was found deep
under the base of Table Mountain, California, the whole mountain
having been formed since the man to whom it belonged lived and
died.
"M. Oppert read an essay at the Brussels Congress to show, from
the astronomical observations of the Egyptians and Assyrians,
that 11,542 years before our era man existed on the earth at such
a stage of civilization as to be able to take note of astronomical
phenomena, and to calculate with considerable accuracy the length
of the year. The Egyptians, says he, calculated by cycles of 1460
years--zodiacal cycles, as they were called. Their year consisted
of 365 days, which caused them to lose one day in every four
solar years, and, consequently, they would attain their original
starting-point again only after 1460 years (365 x 4). Therefore,
the zodiacal cycle ending in the year 139 of our era commenced in
the year 1322 B.C. On the other hand, the Assyrian cycle was 1805
years, or 22,325 lunations. An Assyrian cycle began 712 B.C. The
Chaldeans state that between the Deluge and their first historic
dynasty there was a period of 39,180 years. Now, what means, this
number? It stands for 12 Egyptian zodiacal cycles 'plus' 12 Assyrian
lunar cycles.
+--------------------+----------+
| 12 X 1460 = 17,52.... ....
+--------------------+----------+
.... .... .... 39,180 |
+--------------------+----------+
| 12 X 1805 = 21,66.... ....
+--------------------+----------+
"These two modes of calculating time are in agreement with each
other, and were known simultaneously to one people, the Chaldeans.
Let us now build up the series of both cycles, starting from our
era, and the result will be as follows:
+-----------------+--------------+
| Zodiacal Cycle. | Lunar Cycle. |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,46...... | 1,80.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,82...... | 71.......
+-----------------+--------------+
| ____...... | ____.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 2,78...... | 2,51.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 4,24...... | 4,32.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 5,70...... | 6,12.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 7,16...... | 7,93.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 8,62...... | 9,73.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 110,08....... 11,54.... |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 11,54.... .... .... |
+-----------------+--------------+
"At the year 11,542 B.C. the two cycles came together, and
consequently they had on that year their common origin in one and
the same astronomical observation."
That observation was probably made in Atlantis.
The wide divergence of languages which is found to exist among
the Atlanteans at the beginning of the Historical Period implies
a vast lapse of time. The fact that the nations of the Old World
remembered so little of Atlantis, except the colossal fact of its
sudden and overwhelming destruction, would also seem to remove that
event into a remote past.
Herodotus tells us that he learned from the Egyptians that Hercules
was one of their most ancient deities, and that he was one of the
twelve produced from the eight gods, 17,000 years before the reign
of Amasis.
In short, I fail to see why this story of Plato, told as history,
derived from the Egyptians, a people who, it is known, preserved
most ancient records, and who were able to trace their existence
back to a vast antiquity, should have been contemptuously set aside
as a fable by Greeks, Romans, and the modern world. It can only
be because our predecessors, with their limited knowledge of the
geological history of the world, did not believe it possible that
any large. part of the earth's surface could have been thus suddenly
swallowed up by the sea.
Let us then first address ourselves to that question.
CHAPTER IV.
WAS SUCH A CATASTROPHE POSSIBLE?
All that is needed to answer this question is to briefly refer to
some of the facts revealed by the study of geology.
In the first place, the earth's surface is a record of successive
risings and fallings of the land. The accompanying picture represents
a section of the anthracite coal-measures of Pennsylvania. Each
of the coal deposits here shown, indicated by the black lines,
was created when the land had risen sufficiently above the sea
to maintain vegetation; each of the strata of rock, many of them
hundreds of feet in thickness, was deposited under water. Here we
have twenty-three different changes of the level of the land during
the formation of 2000 feet of rock and coal; and these changes took
place over vast areas, embracing thousands of square miles.
All the continents which now exist were, it is well understood,
once, under water, and the rocks of which they are composed were
deposited beneath the water; more than this, most of the rocks so
deposited were the detritus or washings of other continents, which
then stood where the oceans now roll, and whose mountains and plains
were ground down by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes, and
frost, ice, wind, and rain, and washed into the sea, to form the
rocks upon which the nations now dwell; so that we have changed
the conditions of land and water: that which is now continent was
once sea, and that which is now sea was formerly continent. There
can be no question that the Australian Archipelago is simply the
mountain-tops of a drowned continent, which once reached from India
to South America. Science has gone so far as to even give it a
name; it is called "Lemuria," and here, it is claimed, the human
race originated. An examination of the geological formation of
our Atlantic States proves beyond a doubt, from the manner in which
the sedimentary rocks, the sand, gravel, and mud--aggregating a
thickness of 45,000 feet--are deposited, that they came from the
north and east. "They represent the detritus of pre-existing lands,
the washings of rain, rivers, coast-currents, and other agencies
of erosion; and since the areas supplying the waste could scarcely
have been of less extent than the new strata it formed, it is
reasonably inferred that land masses of continental magnitude must
have occupied the region now covered by the North Atlantic before
America began to be, and onward at least through the palæozoic
ages of American history. The proof of this fact is that the great
strata of rocks are thicker the nearer we approach their source
in the east: the maximum thickness of the palæozoic rocks of the
Appalachian formation is 25,000 to 35,000 feet in Pennsylvania and
Virginia, while their minimum thickness in Illinois and Missouri
is from 3000 to 4000 feet; the rougher and grosser-textured rocks
predominate in the east, while the farther west we go the finer the
deposits were of which the rocks are composed; the finer materials
were carried farther west by the water." ("New Amer. Cyclop.,"
art. 'Coal'.)
DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
The history of the growth of the European Continent, as recounted
by Professor Geikie, gives an instructive illustration of the
relations of geology to geography. The earliest European land, he
says, appears to have existed in the north and north-west, comprising
Scandinavia, Finland, and the northwest of the British area, and
to have extended thence through boreal and arctic latitudes into
North America. Of the height and mass of this primeval land some
idea may be formed by considering the enormous bulk of the material
derived from its disintegration. In the Silurian formations of
the British Islands alone there is a mass of rock, worn from the
land, which would form a mountain-chain extending from Marseilles
to the North Cape (1800 miles), with a mean breadth of over
thirty-three miles, and an average height of 16,000 feet.
As the great continent which stood where the Atlantic Ocean now is
wore away, the continents of America and Europe were formed; and
there seems to have been from remote times a continuous rising,
still going on, of the new lands, and a sinking of the old ones.
Within five thousand years, or since the age of the "polished
stone," the shores of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have risen from
200 to 600 feet.
Professor Winchell says ("The Preadamites," p. 437):
We are in the midst of great, changes, and are scarcely conscious of
it. We have seen worlds in flames, and have felt a cornet strike
the earth. We have seen the whole coast of South America lifted up
bodily ten or fifteen feet and let down again in an hour. We have
seen the Andes sink 220 feet in seventy years... Vast transpositions
have taken place in the coast-line of China. The ancient capital,
located, in all probability, in an accessible position near the
centre of the empire, has now become nearly surrounded by water,
and its site is on the peninsula of Corea.... There was a time
when the rocky barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus gave way and the
Black Sea subsided. It had covered a vast area in the north and
east. Now this area became drained, and was known as the ancient
Lectonia: it is now the prairie region of Russia, and the granary
of Europe."
There is ample geological evidence that at one time the entire area
of Great Britain was 'submerged to the depth of at least seventeen
hundred feet'. Over the face of the submerged land was strewn thick
beds of sand, gravel, and clay, termed by geologists "the Northern
Drift." The British Islands rose again from the sea, bearing these
water-deposits on their bosom. What is now Sicily once lay deep
beneath the sea: A subsequently rose 3000 feet above the sea-level.
The Desert of Sahara was once under water, and its now burning
sands are a deposit of the sea.
Geologically speaking, the submergence of Atlantis, within the
historical period, was simply the last of a number of vast changes,
by which the continent which once occupied the greater part of the
Atlantic had gradually sunk under the ocean, while the new lands
were rising on both sides of it.
We come now to the second question, Is it possible that Atlantis
could have been suddenly destroyed by such a convulsion of nature
as is described by Plato? The ancients regarded this part of
his story as a fable. With the wider knowledge which scientific
research has afforded the modern world, we can affirm that such an
event is not only possible, but that the history of even the last
two centuries has furnished us with striking parallels for it.
We now possess the record of numerous islands lifted above the
waters, and others sunk beneath the waves, accompanied by storms
and earthquakes similar to those which marked the destruction of
Atlantis.
In 1783 Iceland was visited by convulsions more tremendous than
any recorded in the modern annals of that country. About a month
previous to the eruption on the main-land a submarine volcano burst
forth in the sea, at a distance of thirty miles from the shore.
It ejected so much pumice that the sea was covered with it for a
distance of 150 miles, and ships were considerably impeded in their
course. A new island was thrown up, consisting of high cliffs,
which was claimed by his Danish Majesty, and named "Nyöe," or the
New Island; but before a year had elapsed it sunk beneath the sea,
leaving a reef of rocks thirty fathoms under water.
The earthquake of 1783 in Iceland destroyed 9000 people out of
a population of 50,000; twenty villages were consumed by fire or
inundated by water, and a mass of lava thrown out greater than the
entire bulk of Mont Blanc."
On the 8th of October, 1822, a great earthquake occurred on the
island of Java, near the mountain of Galung Gung. "A loud explosion
was heard, the earth shook, and immense columns of hot water and
boiling mud, mixed with burning brimstone, ashes, and lapilli, of
the size of nuts, were projected from the mountain like a water-spout,
with such prodigious violence that large quantities fell beyond the
river Tandoi, which is forty miles distant.... The first eruption
lasted nearly five hours; and on the following days the rain fell
ill torrents, and the rivers, densely charged with mud, deluged
the country far and wide. At the end of four days (October 12th),
a second eruption occurred, more violent than the first, in which
hot water and mud were again vomited, and great blocks of basalt
were thrown to the distance of seven miles from the volcano. There
was at the same time a violent earthquake, the face of the mountain
was utterly changed, its summits broken down, and one side, which
had been covered with trees, became an enormous gulf in the form
of a semicircle. Over 4000 persons were killed and 114 villages
destroyed." (Lyell's "Principles of Geology," p. 430.)
In 1831 a new island was born in the Mediterranean, near the coast
of Sicily. It was called Graham's Island. It came up with an
earthquake, and "a water-spout sixty feet high and eight hundred
yards in circumference rising from the sea." In about a month the
island was two hundred feet high and three miles in circumference;
it soon, however, stink beneath the sea.
The Canary Islands were probably a part of the original empire of
Atlantis. On the 1st of September, 1730, the earth split open near
Year, in the island of Lancerota. In one night a considerable hill
of ejected matter was thrown up; in a few days another vent opened
and gave out a lava stream which overran several villages. It
flowed at first rapidly, like water, but became afterward heavy and
slow, like honey. On the 11th of September more lava flowed out,
covering up a village, and precipitating itself with a horrible
roar into the sea. Dead fish floated on the waters in indescribable
multitudes, or were thrown dying on the shore; the cattle throughout
the country dropped lifeless to the ground, suffocated by putrid
vapors, which condensed and fell down in drops. These manifestations
were accompanied by a storm such as the people of the country had
never known before. These dreadful commotions lasted for 'five
years'. The lavas thrown out covered 'one-third of the whole island
of Lancerota'.
CALABRIAN PEASANTS INGULFED BY CREVASSES (1783).
The Gulf of Santorin, in the Grecian Archipelago, has been for
two thousand years a scene of active volcanic operations. Pliny
informs us that in the year 186 B.C. the island of "Old Kaimeni,"
or the Sacred Isle, was lifted up from the sea; and in A.D. 19 the
island of "Thia" (the Divine) made its appearance. In A.D. 1573
another island was created, called "the small sunburnt island."
In 1848 a volcanic convulsion of three months' duration created a
great shoal; an earthquake destroyed many houses in Thera, and the
sulphur and hydrogen issuing from the sea killed 50 persons and
1000 domestic animals. A recent examination of these islands shows
that the whole mass of Santorin 'has sunk, since its projection
from the sea, over' 1200 'feet'.
The fort and village of Sindree, on the eastern arm of the Indus,
above Luckput, was submerged in 1819 by an earthquake, together
with a tract of country 2000 square miles in extent.
"In 1828 Sir A. Burnes went in a boat to the ruins of Sindree, where
a single remaining tower was seen in the midst of a wide expanse of
sea. The tops of the ruined walls still rose two or three feet
above the level of the water; and, standing on one of these, he could
behold nothing in the horizon but water, except in one direction,
where a blue streak of land to the north indicated the Ullah Bund.
This scene," says Lyell ("Principles of Geology," p. 462), "presents
to the imagination a lively picture of the revolutions now in
progress on the earth-a waste of waters where a few years before all
was land, and the only land visible consisting of ground uplifted
by a recent earthquake."
We give from Lyell's great work the following curious pictures of
the appearance of the Fort of Sindree before and after the inundation.
FORT OF SINDEE, ON THE EASTERN BRANCH OF THE INDUS, BEFORE IT WAS
SUBMERGED BY THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1819.
In April, 1815, one of the most frightful eruptions recorded
in history occurred in the province of Tomboro, in the island
of Sumbawa, about two hundred miles from the eastern extremity of
Java. It lasted from April 5th to July of that year; but was most
violent on the 11th and 12th of July. The sound of the explosions
was heard for nearly one thousand miles. 'Out of a population of'
12,000', in the province of Tombora, only twenty-six individuals
escaped'. "Violent whirlwinds carried up men, horses, and cattle
into the air, tore tip the largest trees by the roots, and covered
the whole sea with floating timber." (Raffles's "History of Java,"
vol. i., p. 28.) 'The ashes darkened the air'; "the floating cinders
to the westward of Sumatra formed, on the 12th of April, a mass two
feet thick and several miles in extent, 'through which ships with
difficulty forced their way'." The darkness in daytime was more
profound than the blackest night. "The town called Tomboro, on the
west side of Sumbawa, was overflowed by the sea, which encroached
upon the shore, 'so that the water remained permanently eighteen
feet deep in places where there was land before'. The area covered
by the convulsion was 1000 English miles in circumference. "'In the
island of Amboyna, in the same month and year, the ground opened,
threw out water and then closed again'." (Raffles's "History of
Java," vol. i., p. 25.)
VIEW OF THE FORT OF SINDREE FROM THE WEST IN MARCH, 1839.
But it is at that point of the European coast nearest to the site
of Atlantis at Lisbon that the most tremendous earthquake of modern
times has occurred. On the 1st of November, 1775, a sound of
thunder was heard underground, and immediately afterward a violent
shock threw down the greater part of the city. 'In six minutes
60,000 persons perished'. A great concourse of people had collected
for safety upon a new quay, built entirely of marble; but suddenly
it sunk down with all the people on it, and not one of the dead
bodies ever floated to the surface. A great number of small boats
and vessels anchored near it, and, full of people, were swallowed
up as in a whirlpool. No fragments of these wrecks ever rose again
to the surface; the water where the quay went down is now 600 feet
deep. The area covered by this earthquake was very great. Humboldt
says that a portion of 'the earth's surface, four times as great as
the size of Europe, was simultaneously shaken'. It extended from
the Baltic to the West Indies, and from Canada to Algiers. At eight
leagues from Morocco the ground opened and swallowed a village of
10,000 inhabitants, and closed again over them.
It is very probable that the centre of the convulsion was in the
bed of the Atlantic, at or near the buried island of Atlantis, and
that it was a successor of the great earth throe which, thousands
of years before, had brought destruction upon that land.
ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS IN 1737.
Ireland also lies near the axis of this great volcanic area,
reaching from the Canaries to Iceland, and it has been many times
in the past the seat of disturbance. The ancient annals contain
numerous accounts of eruptions, preceded by volcanic action. In
1490, at the Ox Mountains, Sligo, one occurred by which one hundred
persons and numbers of cattle were destroyed; and a volcanic
eruption in May, 1788, on the hill of Knocklade, Antrim, poured a
stream of lava sixty yards wide for thirty-nine hours, and destroyed
the village of Ballyowen and all the inhabitants, save a man and
his wife and two children. ("Amer. Cyclop.," art. 'Ireland'.)
While we find Lisbon and Ireland, east of Atlantis, subjected to
these great earthquake shocks, the West India Islands, west of the
same centre, have been repeatedly visited in a similar manner. In
1692 Jamaica suffered from a violent earthquake. The earth opened,
and great quantities of water were cast out; many people were
swallowed up in these rents; the earth caught some of them by the
middle and squeezed them to death; the heads of others only appeared
above-ground. A tract of land near the town of Port Royal, about
a thousand acres in extent, sunk down in less than one minute, and
the sea immediately rolled in.
The Azore Islands are undoubtedly the peaks of the mountains of
Atlantis. They are even yet the centre of great volcanic activity.
They have suffered severely from eruptions and earthquakes. In
1808 a volcano rose suddenly in San Jorge to the height of 3500
feet, and burnt for six days, desolating the entire island. In 1811
a volcano rose from the sea, near San Miguel, creating an island
300 feet high, which was named Sambrina, but which soon sunk beneath
the sea. Similar volcanic eruptions occurred in the Azores in 1691
and 1720.
Along a great line, a mighty fracture in the surface of the globe,
stretching north and south through the Atlantic, we find a continuous
series of active or extinct volcanoes. In Iceland we have Oerafa,
Hecla, and Rauda Kamba; another in Pico, in the Azores; the peak
of Teneriffe; Fogo, in one of the Cape de Verde Islands: while of
extinct volcanoes we have several in Iceland, and two in Madeira;
while Fernando de Noronha, the island of Ascension, St. Helena,
and Tristan d'Acunha are all of volcanic origin. ("Cosmos," vol.
v., p. 331.)
The following singular passage we quote entire from Lyell's Principles
of Geology," p. 436:
"In the 'Nautical Magazine' for 1835, p. 642, and for 1838, p. 361,
and in the 'Comptes Rendus', April, 1838, accounts are given of a
series of volcanic phenomena, earthquakes, troubled water, floating
scoria, and columns of smoke, which have been observed at intervals
since the middle of the last century, in a space of open sea between
longitudes 20° and 22' W., about half a degree south of the equator.
These facts, says Mr. Darwin, seem to show that an island or
archipelago is in process of formation in the middle of the Atlantic.
A line joining St. Helena and Ascension would, if prolonged,
intersect this slowly nascent focus of volcanic action. Should
land be eventually formed here, it will not be the first that has
been produced by igneous action in this ocean since it was inhabited
by the existing species of testacea. At Porto Praya, in St.
Jago, one of the Azores, a horizontal, calcareous stratum occurs,
containing shells of recent marine species, covered by a great sheet
of basalt eighty feet thick. It would be difficult to estimate
too highly the commercial and political importance which a group of
islands might acquire if, in the next two or three thousand years,
they should rise in mid-ocean between St. Helena and Ascension."
These facts would seem to show that the great fires which destroyed
Atlantis are still smouldering in the depths of the ocean; that the
vast oscillations which carried Plato's continent beneath the sea
may again bring it, with all its buried treasures, to the light;
and that even the wild imagination of Jules Verne, when he described
Captain Nemo, in his diving armor, looking down upon the temples and
towers of the lost island, ht by the fires of submarine volcanoes,
had some groundwork of possibility to build upon.
But who will say, in the presence of all the facts here enumerated,
that the submergence of Atlantis, in some great world-shaking
cataclysm, is either impossible or improbable? As will be shown
hereafter, when we come to discuss the Flood legends, every particular
which has come down to us of the destruction of Atlantis has been
duplicated in some of the accounts just given.
We conclude, therefore: 1. That it is proven beyond question, by
geological evidence, that vast masses of land once existed in the
region where Atlantis is located by Plato, and that therefore such
an island must have existed; 2. That there is nothing improbable
or impossible in the statement that it was destroyed suddenly by
an earthquake "in one dreadful night and day."
CHAPTER. V.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SEA.
Suppose we were to find in mid-Atlantic, in front of the Mediterranean,
in the neighborhood of the Azores, the remains of an immense island,
sunk beneath the sea--one thousand miles in width, and two or three
thousand miles long--would it not go far to confirm the statement
of Plato that, "beyond the strait where you place the Pillars of
Hercules, there was an island larger than Asia (Minor) and Libya
combined," called Atlantis? And suppose we found that the Azores
were the mountain peaks of this drowned island, and were torn and
rent by tremendous volcanic convulsions; while around them, descending
into the sea, were found great strata of lava; and the whole face
of the sunken land was covered for thousands of miles with volcanic
débris, would we not be obliged to confess that these facts furnished
strong corroborative proofs of the truth of Plato's statement, that
"in one day and one fatal night there came mighty earthquakes and
inundations which ingulfed that mighty people? Atlantis disappeared
beneath the sea; and then that sea became inaccessible on account
of the quantity of mud which the ingulfed island left in its place."
MAP OF ATLANTIS, WITH ITS ISLANDS AND CONNECTING RIDGES, FROM
DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS
And all these things recent investigation has proved conclusively.
Deep-sea soundings have been made by ships of different nations;
the United States ship 'Dolphin', the German frigate 'Gazelle', and
the British ships 'Hydra', 'Porcupine', and 'Challenger' have mapped
out the bottom of the Atlantic, and the result is the revelation
of a great elevation, reaching from a point on the coast of the
British Islands southwardly to the coast of South America, at Cape
Orange, thence south-eastwardly to the coast of Africa, and thence
southwardly to Tristan d'Acunha. I give one map showing the profile
of this elevation in the frontispiece, and another map, showing
the outlines of the submerged land, on page 47. It rises about 9000
feet above the great Atlantic depths around it, and in the Azores,
St. Paul's Rocks, Ascension, and Tristan d'Acunha it reaches the
surface of the ocean.
Evidence that this elevation was once dry land is found in the fact
that "the inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface,
could never have been produced in accordance with any laws for the
deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the
contrary, must have been carved by agencies 'acting above the water
level'." ('Scientific American', July 28th, 1877.)
Mr. J. Starke Gardner, the eminent English geologist, is of the
opinion that in the Eocene Period a great extension of land existed
to the west of Cornwall. Referring to the location of the "Dolphin"
and "Challenger" ridges, he asserts that "a great tract of land
formerly existed where the sea now is, and that Cornwall, the Scilly
and Channel Islands, Ireland and Brittany, are the remains of its
highest summits." ('Popular Science Review', July, 1878.)
Here, then, we have the backbone of the ancient continent which once
occupied the whole of the Atlantic Ocean, and from whose washings
Europe and America were constructed; the deepest parts of the ocean,
3500 fathoms deep, represent those portions which sunk first, to
wit, the plains to the east and west of the central mountain range;
some of the loftiest peaks of this range--the Azores, St. Paul's,
Ascension, Tristan d'Acunba--are still above the ocean level; while
the great body of Atlantis lies a few hundred fathoms beneath the
sea. In these "connecting ridges" we see the pathway which once
extended between the New World and the Old, and by means of which
the plants and animals of one continent travelled to the other;
and by the same avenues black men found their way, as we will show
hereafter, from Africa to America, and red men from America to
Africa.
And, as I have shown, the same great law which gradually depressed
the Atlantic continent, and raised the lands east and west of it,
is still at work: the coast of Greenland, which may be regarded as
the northern extremity of the Atlantic continent, is still sinking
"so rapidly that ancient buildings on low rock-islands are now
submerged, and the Greenlander has learned by experience never to
build near the water's edge," ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 504.)
The same subsidence is going on along the shore of South Carolina
and Georgia, while the north of Europe and the Atlantic coast of
South America are rising rapidly. Along the latter raised beaches,
1180 miles long and from 100 to 1300 feet high, have been traced.
When these connecting ridges extended from America to Europe and
Africa, they shut off the flow of the tropical waters of the ocean
to the north: there was then no "Gulf Stream;" the land-locked
ocean that laved the shores of Northern Europe was then intensely
cold; and the result was the Glacial Period. When the barriers of
Atlantis sunk sufficiently to permit the natural expansion of the
heated water of the tropics to the north, the ice and snow which
covered Europe gradually disappeared; the Gulf Stream flowed around
Atlantis, and it still retains the circular motion first imparted
to it by the presence of that island.
The officers of the Challenger found the entire ridge of Atlantis
covered with volcanic deposits; these are the subsided mud which,
as Plato tells us, rendered the sea impassable after the destruction
of the island.
It does not follow that, at the time Atlantis was finally ingulfed,
the ridges connecting it with America and Africa rose above the
water-level; these may have gradually subsided into the sea, or
have gone down in cataclysms such as are described in the Central
American books. The Atlantis of Plato may have been confined to
the "Dolphin Ridge" of our map.
ANCIENT ISLANDS BETWEEN ATLANTIS AND THE MEDITERRANIAN, FROM DEEP-SEA
SOUNDINGS
The United States sloop 'Gettysburg' has also made some remarkable
discoveries in a neighboring field. I quote from John James Wild
(in 'Nature', March 1st, 1877, p. 377):
"The recently announced discovery by Commander Gorringe, of the
United States sloop 'Gettysburg', of a bank of soundings bearing
N. 85° W., and distant 130 miles from Cape St. Vincent, during the
last voyage of the vessel across the Atlantic, taken in connection
with previous soundings obtained in the same region of the North
Atlantic, suggests the probable existence of a submarine ridge or
plateau connecting the island of Madeira with the coast of Portugal,
and the probable subaerial connection in prehistoric times of that
island with the south-western extremity of Europe..... "These
soundings reveal the existence of a channel of an average depth of
from 2000 to 3000 fathoms, extending in a northeasterly direction
from its entrance between Madeira and the Canary Islands toward
Cape St. Vincent.... Commander Gorringe, when about 150 miles
from the Strait of Gibraltar, found that the soundings decreased
from 2700 fathoms to 1600 fathoms in the distance of a few miles.
The subsequent soundings (five miles apart) gave 900, 500, 400,
and 100 fathoms; and eventually a depth of 32 fathoms was obtained,
in which the vessel anchored. The bottom was found to consist of
live pink coral, and the position of the bank in lat. 36° 29' N.,
long. 11° 33' W."
The map on page 51 shows the position of these elevations. They
must have been originally islands;--stepping-stones, as it were,
between Atlantis and the coast of Europe.
Sir C. Wyville Thomson found that the specimens of the fauna of the
coast of Brazil, brought up in his dredging-machine, are similar to
those of the western coast of Southern Europe. This is accounted
for by the connecting ridges reaching from Europe to South America.
A member of the 'Challenger' staff, in a lecture delivered in
London, soon after the termination of the expedition, gave it as
his opinion that the great submarine plateau is the remains of "the
lost Atlantis."
CHAPTER VI.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA.
Proofs are abundant that there must have been at one time uninterrupted
land communication between Europe and America. In the words of a
writer upon this subject,
"When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared,
one cannot but be struck with their identity; all or nearly all
belong to the same genera, while many, even of the species, are
common to both continents. This is most important in its bearing
on our theory, as indicating that they radiated from a common centre
'after the Glacial Period'.... The hairy mammoth, woolly-haired
rhinoceros, the Irish elk, the musk-ox, the reindeer, the glutton,
the lemming, etc., more or less accompanied this flora, and their
remains are always found in the post-glacial deposits of Europe
as low down as the South of France. In the New World beds of the
same age contain similar remains, indicating that they came from
a common centre, and were spread out over both continents alike."
('Westminster Review', January, 1872, p. 19.)
Recent discoveries in the fossil beds of the Bad Lands of Nebraska
prove that the horse originated in America. Professor Marsh, of
Yale College, has identified the several preceding forms from which
it was developed, rising, in the course of ages, from a creature
not larger than a fox until, by successive steps, it developed into
the true horse. How did the wild horse pass from America to Europe
and Asia if there was not continuous land communication between
the two continents? He seems to have existed in Europe in a wild
state prior to his domestication by man.
The fossil remains of the camel are found in India, Africa, South
America, and in Kansas. The existing alpacas and llamas of South
America are but varieties of the camel family.
The cave bear, whose remains are found associated with the hones of
the mammoth and the bones and works of man in the caves of Europe,
was identical with the grizzly bear of our Rocky Mountains. The
musk-ox, whose relics are found in the same deposits, now roams
the wilds of Arctic America. The glutton of Northern Europe, in
the Stone Age, is identical with the wolverine of the United States.
According to Rutimeyer, the ancient bison ('Bos priscus') of Europe
was identical with the existing American buffalo. "Every stage
between the ancient cave bison and the European aurochs can be
traced." The Norway elk, now nearly extinct, is identical with the
American moose. The 'Cervus Americanus' found in Kentucky was as
large as the Irish elk, which it greatly resembled. The lagomys,
or tailless hare, of the European eaves, is now found in the colder
regions of North America. The reindeer, which once occupied Europe
as far down as France, was the same as the reindeer of America.
Remains of the cave lion of Europe ('Felix speloæ'), a larger
beast than the largest of the existing species, have been found at
Natchez, Mississippi. The European cave wolf was identical with
the American wolf.
Cattle were domesticated among the people of Switzerland during
the earliest part of the Stone Period (Darwin's "Animals Under
Domestication," vol. i., p. 103), that is to say, before the
Bronze Age and the Age of Iron. Even at that remote period they
had already, by long-continued selection, been developed out of
wild forms akin to the American buffalo. M. Gervais ("Hist. Nat.
des Mammifores," vol. xi., p. 191) concludes that the wild race
from which our domestic sheep was derived is now extinct. The
remains of domestic sheep are found in the debris of the Swiss
lake-dwellings during the Stone Age. The domestic horse, ass,
lion, and goat also date back to a like great antiquity. We have
historical records 7000 years old, and during that time no similar
domestication of a wild animal has been made. This fact speaks
volumes as to the vast period,, of time during which man must have
lived in a civilized state to effect the domestication of so many
and such useful animals.
And when we turn from the fauna to the flora, we find the same
state of things.
An examination of the fossil beds of Switzerland of the Miocene Age
reveals the remains of more than eight hundred different species
of flower-bearing plants, besides mosses, ferns, etc. The total
number of fossil plants catalogued from those beds, cryptogamous
as well as phænogamous, is upward of three thousand. 'The majority
of these species have migrated to America'. There were others that
passed into Asia, Africa, and even to Australia. The American types
are, however, in the largest proportion. The analogues of the flora
of the Miocene Age of Europe now grow in the forests of Virginia,
North and South Carolina, and Florida; they include such familiar
examples as magnolias, tulip-trees, evergreen oaks, maples, plane-trees,
robinas, sequoias, etc. It would seem to be impossible that these
trees could have migrated from Switzerland to America unless there
was unbroken land communication between the two continents.
It is a still more remarkable fact that a comparison of the flora
of the Old World and New goes to show that not only was there
communication by land, over which the plants of one continent could
extend to another, but that man must have existed, and have helped
this transmigration, in the case of certain plants that were
incapable of making the journey unaided.
Otto Kuntze, a distinguished German botanist, who has spent many
years in the tropics, announces his conclusion that "In America and
in Asia the principal domesticated tropical plants 'are represented
by the same species'." He instances the 'Manihot utilissima',
whose roots yield a fine flour; the tarro ('Colocasia esculenta'),
the Spanish or red pepper, the tomato, the bamboo, the guava, the
mango-fruit, and especially the banana. He denies that the American
origin of tobacco, maize, and the cocoa-nut is proved. He refers
to the 'Paritium tiliaceum', a malvaceous plant, hardly noticed
by Europeans, but very highly prized by the natives of the tropics,
and cultivated everywhere in the East and West Indies; it supplies to
the natives of these regions so far apart their ropes and cordage.
It is always seedless in a cultivated state. It existed in America
before the arrival of Columbus.
But Professor Kuntze pays especial attention to the banana, or
plantain. The banana is seedless. It is found throughout tropical
Asia and Africa. Professor Kuntze asks, "In what way was this
plant, which cannot stand a voyage through the temperate zone,
carried to America?" And yet it was generally cultivated in America
before 1492. Says Professor Kuntze, "It must be remembered that
the plantain is a tree-like, herbaceous plant, possessing no easily
transportable bulbs, like the potato or the dahlia, nor propagable
by cuttings, like the willow or the poplar. It has only a perennial
root, which, once planted, needs hardly any care, and yet produces the
most abundant crop of any known tropical plant." He then proceeds
to discuss how it could have passed from Asia to America. He admits
that the roots must have been transported from one country to the
other by civilized man. He argues that it could not have crossed
the Pacific from Asia to America, because the Pacific is nearly
thrice or four times as wide as the Atlantic. The only way he can
account for the plantain reaching America is to suppose that it
was carried there when the North Pole had a tropical climate! Is
there any proof that civilized man existed at the North Pole when
it possessed the climate of Africa?
Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the plantain, or banana,
was cultivated by the people of Atlantis, and carried by their
civilized agricultural colonies to the east and the west? Do
we not find a confirmation of this view in the fact alluded to by
Professor Kuntze in these words: "A cultivated plant which does not
possess seeds must have been under culture for a very long period--we
have not in Europe a single exclusively seedless, berry-bearing,
cultivated plant--and hence it is perhaps fair to infer that these
plants 'were cultivated as early as the beginning of the middle of
the Diluvial Period'."
Is it possible that a plant of this kind could have been cultivated
for this immense period of time in both Asia and America? Where
are the two nations, agricultural and highly civilized, on those
continents by whom it was so cultivated? What has become of them?
Where are the traces of their civilization? All the civilizations
of Europe, Asia, and Africa radiated from the Mediterranean; the
Hindoo-Aryans advanced from the north-west; they were kindred to
the Persians, who were next-door neighbors to the Arabians (cousins
of the Phoenicians), and who lived along-side of the Egyptians,
who had in turn derived their civilization from the Phoenicians.
It would be a marvel of marvels if 'one' nation, on 'one' continent,
had cultivated the banana for such a vast period of time until
it became seedless; the nation retaining a peaceful, continuous,
agricultural civilization during all that time. But to suppose that
two nations could have cultivated the same plant, under the same
circumstances, on two different continents, for the same unparalleled
lapse of time, is supposing an impossibility.
We find just such a civilization as was necessary, according to
Plato, and under just such a climate, in Atlantis and nowhere else.
We have found it reaching, by its contiguous islands, within one
hundred and fifty miles of the coast of Europe on the one side,
and almost touching the West India Islands on the other, while, by
its connecting ridges, it bound together Brazil and Africa.
But it may be said these animals and plants may have passed from
Asia to America across the Pacific by the continent of Lemuria; or
there may have been continuous land communication at one time at
Behring's Strait. True; but an examination of the flora of the
Pacific States shows that very many of the trees and plants common
to Europe and the Atlantic States are not to be seen west of the
Rocky Mountains. The magnificent magnolias, the tulip-trees, the
plane-trees, etc., which were found existing in the Miocene Age in
Switzerland, and are found at the present day in the United States,
are altogether lacking on the Pacific coast. The sources of supply
of that region seem to have been far inferior to the sources of
supply of the Atlantic States. Professor Asa Gray tells us that,
out of sixty-six genera and one hundred and fifty-five species
found in the forests cast of the Rocky Mountains, only thirty-one
genera and seventy-eight species are found west of the mountains.
The Pacific coast possesses no papaw, no linden or basswood, no
locust-trees, no cherry-tree large enough for a timber tree, no
gum-trees, no sorrel-tree, nor kalmia; no persimmon-trees, not a
holly, only one ash that may be called a timber tree, no catalpa
or sassafras, not a single elm or hackberry, not a mulberry, not
a hickory, or a beech, or a true chestnut. These facts would seem
to indicate that the forest flora of North America entered it from
the east, and that the Pacific States possess only those fragments
of it that were able to struggle over or around the great dividing
mountain-chain.
We thus see that the flora and fauna of America and Europe testify
not only to the existence of Atlantis, but to the fact that in an
earlier age it must have extended from the shores of one continent
to those of the other; and by this bridge of land the plants and
animals of one region passed to the other.
The cultivation of the cotton-plant and the manufacture of its product
was known to both the Old and New World. Herodotus describes it
(450 B.C.) as the tree of India that bears a fleece more beautiful
than that of the sheep. Columbus found the natives of the West
Indies using cotton cloth. It was also found in Mexico and Peru.
It is a significant fact that the cotton-plant has been found
growing wild in many parts of America, but never in the Old World.
This would seem to indicate that the plant was a native of America;
and this is confirmed by the superiority of American cotton, and the
further fact that the plants taken from America to India constantly
degenerate, while those taken from India to America as constantly
improve.
There is a question whether the potato, maize, and tobacco were
not cultivated in China ages before Columbus discovered America.
A recent traveller says, "The interior of China, along the course
of the Yang-tse-Kiang, is a land full of wonders. In one place
piscicultural nurseries line the banks for nearly fifty miles. All
sorts of inventions, the cotton-gin included, claimed by Europeans
and Americans, are to be found there forty centuries old. Plants,
yielding drugs of great value, without number, the familiar tobacco
and potato, maize, white and yellow corn, and other plants 'believed
to be indigenous to America, have been cultivated there from time
immemorial'."
Bonafous ("Histoire Naturelle du Mais," Paris, 1826) attributes a
European or Asiatic origin to maize. The word maize, (Indian corn)
is derived from 'mahiz' or 'mahis', the name of the plant in the
language of the Island of Hayti. And yet, strange to may, in the
Lettish and Livonian languages, in the north of Europe, 'mayse'
signifies bread; in Irish, 'maise' is food, and in the Old High German,
'maz' is meat. May not likewise the Spanish 'maiz' have antedated
the time of Columbus, and borne testimony to early intercommunication
between the people of the Old and New Worlds?
It is to Atlantis we must look for the origin of nearly all our
valuable plants. Darwin says ("Animals and Plants under Domestication,"
vol. i., p. 374), "It has often been remarked that we do not owe a
single useful plant to Australia, or the Cape of Good Hope--countries
abounding to an unparalleled degree with endemic species--or to New
Zealand, or to America south of the Plata; and, according to some
authors, not to America north of Mexico." In other words, the
domesticated plants are only found within the limits of what I
shall show hereafter was the Empire of Atlantis and its colonies;
for only here was to be found an ancient, long-continuing civilization,
capable of developing from a wild state those plants which were
valuable to man, including all the cereals on which to-day civilized
man depends for subsistence. M. Alphonse de Candolle tells us that
we owe 33 useful plants to Mexico, Peru, and Chili. According to
the same high authority, of 157 valuable cultivated plants 85 can
be traced back to their wild state; as to 40, there is doubt as
to their origin; while 32 are utterly unknown in their aboriginal
condition. ("Geograph. Botan. Raisonnée," 1855, pp. 810-991.)
Certain roses--the imperial lily, the tuberose and the lilac--are
said to have been cultivated from such a vast antiquity that they
are not known in their wild state. (Darwin, "Animals and Plants,"
vol. i., p. 370.) And these facts are the more remarkable because,
as De Candolle has shown, all the plants historically known to
have been first cultivated in Europe still exist there in the wild
state. ('Ibid'.) The inference is strong that the great cereals--wheat,
oats, barley, rye, and maize--must have been first domesticated in
a vast antiquity, or in some continent which has since disappeared,
carrying the original wild plants with it.
CEREALS OF THE AGE OF STONE IN EUROPE
Darwin quotes approvingly the opinion of Mr. Bentham (Hist. Notes
Cult. Plants"), "as the result of all the most reliable evidence
that none of the Ceralia--wheat, rye, barley, and oats--exist or
have existed truly wild in their present state." In the Stone Age
of Europe five varieties of wheat and three of barley were cultivated.
(Darwin, "Animals and Plants," vol. i., p. 382.) He says that
it may be inferred, from the presence in the lake habitations of
Switzerland of a variety of wheat known as the Egyptian wheat, and
from the nature of the weeds that grew among their crops, "that the
lake inhabitants either still kept up commercial intercourse with
some southern people, or had originally proceeded as colonists from
the south." I should argue that they were colonists from the land
where wheat and barley were first domesticated, to wit, Atlantis.
And when the Bronze Age came, we find oats and rye making their
appearance with the weapons of bronze, together with a peculiar kind
of pea. Darwin concludes ('Ibid'., vol. i., p. 385) that wheat,
barley, rye, and oats were either descended from ten or fifteen
distinct species, "most of which are now unknown or extinct," or
from four or eight species closely resembling our present forms,
or so "widely different as to escape identification;" in which
latter case, he says, "man must have cultivated the cereals at an
'enormously remote period'," and at that time practised "some degree
of selection."
Rawlinson ("Ancient Monarchies," vol. i., p. 578) expresses the
opinion that the ancient Assyrians possessed the pineapple. "The
representation on the monuments is so exact that I can scarce]
doubt the pineapple being intended." (See Layard's "Nineveh and
Babylon," p. 338.) The pineapple ('Bromelia ananassa') is supposed
to be of American origin, and unknown to Europe before the time
of Columbus; and yet, apart from the revelations of the Assyrian
monuments, there has been some dispute upon this point. ("Amer.
Cyclop.," vol. xiii., p. .528.)
ANCIENT IRISH PIPES
It is not even certain that the use of tobacco was not known to
the colonists from Atlantis settled in Ireland in an age long prior
to Sir Walter Raleigh. Great numbers of pipes have been found in
the raths and tumuli of Ireland, which, there is every reason to
believe, were placed there by men of the Prehistoric Period. The
illustration on p. 63 represents some of the so-called "Danes'
pipes" now in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The Danes
entered Ireland many centuries before the time of Columbus, and if
the pipes are theirs, they must have used tobacco, or some substitute
for it, at that early period. It is probable, however, that the
tumuli of Ireland antedate the Danes thousands of years.
ANCIENT INDIAN PIPE, NEW JERSEY
Compare these pipes from the ancient mounds of Ireland with the
accompanying picture of an Indian pipe of the Stone Age of New
Jersey. ("Smithsonian Rep.," 1875, p. 342.)
Recent Portuguese travellers have found the most remote tribes of
savage negroes in Africa, holding no commercial intercourse with
Europeans, using strangely shaped pipes, in which they smoked a plant
of the country. Investigations in America lead to the conclusion
that tobacco was first burnt as an incense to the gods, the priest
alone using the pipe; and from this beginning the extraordinary
practice spread to the people, and thence over all the world. It
may have crossed the Atlantic in a remote age, and have subsequently
disappeared with the failure of retrograding colonists to raise
the tobacco-plant.
PART II. THE DELUGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS DESCRIBED IN THE DELUGE LEGENDS.
Having demonstrated, as we think successfully, that there is no
improbability in the statement of Plato that a large island, almost
a continent, existed in the past in the Atlantic Ocean, nay, more,
that it is a geological certainty that it did exist; and having
further shown that it is not improbable but very possible that it
may have sunk beneath the sea in the manner described by Plato,
we come now to the next question, Is the memory of this gigantic
catastrophe preserved among the traditions of mankind? We think
there can be no doubt that an affirmative answer must be given to
this question.
An event, which in a few hours destroyed, amid horrible convulsions,
an entire country, with all its vast population-that Population the
ancestors of the great races of both continents, and they themselves
the custodians of the civilization of their age-could not fail
to impress with terrible force the minds of men, and to project
its gloomy shadow over all human history. And hence, whether we
turn to the Hebrews, the Aryans, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the
Cushites, or the inhabitants of America, we find everywhere traditions
of the Deluge; and we shall see that all these traditions point
unmistakably to the destruction of Atlantis.
François Lenormant says ('Contemp. Rev'., Nov., 1879):
"The result authorizes us to affirm the story of the Deluge to be
a universal tradition among all branches of the human race, with
the one exception, however, of the black. Now, a recollection thus
precise and concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily invented. No
religious or cosmogonic myth presents this character of universality.
It must arise from the reminiscence of a real and terrible event,
so powerfully impressing the imagination of the first ancestors
of our race as never to have been forgotten by their descendants.
This cataclysm. must have occurred near the first cradle of mankind,
and before the dispersion of the families from which the principal
races were to spring; for it would be at once improbable and
uncritical to admit that, at as many different points of the globe
as we should have to assume in order to explain the wide spread
of these traditions, local phenomena so exactly alike should
have occurred, their memory having assumed an identical form, and
presenting circumstances that need not necessarily have occurred
to the mind in such cases.
"Let us observe, however, that probably the diluvian tradition is
not primitive, but imported in America; that it undoubtedly wears
the aspect of an importation among the rare populations of the yellow
race where it is found; and lastly, that it is doubtful among the
Polynesians of Oceania. There will still remain three great races
to which it is undoubtedly peculiar, 'who have not borrowed it from
each other', but among whom the tradition is primitive, and goes
back to the most ancient times, and these three races are precisely
the only ones of which the Bible speaks as being 'descended
from Noah'--those of which it gives the ethnic filiation in the
tenth chapter of Genesis. This observation. which I hold to be
undeniable, attaches a singularly historic and exact value to the
tradition as recorded by the Sacred Book, even if, on the other
hand, it may lead to giving it a 'more limited geographical and
ethnological significance'....
"But, as the case now stands, we do not hesitate to declare that,
far from being a myth, the Biblical Deluge 'is a real and historical
fact', having, to say the least, left its impress on the ancestors
of three races--Aryan, or Indo-European, Semitic, or Syro-Arabian,
Chamitic, or Cushite--that is to say, on the 'three great civilized
races of the ancient world', those which constitute the higher
humanity--before the ancestors of those races had as yet separated,
and in the part of Asia they together inhabited."
Such profound scholars and sincere Christians as M. Schwoebel
(Paris, 1858), and M. Omalius d'Halloy (Bruxelles, 1866), deny the
universality of the Deluge, and claim that "it extended only to
the principal centre of humanity, to those who remained near its
primitive cradle, without reaching the scattered tribes who had
already spread themselves far away in almost desert regions. It
is certain that the Bible narrative commences by relating facts
common to the whole human species, confining itself subsequently
to the annals of the race peculiarly chosen by the designs of
Providence." (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East,"
p. 44.) This theory is supported by that eminent authority on
anthropology, M. de Quatrefages, as well as by Cuvier; the Rev. R.
p. Bellynck, S.J., admits that it has nothing expressly opposed
to orthodoxy.
Plato identifies "the great deluge of all" with the destruction
of Atlantis. The priest of Sais told Solon that before "the great
deluge of all" Athens possessed a noble race, who performed many
noble deeds, the last and greatest of which was resisting the attempts
of Atlantis to subjugate them; and after this came the destruction
of Atlantis, and the same great convulsion which overwhelmed that
island destroyed a number of the Greeks. So that the Egyptians,
who possessed the memory of many partial deluges, regarded this as
"the great deluge of all."
CHAPTER II.
THE DELUGE OF THE BIBLE
We give first the Bible history of the Deluge, as found in Genesis
(chap. vi. to chap. viii.):
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of
the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God
saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose.
"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty
years.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that,
when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they
bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of
old, men of renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both
man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air;
for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord.
["These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and
perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah
begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.]
"The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled
with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was
corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And
God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for
the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will
destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms
shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without
with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of:
The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth
of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window
shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it
above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof;
with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And,
behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to
destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven;
and everything that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will
I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou,
and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And
of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou
bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be
male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after
their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind;
two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And
take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather
it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
"Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did
he.
"And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the
ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male
and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male
and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and
the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For
yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty
days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made
will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
"And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon
the earth.
"And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of
clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and
of everything that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and
two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had
commanded Noah.
"And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood
were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in
the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day
were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows
of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days
and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and
Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three
wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast
after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and
every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they
went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein
is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and
female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut
him in.
"And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters
increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the
earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon
the earth; and the ark went Upon the face of the waters. And the
waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high bills,
that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits
upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and
of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath
of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living
substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground,
both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of
the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only
remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the
waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
"And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the
cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass
over the earth, and the waters assuaged. The fountains also of
the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from
heaven was restrained. And the waters returned from off the earth
continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the
waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh mouth, on
the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in
the tenth month, on the first day of the mouth, were the tops of
the mountains seen.
"And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the
window of the ark which he had made: and be sent forth a raven,
which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from
off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the
waters were abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove
found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him
into the ark; for the waters were on the face of the whole earth.
Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto
him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again
he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to
him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked
off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove, which
returned not again unto him any more.
"And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the
first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up
from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and
looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the
second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the
earth dried.
"And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and
thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth
with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both
of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly it) the earth, and
be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
"And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and big sons'
wives with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl,
and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went
forth out of the ark.
"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean
beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in
his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's
sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth:
neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have
done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
Let us briefly consider this record.
It shows, taken in connection with the opening chapters of Genesis:
1. That the land destroyed by water was the country in which the
civilization of the human race originated. Adam was at first naked
(Gen., chap. iii., 7); then he clothed himself in leaves; then in
the skins of animals (chap. iii., 21): be was the first that tilled
the earth, having emerged from a more primitive condition in which
be lived upon the fruits of the forest (chap. ii., 16); his son
Abel was the first of those that kept flocks of sheep (chap. iv.,
2); his son Cain was the builder of the first city (chap. iv., 17);
his descendant, Tubal-cain, was the first metallurgist (chap. iv.,
22); Jabal was the first that erected tents and kept cattle (chap.
iv., 20); Jubal was the first that made musical instruments. We
have here the successive steps by which a savage race advances to
civilization. We will see hereafter that the Atlanteans passed
through precisely similar stages of development.
2. The Bible agrees with Plato in the statement that these Antediluvians
had reached great populousness and wickedness, and that it was on
account of their wickedness God resolved to destroy them.
3. In both cases the inhabitants of the doomed land were destroyed
in a great catastrophe by the agency of water; they were drowned.
4. The Bible tells us that in an earlier age, before their destruction,
mankind had dwelt in a happy, peaceful, sinless condition in a
Garden of Eden. Plato tells us the same thing of the earlier ages
of the Atlanteans.
6. In both the Bible history and Plato's story the destruction of
the people was largely caused by the intermarriage of the superior
or divine race, "the sons of God," with an inferior stock, "the
children of men," whereby they were degraded and rendered wicked.
We will see hereafter that the Hebrews and their Flood legend
are closely connected with the Phoenicians, whose connection with
Atlantis is established in many ways.
It is now conceded by scholars that the genealogical table given
in tho Bible (Gen., chap. x.) is not intended to include the true
negro races, or the Chinese, the Japanese, the Finns or Lapps, the
Australians, or the American red men. It refers altogether to the
Mediterranean races, the Aryans, the Cushites, the Phoenicians,
the Hebrews, and the Egyptians. "The sons of Ham" were not true
negroes, but the dark-brown races. (See Winchell's "Preadamites,"
chap. vii.)
If these races (the Chinese, Australians, Americans, etc.) are
not descended from Noah they could not have been included in the
Deluge. If neither China, Japan, America, Northern Europe, nor
Australia were depopulated by the Deluge, the Deluge could not have
been universal. But as it is alleged that it did destroy a country,
and drowned all the people thereof except Noah and his family,
the country so destroyed could not have been Europe, Asia, Africa,
America, or Australia, for there has been no universal destruction
of the people of those regions; or, if there had been, how can we
account for the existence to-day of people on all of those continents
whose descent Genesis does not trace back to Noah, and, in fact,
about whom the writer of Genesis seems to have known nothing?
We are thus driven to one of two alternative conclusions: either
the Deluge record of the Bible is altogether fabulous, or it relates
to some land other than Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, some
land that 'was' destroyed by water. It is not fabulous; and the
land it refers to is not Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia--but
Atlantis. No other land is known to history or tradition that was
overthrown in a great catastrophe by the agency of water; that was
civilized, populous, powerful, and given over to wickedness.
That high and orthodox authority, François Lenormant, says ("Ancient
Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 64), "The descendants of Shem, Ham,
and Japhet, so admirably catalogued by Moses, include one only of
the races of humanity, the white race, whose three chief divisions
he gives us as now recognized by anthropologists. The other three
races--yellow, black, and red--have no place in the Bible list of
nations sprung from Noah." As, therefore, the Deluge of the Bible
destroyed only the land and people of Noah, it could not have been
universal. The religious world does not pretend to fix the location
of the Garden of Eden. The Rev. George Leo Haydock says, "The
precise situation cannot be ascertained; bow great might be its
extent we do not know;" and we will see hereafter that the unwritten
traditions of the Church pointed to a region in the west, beyond
the ocean which bounds Europe in that direction, as the locality
in which "mankind dwelt before the Deluge."
It will be more and more evident) as we proceed in the consideration.
of the Flood legends of other nations, that the Antediluvian World
was none other than Atlantis,
CHAPTER III.
THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS.
We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed,
indeed, but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most
anciently known, and also the shorter, is that which Berosus took
from the sacred books of Babylon, and introduced into the history
that he wrote for the use of the Greeks. After speaking of the
last nine antediluvian kings, the Chaldean priest continues thus.
"Obartès Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra)
reigned eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the
Great Deluge took place, the history of which is told in the sacred
documents as follows: Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep,
and announced that on the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the
Assyrian month Sivan--a little before the summer solstice) all men
should perish by a flood. He therefore commanded him to take the
beginning, the middle, and the end of whatever was consigned to
writing, and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at Sippara; then
to build a vessel, and to enter it with his family and dearest
friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and drink, and
to cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly, to
prepare everything, for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in
what direction he should steer his bark, be was answered, 'toward
the gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men.
"Xisuthros obeyed, and constructed a vessel five stadia long and
five broad; he collected all that had been prescribed to him, and
embarked his wife, his children, and his intimate friends.
"The Deluge having come, and soon going down, Xisuthros loosed
some of the birds. These, finding no food nor place to alight on,
returned to the ship. A few days later Xisuthros again let them
free, but they returned again to the vessel, their feet fall of
mud. Finally, loosed the third time, the birds came no more back.
Then Xisuthros understood that the earth was bare. He made an
opening in the roof of the ship, and saw that it had grounded on the
top of a mountain. He then descended with his wife, his daughter,
and his pilot, who worshipped the earth, raised an altar, and there
sacrificed to the gods; at the same moment he vanished with those
who accompanied him.
"Meanwhile those who had remained in the vessel, not seeing Xisutbros
return, descended too, and began to seek him, calling him by his
name. They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was
heard commanding them piety toward the gods; that he, indeed, was
receiving the reward of his piety in being carried away to dwell
thenceforth in the midst of the gods, and that his wife, his daughter,
and the pilot of the ship shared the same honor. The voice further
said that they were to return to Babylon, and, conformably to the
decrees of fate, disinter the writings buried at Sippara in order
to transmit them to men. It added that the country in which
they found themselves was Armenia. These, then, having heard the
voice, sacrificed to the gods and returned on foot to Babylon. Of
the vessel of Xisuthros, which had finally landed in Armenia, a
portion is still to be found in the Gordyan Mountains in Armenia,
and pilgrims bring thence asphalte that they have scraped from its
fragments. It is used to keep off the influence of witchcraft. As
to the companions of Xisuthros, they came to Babylon, disinterred
the writings left at Sippara, founded numerous cities, built temples,
and restored Babylon."
"By the side of this version," says Lenormant, "which, interesting
though it be, is, after all, second-hand, we are now able to place
an original Chaldeo-Babylonian edition, which the lamented George
Smith was the first to decipher on the cuneiform tablets exhumed
at Nineveh, and now in the British Museum. Here the narrative of
the Deluge appears as an episode in the eleventh tablet, or eleventh
chant of the great epic of the town of Uruk. The hero of this
poem, a kind of Hercules, whose name has not as yet been made out
with certainty, being attacked by disease (a kind of leprosy),
goes, with a view to its cure, to consult the patriarch saved from
the Deluge, Khasisatra, in the distant land to which the gods have
transported him, there to enjoy eternal felicity. He asks Khasisatra
to reveal the secret of the events which led to his obtaining the
privilege of immortality, and thus the patriarch is induced to
relate the cataclysm.
"By a comparison of the three copies of the poem that the library
of the palace of Nineveh contained, it has been possible to restore
the narrative with hardly any breaks. These three copies were,
by order of the King of Assyria, Asshurbanabal, made in the eighth
century B.C., from a very ancient specimen in the sacerdotal library
of the town of Uruk, founded by the monarchs of the first Chaldean
empire. It is difficult precisely to fix the date of the original,
copied by Assyrian scribes, but it certainly goes back to the
ancient empire, seventeen centuries at least before our era, and
even probably beyond; it was therefore much anterior to Moses,
and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham. The variations presented
by the three existing copies prove that the original was in the
primitive mode of writing called the 'hieratic', a character which
must have already become difficult to decipher in the eighth century
B.C., as the copyists have differed as to the interpretation to be
given to certain signs, and in other cases have simply reproduced
exactly the forms of such as they did not understand. Finally, it
results from a comparison of these variations, that the original,
transcribed by order of Asshurbanabal, must itself have been a copy
of some still more ancient manuscript, it, which the original text
had already received interlinear comments. Some of the copyists
have introduced these into their text, others have omitted them.
With these preliminary observations, I proceed to give integrally
the narrative ascribed ill the poem to Khasisatra:
"'I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation--and
tell to thee the decision of the gods.
"'The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on
the Euphrates--it was ancient, and in it [men did not honor] the
gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods
took counsel on the appeal of] Ann--[a deluge was proposed by]
Bel--[and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.
"'And the god [Ea], the immutable lord, repeated this command in
a dream.--I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and
he said to me:--" Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu--thou, build
a vessel and finish it [quickly].--[By a deluge] I will destroy
substance and life.--Cause thou to go up into the vessel the
substance of all that has life.--The vessel thou shall build-600
cubits shall be the measure of its length--and 60 cubits the amount
of its breadth and of its height. [Launch if] thus on the ocean,
and cover it with a roof."--I understood, and I said to Ea, my
lord:--"The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus--[when]
I shall do it,--young and old [shall laugh at me.]"--[Ea opened
his mouth and] spoke.--He said to me, his servant:--"[If they laugh
at thee] thou shalt say to them:--[shall be punished] he who has
insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me.-.... like
to cavern.... -.... I will exercise my judgment on that which is
on high and that which is belo.... .--. . . Close the vesse....
-.... At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know,--enter
into it, and draw the door of the ship toward thee.--Within it, thy
grains, thy furniture, thy provisions, thy riches, thy men-servants,
and thy maid-servants, and thy young people--the cattle of the
field, and the wild beasts of the plain that I will assemble-and
that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy door."--Khasisatra
opened his mouth and spoke;--he said to Ea, his lord:--"No one has
made [such a] ship.--On the prow I will fi.... --1 shall se.... and
the vesse.... --the vessel thou commandest me to build [thus]which
i... ."
"'On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.--In its
covering fourteen in all were its rafters--fourteen in all did it
count above.--I placed its roof, and I covered it.--I embarked in
it on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;--I divided
the interior compartments on the eighth. 1 stopped up the chinks
through which the water entered in;--I visited the chinks, and
added what was wanting.--I poured on the exterior three times 3600
measures of asphalte,--and three times 3600 measures of asphalte
within.--Three times 3600 men, porters, brought on their beads the
chests of provisions.--I kept 3600 chests for the nourishment of
my family,--and the mariners divided among themselves twice 3600
chests.--For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;--I instituted [rations]
for each day.--In anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels,
and of wine--[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a
river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth.-[To
arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.--... of the su....
the vessel was completed.-.... strong and--I had carried above and
below the furniture of the ship.--[This lading filled the two-thirds.]
'All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver
I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered--all
that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered
together.--I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants, male and
female,--the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains,
and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.
"'Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and he announced it
in these terms:--"In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly
from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door."--The fixed
Moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms:--"In the
evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven."--When
the evening of that day arrived, I was afraid,--I entered into the
vessel and shut my door.--In shutting the vessel, to Buzur-shadi-rabi,
the pilot,--I confided this dwelling, with all that it contained.
"'Mu-sheri-ina-namari--rose from the foundations of heaven in
a black cloud;--Ramman thundered in the midst of the cloud,--and
Nabon and Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the
mountain and the plain;--Nergal the powerful dragged chastisements
after him;--Adar advanced, overthrowing;--before him;--the archangels
of the abyss brought destruction,--in their terrors they agitated
the earth.--The inundation of Ramman swelled up to the sky,--and
[the earth] became without lustre, was changed into a desert.
'They brok.... of the surface of the earth lik.... ;--[they
destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.--The
terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].The brother no longer
saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven--the
gods became afraid of the water-spout, and--sought a refuge; they
mounted up to the heaven of Anu.--The gods were stretched out
motionless, pressing one against another like dogs.--Ishtar wailed
like a child, the great goddess pronounced her discourse:--"Here
is humanity returned into mud, and--this is the misfortune that
I have announced in the presence of the gods.--So I announced the
misfortune in the presence of the gods,--for the evil I announced
the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.--I am the mother
who gave birth to men, and--like to the race of fishes, there they
are filling the sea;--and the gods, by reason of that--which the
archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me."--The gods on
their seats were seated in tears,--and they held their lips closed,
[revolving] future things.
"'Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the water-spout,
and the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach
of the seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible
water-spout-which had assailed after the fashion of an earthquake--grew
calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and the water-spout
came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively observing--and
the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto sea-weeds the
corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light smote on my
face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I wept;-and my
tears came over my face.
"'I looked at the regions bounding the sea: toward the twelve
points of the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne
above the land of Nizir,--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel,
and did not permit it to pass over.--A day and a second day the
mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to
pass over;--the third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested
the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the fifth and sixth
day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit
it to pass over. At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out
and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned, and--found no place to
light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the
swallow went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came
back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw the
corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.
"'1 then sent out (what was in the vessel) toward the four winds,
and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering
on the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured
vases,--and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper-wood. The
gods were seized with the desire of it--the gods were seized with
a benevolent desire of it;--and the gods assembled like flies above
the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great
goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their glory
(the gods). These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will never
leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave them.
"Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!--but never may Bel come
to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he has
made the water-spout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men
for the pit."
"'From far, in drawing near, Bel--saw the vessel, and Bel stopped;--he
was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial archangels:--
"'"No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the
abyss!"--Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior
Bel:--"What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?--for
Ea possesses knowledge, and [he foresees] all."--Ea opened his
mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:--"O thou, herald of
the gods, warrior,--as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast
made the water-spout of the Deluge.--Let the sinner carry the weight
of his sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.--Please
thyself with this good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed;
faith in it never [shall be violated].--Instead of thy making a new
deluge, let lions appear and reduce the number of men;--instead of
thy making a new deluge, let hyenas appear and reduce the number
of men;--instead of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine,
and let the earth be [devastated];--instead of thy making a new
deluge, let Dibbara appear, and let men be [mown down]. I have
not revealed the decision of the great gods;--it is Khasisatra who
interpreted a dream and comprehended what the gods had decided."
"'Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel.-He
took my hand and made me rise.--He made my wife rise, and made her
place herself at my side-.-He turned around us and stopped short;
he approached our group.--"Until now Khasisatra has made part of
perishable humanity;--but lo, now Khasisatra and his wife are going
to be carried away to live like the gods,--and Khasisatra will
reside afar at the mouth of the rivers."--They carried me away,
and established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams.'
"This narrative," says Lenormant, "follows with great exactness
the same course as that, or, rather, as those of Genesis; and the
analogies are, on both sides, striking."
When we consider these two forms of the same legend, we see many
points wherein the story points directly to Atlantis.
1. In the first place, Berosus tells us that the god who gave
warning of the coming of the Deluge was Chronos. Chronos, it is
well known, was the same as Saturn. Saturn was an ancient king
of Italy, who, far anterior to the founding of Rome, introduced
civilization from some other country to the Italians. He established
industry and social order, filled the land with plenty, and created
the golden age of Italy. He was suddenly removed to the abodes
of the gods. His name is connected, in the mythological legends,
with "a great Saturnian continent" in the Atlantic Ocean, and a
great kingdom which, in the remote ages, embraced Northern Africa
and the European coast of the Mediterranean as far as the peninsula
of Italy, and "certain islands in the sea;" agreeing, in this
respect, with the story of Plato as to the dominions of Atlantis.
The Romans called the Atlantic Ocean "Chronium Mare," the Sea of
Chronos, thus identifying Chronos with that ocean. The pillars of
Hercules were also called by the ancients "the pillars of Chronos."
Here, then, we have convincing testimony that the country referred
to in the Chaldean legends was the land of Chronos, or Saturn--the
ocean world, the dominion of Atlantis.
2. Hea or Ea. the god of the Nineveh tablets, was a fish-god: he
was represented in the Chaldean monuments as half man and half
fish; he was described as the god, not of the rivers and seas, but
of "the abyss"--to wit, the ocean. He it was who was said to have
brought civilization and letters to the ancestors of the Assyrians.
He clearly represented an ancient, maritime, civilized nation; he
came from the ocean, and was associated with some land and people
that had been destroyed by rain and inundations. The fact that
the scene of the Deluge is located on the Euphrates proves nothing,
for we will see hereafter that almost every nation had its especial
mountain on which, according to its traditions, the ark rested; just
as every Greek tribe had its own particular mountain of Olympos.
The god Bel of the legend was the Baal of the Phoenicians, who,
as we shall show, were of Atlantean origin. Bel, or Baal, was
worshipped on the western and northern coasts of Europe, and gave
his name to the Baltic, the Great and Little Belt, Balesbaugen,
Balestranden, etc.; and to many localities, in the British Islands,
as, for instance, Belan and the Baal hills in Yorkshire.
3. In those respects wherein the Chaldean legend, evidently the
older form of the tradition, differs from the Biblical record,
we see that in each instance we approach nearer to Atlantis. The
account given in Genesis is the form of the tradition that would
be natural to an inland people. Although there is an allusion to
"the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep" (about which
I shall speak more fully hereafter), the principal destruction
seems to have been accomplished by rain; hence the greater period
allowed for the Deluge, to give time enough for the rain to fall,
and subsequently drain off from the land. A people dwelling in
the midst of a continent could not conceive the possibility of a
whole world sinking beneath the sea; they therefore supposed the
destruction to have been, caused by a continuous down-pour of rain
for forty days and forty nights.
In the Chaldean legend, on the contrary, the rain lasted but seven
days; and we see that the writer had a glimpse of the fact that the
destruction occurred in the midst of or near the sea. The ark of
Genesis ('têbâh') was simply a chest, a coffer, a big box, such as
might be imagined by an inland people. The ark of the Chaldeans
was a veritable ship; it had a prow, a helm, and a pilot, and men
to manage it; and it navigated "the sea."
4. The Chaldean legend represents not a mere rain-storm, but a
tremendous cataclysm. There was rain, it is true, but there was
also thunder, lightning, earthquakes, wind, a water-spout, and a
devastation of mountain and land by the war of the elements. All
the dreadful forces of nature were fighting together over the doomed
land: "the archangel of the abyss brought destruction," "the water
rose to the sky," "the brother no longer saw his brother; men no
longer knew each other;" the men "filled the sea like fishes;" 'the
sea was filled with mud', and "the corpses floated like sea-weed."
When the storm abated the land had totally disappeared-there was
no longer "'any continent'." Does not all this accord with "that
dreadful day and night" described by Plato?
5. In the original it appears that Izdhubar, when he started to find
the deified Khasisatra, travelled first, for nine days' journey,
to the sea; then secured the services of a boatman, and, entering
a ship, sailed for fifteen days before finding the Chaldean Noah.
This would show that Khasisatra dwelt in a far country, one
only attainable by crossing the water; and this, too, seems like
a reminiscence of the real site of Atlantis. The sea which a
sailing-vessel required fifteen days to cross must have been a very
large body of water; in fact, an ocean.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF OTHER NATIONS.
A collection of the Deluge legends of other nations will throw
light upon the Biblical and Chaldean records of that great event.
The author of the treatise "On the Syrian Goddess" acquaints us
with the diluvian tradition of the Arameans, directly derived from
that of Chaldea, as it was narrated in the celebrated Sanctuary of
Hierapolis, or Bambyce.
"The generality of people," be says, "tells us that the founder
of the temple was Deucalion Sisythes--that Deucalion in whose time
the great inundation occurred. I have also heard the account given
by the Greeks themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus: The
actual race of men is not the first, for there was a previous one,
all the members of which perished. We belong to a second race,
descended from Deucalion, and multiplied in the course of time.
As to the former men, they are said to have been full of insolence
and pride, committing many crimes, disregarding their oath, neglecting
the rights of hospitality, unsparing to suppliants; accordingly,
they were punished by an immense disaster. All on a sudden enormous
volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains of extraordinary
abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the 'sea
overflowed its shores'; the whole earth was covered with water,
and all men perished. Deucalion alone, because of his virtue and
piety, was preserved alive to give birth to a new race. This is
how he was saved: He placed himself, his children, and his wives
in a great coffer that he had, in which pigs, horses, lions,
serpents, and all other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge
with him. He received them all; and while they were in the coffer
Zeus inspired them with reciprocal amity, which prevented their
devouring one another. In this manner, shut up within one single
coffer, they floated as long as the waters remained in force. Such
is the account given by the Greeks of Deucalion.
"But to this, which they equally tell, the people of Hierapolis
add a marvellous narrative: That in their country a great chasm
opened, into which all the waters of the Deluge poured. Then Deucalion
raised an altar, and dedicated a temple to Hera (Atargatis) close
to this very chasm. I have seen it; it is very narrow, and situated
under the temple. Whether it was once large, and has now shrunk,
I do not know; but I have seen it, and it is quite small. In memory
of the event the following is the rite accomplished: Twice a year
sea-water is brought to the temple. This is not only done by the
priests, but numerous pilgrims come from the whole of Syria and
Arabia, and even from beyond the Euphrates, bringing water. It is
poured out in the temple and goes into the cleft, which, narrow as
it is, swallows up a considerable quantity. This is said to be in
virtue of a religious law instituted by Deucalion to preserve the
memory of the catastrophe, and of the benefits that he received
from the gods. Such is the ancient tradition of the temple."
"It appears to me difficult," says Lenormant, "not to recognize an
echo of fables popular in all Semitic countries about this chasm of
Hierapolis, and the part it played in the Deluge, in the enigmatic
expressions of the Koran respecting the oven ('tannur') which
began to bubble and disgorge water all around at the commencement
of the Deluge. We know that this 'tannur' has been the occasion of
most grotesque imaginings of Mussulman commentators, who had lost
the tradition of the story to which Mohammed made allusion. And,
moreover, the Koran formally states that the waters of the Deluge
were absorbed in the bosom of the earth."
Here the Xisuthros of Berosus becomes Deucalion-'Sisythes'. The
animals are not collected together by Deucalion, as in the case
of Noah and Khasisatra, but they crowded into the vessel of their
own accord, driven by the terror with which the storm had inspired
them; as in great calamities the creatures of the forest have been
known to seek refuge in the houses of men.
India affords us art account of the Deluge which, by its poverty,
strikingly contrasts with that of the Bible and the Chaldeans. Its
most simple and ancient form is found in the 'Çatapatha Brâhmana'
of the Rig-Veda. It has been translated for the first time by Max
Müller.
"One morning water for washing was brought to Manu, and when he
had washed himself a fish remained in his hands, and it addressed
these words to him: 'Protect me, and I will save thee.' 'From
what wilt thou save me?' 'A deluge will sweep all creatures away;
it is from that I will save thee.' 'How shall I protect thee?' The
fish replied, 'While we are small we run great dangers, for fish
swallow fish. Keep me at first in a vase; when I become too large
for it, dig a basin to put me into. When I shall have grown still
more, throw me into the ocean; then I shall be preserved from
destruction.' Soon it grew a large fish. It said to Mann, 'The very
year I shall have reached my full growth the Deluge will happen.
Then build a vessel and worship me. When the waters rise, enter
the vessel, and I will save thee.'
"After keeping him thus, Mann carried the fish to the sea. In the
year indicated Mann built a vessel and worshipped the fish. And
when the Deluge came he entered the vessel. Then the fish came
swimming up to him, and Mann fastened the cable of the ship to the
horn of the fish, by which means the latter made it pass over the
Mountain of the North. The fish said, 'I have saved thee; fasten
the vessel to a tree, that the water may not sweep it away while
thou art on the mountain; and in proportion as the waters decrease
thou shalt descend.' Manu descended with the waters, and this is
what is called the 'descent of Manu' on the Mountain of the North.
The Deluge had carried away all creatures, and Mann remained alone."
There is another form of the Hindoo legend in the 'Purânas'.
Lenormant says:
"We must also 'remark that in the 'Purânas' it is no longer Manu
Vaivasata that the divine fish saves from the Deluge, but a different
personage, the King of the Dâstas--'i. e.', fisher--Satyravata,'
the man who loves justice and truth,' strikingly corresponding to
the Chaldean Khasisatra. Nor is the Puranic version of the Legend
of the Deluge to be despised, though it be of recent date, and full
of fantastic and often puerile details. In certain aspects it is
less Aryanized than that of Brâhmana or than the 'Mahâbhârata';
and, above all, it gives some circumstances omitted in these earlier
versions, which must yet have belonged to the original foundation,
since they appear in the Babylonian legend; a circumstance preserved,
no doubt, by the oral tradition--popular, and not Brahmanic--with
which the 'Purânas' are so deeply imbued. This has already been
observed by Pictet, who lays due stress on the following passage of
the 'Bhâgavata-Purâna': 'In seven days,' said Vishnu to Satyravata,
'the three worlds shall be submerged.' There is nothing like this
in the Brâhmana nor the 'Mahâbhârata', but in Genesis the Lord
says to Noah, 'Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the
earth;' and a little farther we read, 'After seven days the waters
of the flood were upon the earth.'... Nor must we pay less attention
to the directions given by the fish-god to Satyravata for the placing
of the sacred Scriptures in a safe place, in order to preserve
them from Hayagriva, a marine horse dwelling in the abyss.... We
recognize in it, under an Indian garb, the very tradition of the
interment of the sacred writings at Sippara by Khasisatra, such as
we have seen it in the fragment of Berosus."
The references to "the three worlds" and the "fish-god" in these
legends point to Atlantis. The "three worlds" probably refers to the
great empire of Atlantis, described by Plato, to wit, the western
continent, America, the eastern continent, Europe and Africa,
considered as one, and the island of Atlantis. As we have seen,
Poseidon, the founder of the civilization of Atlantis, is identical
with Neptune, who is always represented riding a dolphin, bearing
a trident, or three-pronged symbol, in his hand, emblematical probably
of the triple kingdom. He is thus a sea-god, or fish-god, and be
comes to save the representative of his country.
And we have also a new and singular form of the legend in the
following. Lenormant says:
"Among the Iranians, in the sacred books containing the fundamental
Zoroastrian doctrines, and dating very far back, we meet with a
tradition which must assuredly be looked upon as a variety of that
of the Deluge, though possessing a special character, and diverging
in some essential particulars from those we have been examining.
It relates how Yima, who, in the original and primitive conception,
was the father of the human race, was warned by Ahuramazda, the
good deity, of the earth being about to be devastated by a flood.
The god ordered Yima to construct a refuge, a square garden, 'vara',
protected by an enclosure, and to cause the germs of men, beasts,
and plants to enter it, in order to escape annihilation. Accordingly,
when the inundation occurred, the garden of Yima, with all that it
contained, was alone spared, and the message of safety was brought
thither by the bird Karshipta, the envoy of Ahuramazda." ("Vendûdid,"
vol. ii., p. 46.)
This clearly signifies that, prior to the destruction of Atlantis,
a colony had been sent out to some neighboring country. These
emigrants built a walled town, and brought to it the grains and
domestic animals of the mother country; and when the island of
Atlantis sunk in the ocean, a messenger brought the terrible tidings
to them in a ship.
"The Greeks had two principal legends as to the cataclysm by which
primitive humanity was destroyed. The first was connected with
the name of Ogyges, the most ancient of the kings of Boeotia or
Attica--a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages, his
very name seemingly derived from one signifying deluge in Aryan
idioms, in Sanscrit 'Angha'. It is said that in his time the whole
land was covered by a flood, whose waters reached the sky, and from
which he, together with some companions, escaped in a vessel.
"The second tradition is the Thessalian legend of Deucalion. Zeus
having worked to destroy the men of the age of bronze, with whose
crimes be was wroth, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, his
father, constructed a coffer, in which he took refuge with his
wife, Pyrrha. The Deluge came; the chest, or coffer, floated at the
mercy of the waves for nine days and nine nights, and was finally
stranded on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion and Pyrrha leave it, offer
sacrifice, and, according to the command of Zeus, repeople the world
by throwing behind them 'the bones of the earth'--namely, stones,
which change into men. This Deluge of Deucalion is, in Grecian
tradition, what most resembles a universal deluge. Many authors
affirm that it extended to the whole earth, and that the whole human
race perished. At Athens, in memory of the event, and to appease
the manes of its victims, a ceremony called 'Hydrophoria' was observed,
having so close a resemblance to that in use at Hierapolis, in
Syria, that we can hardly fail to look upon it as a Syro-Phoenician
importation, and the result of an assimilation established in remote
antiquity between the Deluge of Deucalion and that of Khasisatra,
as described by the author of the treatise 'On the Syrian Goddess.'
Close to the temple of the Olympian Zeus a fissure in the soil
was shown, in length but one cubit, through which it was said the
waters of the Deluge had been swallowed tip. Thus,, every year, on
the third day of the festival of the Anthestéria, a day of mourning
consecrated to the dead--that is, on the thirteenth of the month
of Anthestérion, toward the beginning of March-it was customary,
as at Bambyce, to pour water into the fissure, together with flour
mixed with honey, poured also into the trench dug to the west of
the tomb, in the funeral sacrifices of the Athenians."
In this legend, also, there are passages which point to Atlantis.
We will see hereafter that the Greek god Zeus was one of the kings
of Atlantis. "The men of the age of bronze" indicates the civilization
of the doomed people; they were the great metallurgists of their
day, who, as we will see, were probably the source of the great
number of implements and weapons of bronze found all over Europe.
Here, also, while no length of time is assigned to the duration of
the storm, we find that the ark floated but nine days and nights.
Noah was one year and ten days in the ark, Khasisatra was not half
that time, while Deucalion was afloat only nine days.
At Megara, in Greece, it was the eponym of the city, Megaros, son
of Zeus and one of the nymphs, Sithnides, who, warned by the cry
of cranes of the imminence of the danger of the coming flood, took
refuge on Mount Geranien. Again, there was the Thessalian Cerambos,
who was said to have escaped the flood by rising into the air on
wings given him by the nymphs; and it was Perirrhoos, son of Eolus,
that Zeus Naios had preserved at Dodona. For the inhabitants of
the Isle of Cos the hero of the Deluge was 'Merops', son of Hyas,
who there assembled under his rule the remnant of humanity preserved
with him. The traditions of Rhodes only supposed the Telchines,
those of Crete Sasion, to have escaped the cataclysm. In Samothracia
the same character was attributed to Saon, said to be the son of
Zeus or of Hermes.
It will be observed that in all these legends the name of Zeus,
King of Atlantis, reappears. It would appear probable that many
parties had escaped from the catastrophe, and had landed at the
different points named in the traditions; or else that colonies
had already been established by the Atlanteans at those places.
It would appear impossible that a maritime people could be totally
destroyed; doubtless many were on shipboard in the harbors, and
others going and coming on distant voyages.
"The invasion of the East," says Baldwin ('Prehistoric Nations,' p.
396), "to which the story of Atlantis refers, seems to have given
rise to the Panathenæ, the oldest, greatest, and most splendid
festivals in honor of Athena celebrated in Attica. These festivals
are said to have been established by Erichthonis in the most ancient
times remembered by the historical traditions of Athens. Boeckh
says of them, in his 'Commentary on Plato:'
"'In the greater Panathenæ there was carried in procession a 'peplum'
of Minerva, representing the war with the giants and the victory of
the gods of Olympus. In the lesser Panathenæ they carried another
'peplum' (covered with symbolic devices), which showed how the
Athenians, supported by Minerva, had the advantage in the war with
the Atlantes.' A scholia quoted from Proclus by Humboldt and Boeckh
says: 'The historians who speak of the islands of the exterior sea
tell us that in their time there were seven islands consecrated, to
Proserpine, and three others of immense extent, of which the first
was consecrated to Pluto, the second to Ammon, and the third to
Neptune. The inhabitants of the latter had preserved a recollection
(transmitted to them by their ancestors) of the island of Atlantis,
which was extremely large, and for a long time held sway over all
the islands of the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantis was also consecrated
to Neptune."' (See Humboldt's "Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau
Continent," vol. i.)
No one can read these legends and doubt that the Flood watt an
historical reality. It is impossible that in two different places
in the Old World, remote from each other, religious ceremonies should
have been established and perpetuated from age to age in memory
of an event which never occurred. We have seen that at Athens and
at Hierapolis, in Syria, pilgrims came from a distance to appease
the god of the earthquake, by pouring offerings into fissures of
the earth said to have been made at the time Atlantis was destroyed.
More than this, we know from Plato's history that the Athenians
long preserved in their books the memory of a victory won over
the Atlanteans in the early ages, and celebrated it by national
festivals, with processions and religious ceremonies.
It is too much to ask us to believe that Biblical history, Chaldean,
Iranian, and Greek legends signify nothing, and that even religious
pilgrimages and national festivities were based upon a myth.
I would call attention to the farther fact that in the Deluge
legend of the Isle of Cos the hero of the affair was Merops. Now
we have seen that, according to Theopompus, one of the names of
the people of Atlantis was "Meropes."
But we have not reached the end of our Flood legends. The Persian
Magi possessed a tradition in which the waters issued from the oven
of an old woman. Mohammed borrowed this story, and in the Koran he
refers to the Deluge as coming from an oven. "All men were drowned
save Noah and his family; and then God said, 'O earth, swallow up
thy waters; and thou, O heaven, withhold thy rain;' and immediately
the waters abated."
In the bardic poems of Wales we have a tradition of the Deluge
which, although recent, under the concise forms of the triads, is
still deserving of attention. As usual, the legend is localized in
the country, and the Deluge counts among three terrible catastrophes
of the island of Prydian, or Britain, the other two consisting of
devastation by fire and by drought.
"The first of these events," it is said, "was the eruption of
Llyn-llion, or 'the lake of waves,' and the inundation ('bawdd')
of the whole country, by which all mankind was drowned with the
exception of Dwyfam and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel
without rigging, and it was by them that the island of Prydian was
repeopled."
Pictet here observes:
"Although the triads in their actual form hardly date farther than
the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly
connected with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to
a borrowing from Genesis.
"But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad, speaking of the
vessel 'Nefyddnaf-Neifion', which at the time of the overflow of
Llyon-llion, bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too
much resembles the ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch
may have suggested this triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning,
but evidently formed on the principle of Cymric alliteration. In
the same triad we have the enigmatic story of the horned oxen
('ychain banog') of Hu the mighty, who drew out of Llyon-llion the
'avanc' (beaver or crocodile?), in order that the lake should not
overflow. The meaning of these enigmas could only be hoped from
deciphering the chaos of barbaric monuments of the Welsh middle
age; but meanwhile we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an
indigenous tradition of the Deluge."
We also find a vestige of the same tradition in the Scandinavian
Ealda. Here the story is combined with a cosmogonic myth. The
three sons of Borr--Othin, Wili, and We--grandsons of Buri, the
first man, slay Ymir, the father of the Hrimthursar, or ice giants,
and his body serves them for the construction of the world. Blood
flows from his wounds in such abundance that all the race of
giants is drowned in it except Bergelmir, who saves himself, with
his wife, in a boat, and reproduces the race.
In the 'Edda' of 'Soemund', "The Vala's Prophecy" (stz. 48-56, p.
9), we seem to catch traditional glimpses of a terrible catastrophe,
which reminds us of the Chaldean legend:
"Then trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing, groans that ancient
tree, and the Jötun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways
of Hel (the goddess of death), until the fire of Surt has consumed
'the tree'. 'Hyrm steers from the east, the waters rise', the
mundane snake is coiled in jötun-rage. The worm beats the water
and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcasses; (the ship)
Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south comes with flickering flame;
shines from his sword the Valgod's sun. The stony hills are dashed
together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of Hel, and
heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, 'earth in ocean sinks', fall from
heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing,
towering fire plays against heaven itself."
Egypt does not contain a single allusion to the Flood. Lenormant
says:
"While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place
in the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the
monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogonic
speculations, have not afforded one, even distant, allusion to
this cataclysm. When the Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the
Deluge of Deucalion, their reply was that they had been preserved
from it as well as from the conflagration produced by Phaëthon; they
even added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much
importance to that event, as there had been several other local
catastrophes resembling it. According to a passage in Manetho, much
suspected, however, of being an interpolation, Thoth, or Hermes
Trismegistus, had himself, before the cataclysm, inscribed on
stelæ, in hieroglyphical and sacred language, the principles of all
knowledge. After it the second Thoth translated into the vulgar
tongue the contents of these stelæ. This would be the only Egyptian
mention of the Deluge, the same Manetho not speaking of it in what
remains to us of his 'Dynasties,' his only complete authentic work.
The silence of all other myths of the Pharaonic religion on this
head render it very likely that the above is merely a foreign
tradition, recently introduced, and no doubt of Asiatic and Chaldean
origin."
To my mind the explanation of this singular omission is very plain.
The Egyptians had preserved in their annals the precise history of
the destruction of Atlantis, out of which the Flood legends grew;
and, as they told the Greeks, there had been no universal flood,
but only local catastrophes. Possessing the real history of the
local catastrophe which destroyed Atlantis, they did not indulge
in any myths about a universal deluge covering the mountain-tops
of all the world. They had no Ararat in their neighborhood.
The traditions of the early Christian ages touching the Deluge
pointed to the quarter of the world in which Atlantis was situated.
There was a quaint old monk named Cosmos, who, about one thousand
years ago, published a book, "Topographia Christiana," accompanied
by a map, in which he gives his view of the world as it was
then understood. It was a body surrounded by water, and resting
on nothing. "The earth," says Cosmos, "presses downward, but the
igneous parts tend upward," and between the conflicting forces the
earth hangs suspended,, like Mohammed's coffin in the old story.
The accompanying illustration (page 95) represents the earth
surrounded by the ocean, and beyond this ocean was "the land where
men dwelt before the Deluge."
He then gives us a more accurate map, in detail, of the known world
of his day.
I copy this map, not to show how much more we know than poor
Cosmos, but because be taught that all around this habitable world
there was yet another world, adhering closely on all sides to the
circumscribing walls of heaven. "Upon the eastern side of this
transmarine land he judges man was created; and that there the
paradise of gladness was located, such as here on the eastern edge
is described, where it received our first parents, driven out of
Paradise to that extreme point of land on the sea-shore. Hence,
upon the coming of the Deluge, Noah and his sons were borne by the
ark to the earth we now inhabit. The four rivers he supposes to
be gushing up the spouts of Paradise." They are depicted on the
above map: O is the Mediterranean Sea; P, the Arabian Gulf; L, the
Caspian Sea; Q, the Tigris; M, the river Pison; "and J, the land
where men dwelt before the Flood."
It will be observed that, while he locates Paradise in the east,
he places the scene of the Deluge in the west; and he supposes that
Noah came from the scene of the Deluge to Europe.
This shows that the traditions in the time of Cosmos looked to the
west as the place of the Deluge, and that after the Deluge Noah
came to the shores of the Mediterranean. The fact, too, that there
was land in the west beyond the ocean is recognized by Cosmos, and
is probably a dim echo from Atlantean times.
MAP OF EUROPE, AFTER COSMOS
The following rude cut, from Cosmos, represents the high mountain
in the north behind which the sun hid himself at night, thus
producing the alternations of day and night. His solar majesty is
just getting behind the mountain, while Luna looks calmly on at the
operation. The mountain is as crooked as Culhuacan, the crooked
mountain of Atzlan described by the Aztecs.
THE MOUNTAIN THE SUN GOES BEHIND AT NIGHT
CHAPTER V
THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF AMERICA.
"It is a very remarkable fact," says Alfred Maury, "that we find in
America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that
of the Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of
the Old World. It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that
certainly took place from Asia into North America by the Kourile
and Aleutian Islands, and still does so in our day, should have
brought in these memories, since no trace is found of them among
those Mongol or Siberian populations which were fused with the
natives of the New World.... The attempts that have been made to
trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia have not as vet
led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had Buddhism,
which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have
introduced a myth not found in its own scriptures. The cause of
these similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations
of the New World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
The cause of these similarities can be easily explained: the
legends of the Flood did not pass into America by way of the Aleutian
Islands, or through the Buddhists of Asia, but were derived from
an actual knowledge of Atlantis possessed by the people of America.
Atlantis and the western continent had from an immemorial age held
intercourse with each other: the great nations of America were
simply colonies from Atlantis, sharing in its civilization, language,
religion, and blood. From Mexico to the peninsula of Yucatan, from
the shores of Brazil to the heights of Bolivia and Peru, from the
Gulf of Mexico to the head-waters of the Mississippi River, the
colonies of Atlantis extended; and therefore it is not strange to
find, as Alfred Maury says, American traditions of the Deluge coming
nearer to that of the Bible and the Chaldean record than those of
any people of the Old World.
"The most important among the American traditions are the Mexican,
for they appear to have been definitively fixed by symbolic and
mnemonic paintings before any contact with Europeans. According
to these documents, the Noah of the Mexican cataclysm was Coxcox,
called by certain peoples Teocipactli or Tezpi. He had saved
himself, together with his wife Xochiquetzal, in a bark, or, according
to other traditions, on a raft made of cypress-wood ('Cupressus
disticha'). Paintings retracing the deluge of Coxcox have been
discovered among the Aztecs, Miztecs, Zapotecs, Tlascaltecs, and
Mechoacaneses. The tradition of the latter is still more strikingly
in conformity with the story as we have it in Genesis, and in
Chaldean sources. It tells how Tezpi embarked in a spacious vessel
with his wife, his children, and several animals, and grain, whose
preservation was essential to the subsistence of the human race.
When the great god Tezcatlipoca decreed that the waters should
retire, Tezpi sent a vulture from the bark. The bird, feeding on
the carcasses with which the earth was laden, did not return. Tezpi
sent out other birds, of which the humming-bird only came back with
a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, seeing that the country
began to vegetate, left his bark on the mountain of Colhuacan.
"The document, however, that gives the most valuable information,"
says Lenormant, "as to the cosmogony of the Mexicans is one known
as 'Codex Vaticanus,' from the library where it is preserved. It
consists of four symbolic pictures, representing the four ages of
the world preceding the actual one. They were copied at Chobula
from a manuscript anterior to the conquest, and accompanied by
the explanatory commentary of Pedro de los Rios, a Dominican monk,
who, in 1566, less than fifty years after the arrival of Cortez,
devoted himself to the research of indigenous traditions as being
necessary to his missionary work."
There were, according to this document, four ages of the world. The
first was an age of giants (the great mammalia?) who were destroyed
by famine; the second age ended in a conflagration; the third age
was an age of monkeys.
"Then comes the fourth age, 'Atonatiuh', 'Sun of Water,' whose
number is 10 X 400 + 8, or 4008. It ends by a great inundation,
a veritable deluge. All mankind are changed into fish, with
the exception of one man and his wife, who save themselves in a
bark made of the trunk of a cypress-tree. The picture represents
Matlalcueye, goddess of waters, and consort of Tlaloc, god of
rain, as darting down toward earth. Coxcox and Xochiquetzal, the
two human beings preserved, are seen seated on a tree-trunk and
floating in the midst of the waters. This flood is represented as
the last cataclysm that devastates the earth."
The learned Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg translates from the Aztec
language of the "Codex Chimalpopoca" the following Flood legend:
"This is the sun called 'Nahui-atl', '4 water.' Now the water was
tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third
and fourth times. When the sun 'Nahui-atl' came there had passed
away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years.
Then all mankind was lost and drowned, and found themselves changed
into fish. The sky came nearer the water. In a single day all
was lost, and the day 'Nahui-xochitl', '4 flower,' destroyed all
our flesh.
"And that year was that of 'cé-calli', '1 house,' and the day
'Nahui-atl' all was lost. Even the mountains 'sunk into the water',
and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs.
"Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata
and his spouse Nena, saying, 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin
to hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in
the month Tozontli the water approaches the sky.'
"Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door, he
said, 'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize, and thy wife one also.'
"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water
remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and, on opening it,
they began to see fish.
"Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they
roasted fish.
The gods Citlallinicué and Citlalatonac, instantly looking down
said: 'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there? Why do
they thus smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended.
He began to chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And,
seizing hold of the fish, he shaped their loins and heads, and they
were transformed into dogs ('chichime')."
Here we note a remarkable approximation to Plato's account of the
destruction of Atlantis. "In one day and one fatal night," says
Plato, "there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed
that warlike people." "In a single day all was lost," says the
Aztec legend. And, instead of a rainfall of forty days and forty
nights, as represented in the Bible, here we see "in a single
day... 'even the mountains sunk into the water';" not only the land
on which the people dwelt who were turned into fish, but the very
mountains of that land sunk into the water. Does not this describe
the fate of Atlantis? In the Chaldean legend "the great goddess
Ishtar wailed like a child," saying, "I am the mother who gave
birth to men, and, 'like to the race of fishes', they are filling
the sea."
In the account in Genesis, Noah "builded an altar unto the Lord,
and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered
burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor;
and the Lord said in his heart, 'I will not again curse the ground
any more for man's sake.'" In the Chaldean legend we are told that
Khasisatra also offered a sacrifice, a burnt offering, "and the
gods assembled like flies above the master of the sacrifice." But
Bel came in a high state of indignation, just as the Aztec god did,
and was about to finish the work of the Deluge, when the great god
Ea took ''pity in his heart and interfered to save the remnant of
mankind.
These resemblances cannot be accidental; neither can they be the
interpolations of Christian missionaries, for it will be observed
the Aztec legends differ from the Bible in points where they resemble on
the one hand Plato's record, and on the other the Chaldean legend.
The name of the hero of the Aztec story, 'Nata', pronounced with
the broad sound of the 'a', is not far from the name of Noah or
Noe. The Deluge of Genesis is a Phoenician, Semitic, or Hebraic
legend, and yet, strange to say, the name of Noah, which occurs in
it, bears no appropriate meaning in those tongues, but is derived
from Aryan sources; its fundamental root is 'Na', to which in all
the Aryan language is attached the meaning of water--{Greek} na'ein,
to flow; {Greek} na~ma, water; Nympha, Neptunus, water deities.
(Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. i., p.
15.) We find the root 'Na' repeated in the name of this Central
American Noah, 'Na-ta', and probably in the word "'Na'-hui-atl"--the
age of water.
But still more striking analogies exist between the Chaldean legend
and the story of the Deluge as told in the "Popul Vuh" (the Sacred
Book) of the Central Americans:
"Then the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven
(Hurakan), and a great inundation came upon the heads of these
creatures.... They were ingulfed, and a resinous thickness descended
from heaven.... the face of the earth was obscured, and a heavy
darkening rain commenced-rain by day and rain by night.... There
was beard a great noise above their heads, as if produced by fire.
Then were men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair;
they wished to climb upon their houses, and the houses, tumbling
down, fell to the ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and
the trees shook them off; they wished to enter into the grottoes
(eaves), and the grottoes closed themselves before them.... Water
and fire contributed to the universal ruin at the time of the last
great cataclysm which preceded the fourth creation."
Observe the similarities here to the Chaldean legend. There is the
same graphic description of a terrible event. The "black cloud"
is referred to in both instances; also the dreadful noises. the
rising water, the earthquake rocking the trees, overthrowing the
houses, and crushing even the mountain caverns; "the men running
and pushing each other, filled with despair," says the "Popul Vuh;"
"the brother no longer saw his brother," says the Assyrian legend.
And here I may note that this word 'hurakan'--the spirit of the
abyss, the god of storm, the hurricane--is very suggestive, and
testifies to an early intercourse between the opposite shores of
the Atlantic. We find in Spanish the word 'huracan'; in Portuguese,
'furacan'; in French, 'ouragan'; in German, Danish, and Swedish,
'orcan'--all of them signifying a storm; while in Latin 'furo', or
'furio', means to rage. And are not the old Swedish 'hurra', to
be driven along; our own word hurried; the Icelandic word 'hurra',
to be rattled over frozen ground, all derived from the same root
from which the god of the abyss, Hurakan, obtained his name? The
last thing a people forgets is the name of their god; we retain to
this day, in the names of the days of the week, the designations
of four Scandinavian gods and one Roman deity.
It seems to me certain the above are simply two versions of the same
event; that while ships from Atlantis carried terrified passengers
to tell the story of the dreadful catastrophe to the people of the
Mediterranean shores, other ships, flying from the tempest, bore
similar awful tidings to the civilized races around the Gulf of
Mexico.
The native Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gave this as the Toltec
legend of the Flood:
It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and
'first world', as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were
destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even
all the land, without the exception of anything, and the highest
mountains, were covered up and submerged in water 'fifteen cubits'
(caxtolmolatli); and here they added other fables of how men came
to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a
"toptlipetlocali;" that this word nearly signifies a close chest;
and how, after men had multiplied, they erected a very high "zacuali,"
which is to-day a tower of great height, in order to take refuge
in it should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently their
languages were confused, and, not being able to understand each
other, they went to different parts of the earth.
"The Toltecs, consisting of seven friends, with their wives, who
understood the same language, came to these parts, having first
passed great land and seas, having lived in caves, and having endured
great hardships in order to reach this land.... they wandered 104
years through different parts of the world before they reached Hue
Hue Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, 520 years after the Flood."
("Ixtlilxochitl Relaciones," in Kingsborough's "Mex. Ant.," vol.
ix., pp. 321, 322.)
It will of course be said that this account, in those particulars
where it agrees with the Bible, was derived from the teachings of
the Spanish priests; but it must be remembered that Ixtlilxochitl
was an Indian, a native of Tezeuco, a son of the queen, and that
his "Relaciones" were drawn from the archives of his family and
the ancient writings of his nation: he had no motive to falsify
documents that were probably in the hands of hundreds at that time.
Here we see that the depth of the water over the earth, "fifteen
cubits," given in the Toltec legend, is precisely the same as that
named in the Bible: "fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail."
(Gen., chap. vii., 20.)
In the two curious picture-histories of the Aztecs preserved in the
Boturini collection, and published by Gamelli Careri and others,
there is a record of their migrations from their original location
through various parts of the North American continent until their
arrival in Mexico. In both cases their starting-point is an island,
from which they pass in a boat; and the island contains in one case
a mountain, and in the other a high temple in the midst thereof.
These things seem to be reminiscences of their origin in Atlantis.
In each case we see the crooked mountain of the Aztec legends, the
Calhuacan, looking not unlike the bent mountain of the monk, Cosmos.
In the legends of the Chibchas of Bogota we seem to have distinct
reminiscences of Atlantis. Bochica was their leading divinity.
During two thousand years he employed himself in elevating his
subjects. He lived in the sun, while his wife Chia occupied the
moon. This would appear to be an allusion to the worship of the
sun and moon. Beneath Bochica in their mythology was Chibchacum.
In an angry mood he brought a deluge on the people of the table-land.
Bochica punished him for this act, and obliged him ever after, like
Atlas, to bear the burden of the earth on his back. Occasionally
be shifts the earth from one shoulder to another, and this causes
earthquakes!
Here we have allusions to an ancient people who, during thousands
of years, were elevated in the scale of civilization, and were
destroyed by a deluge; and with this is associated an Atlantean god
bearing the world on his back. We find even the rainbow appearing
in connection with this legend. When Bochica appeared in answer to
prayer to quell the deluge he is seated on a rainbow. He opened a
breach in the earth at Tequendama, through which the waters of the
flood escaped, precisely as we have seen them disappearing through
the crevice in the earth near Bambyce, in Greece.
The Toltecs traced their migrations back to a starting-point called
"Aztlan," or "Atlan." This could be no other than , Atlantis.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 221.) "The original home
of the Nahuatlacas was Aztlan, the location of which has been the
subject of much discussion. The causes that led to their exodus
from that country can only be conjectured; but they may be supposed
to have been driven out by their enemies, for Aztlan is described
as a land too fair and beautiful to be left willingly in the mere
hope of finding a better." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p.
.306.) The Aztecs also claimed to have come originally from Aztlan.
('Ibid'., p. 321.) Their very name, Aztecs, was derived from Aztlan.
('Ibid'., vol. ii., p. 125). They were Atlanteans.
The "Popul Vuh" tells us that after the migration from Aztlan three
sons of the King of the Quiches, upon the death of their father,
"determined to go as their fathers had ordered to the East, on the
shores of the sea whence their fathers had come, to receive the
royalty, 'bidding adieu to their brothers and friends, and promising
to return.' Doubtless they passed over the sea when they went to
the East to receive the royalty. Now this is the name of the lord,
of the monarch of the people of the East where they went. And when
they arrived before the lord Nacxit, the name of the great lord,
the only judge, whose power was without limit, behold he granted
them the sign of royalty and all that represents it . . . and the
insignia of royalt.... all the things, in fact, which they brought
on their return, and which they went to receive from the other side
of the sea--the art of painting from Tulan, a system of writing,
they said, 'for the things recorded in their histories'." (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. v., p. 553 "Popul Vuh," p. 294.)
This legend not only points to the East as the place of origin
of these races, but also proves that this land of the East, this
Aztlan, this Atlantis, exercised dominion over the colonies in Central
America, and furnished them with the essentials of civilization.
How completely does this agree with the statement of Plato that the
kings of Atlantis held dominion over parts of "the great opposite
continent!"
Professor Valentini ("Maya Archæol.," p. 23) describes an Aztec
picture in the work of Gemelli ("Il giro del mondo," vol. vi.) of
the migration of the Aztecs from Aztlan:
"Out of a sheet of water there projects the peak of a mountain; on
it stands a tree, and on the tree a bird spreads its .wings. At
the foot of the mountain-peak there comes out of the water the
heads of a man and a woman. The one wears on his head the symbol
of his name, 'Coxcox', a pheasant. The other head bears that of
a hand with a bouquet ('xochitl', a flower, and 'quetzal', shining
in green gold). In the foreground is a boat, out of which a naked
man stretches out his hand imploringly to heaven. Now turn to the
sculpture in the Flood tablet (on the great Calendar stone). There
you will find represented the Flood, and with great emphasis, by the
accumulation of all those symbols with which the ancient Mexicans
conveyed the idea of water: a tub of standing water, drops springing
out--not two, as heretofore in the symbol for 'Atl', water--but
four drops; the picture for moisture, a snail; above, a crocodile,
the king of the rivers. In the midst of these symbols you notice
the profile of a man with a fillet, and a smaller one of a woman.
There can be doubt these are the Mexican Noah, 'Coxcox', and
his wife, 'Xochiquetzal'; and at the same time it is evident (the
Calendar stone, we know, was made in A.D., 1478) that the story
of them, and the pictures representing the story, have not been
invented by the Catholic clergy, but really existed among these
nations long before the Conquest."
The above figure represents the Flood tablet on the great Calendar
stone.
When we turn to the uncivilized Indians of America, while we still
find legends referring to the Deluge, they are, with one exception,
in such garbled and uncouth forms that we can only see glimpses of
the truth shining through a mass of fable.
The following tradition was current among the Indians of the Great
Lakes:
"In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt 'toward the
rising sun'. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming
upon the earth, be built a raft, on which be saved himself, with
his family and all the animals. He floated thus for several months.
The animals, who at that time spoke, loudly complained and murmured
against him. At last a new earth appeared, on which he landed with
all the animals, who from that time lost the power of speech, as
a punishment for their murmurs against their deliverer."
According to Father Charlevoix, the tribes of Canada and the valley
of the Mississippi relate in their rude legends that all mankind
was destroyed by a flood, and that the Good Spirit, to repeople
the earth, had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we
owe our acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways--full of
grotesque and perplexing touches--in which the man saved from the
Deluge is called Menaboshu. To know if the earth be drying, he
sends a bird, the diver, out of his bark; then becomes the restorer
of the human race and the founder of existing society.
A clergyman who visited the Indians north-west of the Ohio in 1764
met, at a treaty, a party of Indians from the west of the Mississippi.
"They informed him that one of their most ancient traditions was
that, a great while ago, they had a common father, who lived toward
the rising of the sun, and governed the whole world; that all the
white people's heads were under his feet; that he had twelve sons,
by whom he administered the government; that the twelve sons behaved
very bad, and tyrannized over the people, abusing their power; that
the Great Spirit, being thus angry with them, suffered the white
people to introduce spirituous liquors among them, made them drunk,
stole the special gift of the Great Spirit from them, and by this
means usurped power over them; and ever since the Indians' heads
were under the white people's feet." (Boudinot's "Star in the West,"
p. 111.)
Here we note that they looked "toward the rising sun"--toward
Atlantis--for the original home of their race; that this region
governed "the whole world;" that it contained white people, who were
at first a subject race, but who subsequently rebelled, and acquired
dominion over the darker races. We will see reason hereafter to
conclude that Atlantis had a composite population, and that the
rebellion of the Titans in Greek mythology was the rising up of a
subject population.
In 1836 C. S. Rafinesque published in Philadelphia, Pa., a work
called "The American Nations," in which he gives the historical
songs or chants of the Lenni-Lenapi, or Delaware Indians, the tribe
that originally dwelt along, the Delaware River. After describing
a time "when there was nothing but sea-water on top of the land,"
and the creation of sun, moon, stars, earth, and man, the legend
depicts the Golden Age and the Fall in these words: "All were willingly
pleased, all were easy-thinking, and all were well-happified. But
after a while a snake-priest, 'Powako', brings on earth secretly
the snake-worship ('Initako') of the god of the snakes, 'Wakon'.
And there came wickedness, crime, and unhappiness. And bad weather
was coming, distemper was coming, with death was coming. All this
happened 'very long ago, at the first land, Netamaki', beyond the
great 'ocean Kitahikau'." Then follows the Song of the Flood:
"There was, long ago, a powerful snake, 'Maskanako', when the men
had become bad beings, 'Makowini'. This strong snake had become
the foe of the Jins, and they became troubled, hating each other.
Both were fighting, both were, spoiling, both were never peaceful.
And they were fighting, least man 'Mattapewi' with dead-keeper
'Nihaulowit'. And the strong snake readily resolved to destroy or
fight the beings or the men. The dark snake he brought, the monster
('Amanyam') he brought, snake-rushing water he brought (it). 'Much
water is rushing, much go to hills, much penetrate, much destroying'.
Meanwhile at 'Tula' (this is the same Tula referred to in the Central
American legends), at THAT ISLAND, Nana-Bush (the great hare Nana)
becomes the ancestor of beings and men. Being born creeping, he
is ready to move and dwell at 'Tula'. The beings and men all go
forth from the flood creeping in shallow water or swimming afloat,
asking which is the way to the turtle-back, 'Tula-pin'. But there
are many monsters in the way, and some men were devoured by them.
But the daughter of a spirit helped them in a boat, saying, 'Come,
come;' they were coming and were helped. The name of the boat
or raft is 'Mokol'.... Water running off, it is drying; in the
plains and the mountains, at the path of the cave, elsewhere went
the powerful action or motion." Then follows Song 3, describing
the condition of mankind after the Flood. Like the Aryans, they
moved into a cold country: "It freezes was there; it snows was
there; it is cold was there." They move to a milder region to hunt
cattle; they divided their forces into tillers and hunters. "The
good and the holy were the hunters;" they spread themselves north,
south, east, and west." Meantime all the snakes were afraid in their
huts, and the Snake-priest 'Nakopowa' said to all, 'Let us go.'
'Eastwardly' they go forth at Snakeland ('Akhokink'), and they went
away earnestly grieving." Afterward the fathers of the Delawares,
who "were always boating and navigating," find that the Snake-people
have taken possession of a fine country; and they collect together
the people from north, south, east, and west, and attempt "to pass
over the waters of the frozen sea to possess that land." They seem
to travel in the dark of an Arctic winter until they come to a gap
of open sea. They can go no farther; but some tarry at Firland,
while the rest return to where they started from, "the old turtle
land."
Here we find that the land that was destroyed was the "first land;"
that it was an island "beyond the great ocean." In all early age
the people were happy and peaceful; they became wicked; "snake
worship" was introduced, and was associated, as in Genesis, with
the "fall of man;" Nana-Bush became the ancestor of the new race;
his name reminds us of the Toltec 'Nata' and the Hebrew 'Noah'.
After the flood came a dispersing of the people, and a separation
into hunters and tillers of the soil.
Among the Mandan Indians we not only find flood legends, but, more
remarkable still, we find an 'image of the ark preserved' from
generation to generation, and a religious ceremony performed which
refers plainly to the destruction of Atlantis, and to the arrival
of one of those who escaped from the Flood, bringing the dreadful
tidings of the disaster. It must be remembered, as we will show
hereafter, that many of these Mandan Indians were white men, with
hazel, gray, and blue eyes, and all shades of color of the hair
from black to pure white; that they dwelt in houses in fortified
towns, and manufactured earthen-ware pots in which they could boil
water--an art unknown to the ordinary Indians, who boiled water by
putting heated stones into it.
I quote the very interesting account of George Catlin, who visited
the Mandans nearly fifty years ago, lately republished in London
in the "North American Indians," a very curious and valuable work.
He says (vol. i., p. 88):
"In the centre of the village is an open space, or public square,
150 feet in diameter and circular in form, which is used for all
public games and festivals, shows and exhibitions. The lodges around
this open space front in, with their doors toward. the centre; and
in the middle of this stands an object of great religious veneration,
on account of the importance it has in connection with the annual
religious ceremonies. This object is in the form of a large hogshead,
some eight or ten feet high, made of planks and hoops, containing
within it some of their choicest mysteries or medicines. They call
it the 'Big Canoe.'"
This is a representation of the ark; the ancient Jews venerated
a similar image, and some of the ancient Greek States followed
in processions a model of the ark of Deucalion. But it is indeed
surprising to find this practice perpetuated, even to our own times,
by a race of Indians in the heart of America. On page 158 of the
first volume of the same work Catlin describes the great annual
mysteries and religious ceremonials of which this image of the ark
was the centre. He says:
"On the day set apart for the commencement of the ceremonies a
solitary figure is seen approaching the village.
"During the deafening din and confusion within the pickets of the
village the figure discovered on the prairie continued to approach
with a dignified step, and in a right line toward the village; all
eyes were upon him, and he at length made his appearance within
the pickets, and proceeded toward the centre of the village, where
all the chiefs and braves stood ready to receive him, which they
did in a cordial manner by shaking hands, recognizing him as an old
acquaintance, and pronouncing his name, Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah ('the
first or only man'). The body of this strange personage, which was
chiefly naked, was painted with white clay, so as to resemble at
a distance a white man. He enters the medicine lodge, and goes
through certain mysterious ceremonies.
"During the whole of this day Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah (the first or
only man) travelled through the village, stopping in front of each
man's lodge, and crying until the owner of the lodge came out and
asked who he was, and what was the matter? To which be replied by
narrating 'the sad catastrophe which had happened on the earth's
surface by the overflowing of the waters', saying that 'he was the
'only person saved from the universal calamity'; that he landed
his big canoe on a high mountain in the west, where he now resides;
that be has come to open the medicine lodge, which must needs
receive a present of an edged tool from the owner of every wigwam,
that it may be sacrificed to the water; for,' he says, 'if this is
not done there will be another flood, and no one will be saved, as
it was with such tools that the big canoe was made.'
"Having visited every lodge in the village during the day, and
having received such a present from each as a hatchet, a knife,
etc. (which is undoubtedly always prepared ready for the occasion),
be places them in the medicine lodge; and, on the last day of the
ceremony, they are thrown into a deep place in the river--'sacrificed
to the Spirit of the Waters."'
Among the sacred articles kept in the great medicine lodge are four
sacks of water, called 'Eeh-teeh-ka', sewed together, each of them
in the form of a tortoise lying on its back, with a bunch of eagle
feathers attached to its tail. "These four tortoises," they told
me, "contained the waters from the four quarters of the world--that
those waters had been contained therein 'ever since the settling
down of the waters'," "I did not," says Catlin, who knew nothing
of an Atlantis theory, "think it best to advance anything against
such a ridiculous belief." Catlin tried to purchase one of these
water-sacks, but could not obtain it for any price; he was told
they were "a society property."
He then describes a dance by twelve men around the ark: "They
arrange themselves according to 'the four cardinal points'; two
are painted perfectly 'black', two are vermilion color, some were
painted partially white. They dance a dance called Bel-lohck-na-pie,'"
with horns on their heads, like those used in Europe as symbolical
of Bel, or Baal.
Could anything be more evident than the connection of these ceremonies
with the destruction of Atlantis? Here we have the image of the
ark; here we have a white man coming with the news that "the waters
had overflowed the land," and that all the people were destroyed
except himself; here we have the sacrifice to appease the spirit
that caused the Flood, just as we find the Flood terminating, in the
Hebrew, Chaldean, and Central American legends, with a sacrifice.
Here, too, we have the image of the tortoise, which we find in other
flood legends of the Indians, and which is a very natural symbol
for an island. As one of our own poets has expressed it,
"Very fair and full of promise
Lay the island of St. Thomas;
Like a great green turtle slumbered
On the sea which it encumbered."
Here we have, too, the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its
four rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a
dance, where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four
cardinal points of the compass; the dancers are painted to represent
the black and red races, while "the first and only man" represents
the white race; and the name of the dance is a reminiscence of
Baal, the ancient god of the races derived from Atlantis.
But this is not all. The Mandans were evidently of the race of
Atlantis. They have another singular legend, which we find in the
account of Lewis and Clarke:
"Their belief in a future state is connected with this theory
of their origin: The whole nation resided in one large village,
underground, near a subterranean lake. A grape-vine extended its
roots down to their habitation, and gave them a view of the light.
Some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine, and were delighted
with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo,
and rich with every kind of fruit. Returning with the grapes they
had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of
them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence
for the charms of the upper region. Men, women, and children ascended
by means of the vine, but, when about half the nation had reached
the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman, who was clambering
up the vine, broke it with her weight, and closed upon herself and
the rest of the nation the light of the sun."
This curious tradition means. that the present nation dwelt in a
large settlement underground, that is, beyond the land, in the sea;
the sea being represented by "the subterranean lake." At one time
the people had free intercourse between this "large village" and
the American continent, and they founded extensive colonies on
this continent; whereupon some mishap cut them off from the mother
country. This explanation is confirmed by the fact that in the
legends of the Iowa Indians, who were a branch of the Dakotas, or
Sioux Indians, and relatives of the Mandans (according to Major
James W. Lynd), "all the tribes of Indians were formerly one, and
all dwelt together on an island, or at least across a large water
toward the east or sunrise. They crossed this water in skin canoes,
or by swimming; but they know not how long they were in crossing,
or whether the water was salt or fresh." While the Dakotas, according
to Major Lynd, who lived among them for nine years, possessed
legends of "huge skiffs, in which the Dakotas of old floated for
weeks, finally gaining dry land"--a reminiscence of ships and long
sea-voyages.
The Mandans celebrated their great religious festival above described
in the season when the willow is first in leaf, and a dove is mixed
up in the ceremonies; and they further relate a legend that "the
world was once a great tortoise, borne on the waters, and covered
with earth, and that when one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of
white men, who had made holes in the earth to a great depth digging
for badgers, at length pierced the shell of the tortoise, it sank,
and the water covering it drowned all men with the exception of
one, who saved himself in a boat; and when the earth re-emerged,
sent out a dove, who returned with a branch of willow in its beak."
The holes dug to find badgers were a savage's recollection of mining
operations; and when the great disaster came, and the island sunk
in the sea amid volcanic convulsions, doubtless men said it was due
to the deep mines, which had opened the way to the central fires.
But the recurrence of "white men" as the miners, and of a white man
as "the last and only man," and the presence of white blood in the
veins of the people, all point to the same conclusion--that the
Mandans were colonists from Atlantis.
And here I might add that Catlin found the following singular
resemblances between the Mandan tongue and the Welsh:
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| English.... .... Mandan..... Welsh.... | Pronounced. |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
.... .... .... Me...... | Mi...... | Me.... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| You.... ....... Ne...... | Chwi...... Chwe.... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| He.... ...... | E...... | A...... | A.......
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| She.... ....... Ea...... | E...... | A.......
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| It.... ...... | Ount...... Hwynt.... | Hooynt....
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| We.... ...... | Noo....... Ni...... | Ne.... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| They.... ...... Eonah.... | Hona, 'fem'. | Hona.... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| No; or there is not. | Megosh..... Nagoes..... Nagosh....
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| No.... .... .... ...... Na.... .... .... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| Head.... ...... Pan....... Pen....... Pan.... |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| The Great Spirit.... Maho Peneta. | Maw....... Mosoor....
.... .... .... ...... | Penæthir.... Panæther. |
+----------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
Major Lynd found the following resemblances between the Dakota
tongue and the languages of the Old World:
COMPARISON OF DAKOTA, OR SIOUX, WITH OTHER LANGUAGES.
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Latin. | English. | Saxo... Sanscrit. | German. | Danish. | Sioux.... Other.... Primar.... |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Languages. | Signification. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... See.... Seon.... .... | Sehe... Sig.... Si.... ...... | Appearing....
...... see.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... visible.... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Pinso | Pound... Punian.... .... .... ...... | Pa.... | 'W..... | Beatin.... |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Pwynian.... .... ....
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Vad... Wen.... Wendan.... .... .... ...... | Wint.... ...... | Passage.... |
...... Wen.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Tow.... Tu.... ....... Zaun... Tun.... Tonw.... 'Gaelic.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Dun.... .... .... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Qui... Who.... Hw.... Kwas.... Wi.... ...... Tuwe.... .... .... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Weapo... Wepn.... .... | Wape... Vaape... Wipe.... ...... | Sioux dimin. |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... | Wipen.... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Ego.... .... Ic.... Agam.... Ic.... Jeg.... Mish.... .... .... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Cor... Cor.... .... .... .... .... ...... C...... 'Gr.,.... Centre, heart |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Kea.... .... .... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Eight... Acht... Aute.... Acht... Ott.... Shaktogan | 'Gr.,.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Okt.... .... .... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Canna | Can.... .... .... .... .... ...... Ca.... | 'Heb., Can | Reed, weed, |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | W., Cawn' | wood.......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Poc... Poc.... Po.... ....... Pock... Pukke... Poka.... 'Dutch,... Swelling.....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Poca'.... .... ....
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Wit.... With.... .... | Wide.... .... Wita.... 'Goth.,.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Gewithan..... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Doughty | Dohtig.... .... Taugen | Digti... Dita.... ...... | Hot, brave, |
.... .... .... .... .... .... ...... | Ditaya.... ...... daring.... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Tight... Tian.... .... | Dich... Dig.... Tita.... ...... | Strain.... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Tango | Touch... Taecan.... .... Ticken | Tekka... Ta.... ...... | Touch, take. |
| Tactus | Tak.... .... .... .... .... ...... Htak.... .... .... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Child... Cild.... .... | Kind... Kul.... Ci.... ...... | Progeny.... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Wor.... Wercan.... .... .... ...... | Woccas... 'Dutch,... Labor, motion. |
.... .... .... .... .... .... ...... | Heco.... Wer.... .... .... |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Span..... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Hecho.... .... ....
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
...... Shackle | Seoacu.... .... .... ...... | Shka.... 'Ar.,.... to bind (....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Schakala, | link).... |
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Dutch.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Schakel.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Teton.... .... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... | Shakalan'.... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Query.... .... .... .... .... .... .... Kuiv.... .... .... .......
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Shabb.... .... .... ....... Schabig | Schabbig | Shabya.... .... .... .... |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
According to Major Lynd, the Dakotas, or Sioux, belonged to the
same race as the Mandans; hence the interest which attaches to
these verbal similarities.
"Among the Iroquois there is a tradition that the sea and waters
infringed upon the land, so that all human life was destroyed. The
Chickasaws assert that the world was once destroyed by water, but
that one family was saved, and two animals of every kind. The
Sioux say there was a time when there was no dry land, and all men
had disappeared from existence." (See Lynd's "MS. History of the
Dakotas," Library of Historical Society of Minnesota.)
"The Okanagaus have a god, Skyappe, and also one called Chacha, who
appear to be endowed with omniscience; but their principal divinity
is their great mythical ruler and heroine, Scomalt. Long ago,
when the sun was no bigger than a star, this strong medicine-woman
ruled over what appears to have now become a 'lost island'. At
last the peace of the island was destroyed by war, and the noise of
battle was heard, with which Scomalt was exceeding wroth, whereupon
she rose up in her might and drove her rebellious subjects to one
end of the island, and broke off the piece of land on which they
were huddled and pushed it out to sea, to drift whither it would.
This floating island was tossed to and fro and buffeted by the
winds till all but two died. A man and woman escaped in a canoe,
and arrived on the main-land; and from these the Okanagaus are
descended." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii., p. 149.)
Here we have the Flood legend clearly connected with a lost island.
The Nicaraguans believed "that ages ago the world was destroyed
by a flood, in which the most part of mankind perished. Afterward
the 'teotes', or gods, restored the earth as at the beginning."
('Ibid'., p. 75.) The wild Apaches, "wild from their natal hour,"
have a legend that "the first days of the world were happy and
peaceful days;" then came a great flood, from which Montezuma and
the coyote alone escaped. Montezuma became then very wicked, and
attempted to build a house that would reach to heaven, but the
Great Spirit destroyed it with thunderbolts. (Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. iii., p. 76.)
The Pimas, an Indian tribe allied to the Papagos, have a peculiar
flood legend. The son of the Creator was called Szeu-kha (Ze-us?).
An eagle prophesied the deluge to the prophet of the people
three times in succession, but his warning was despised; "then in
the twinkling of an eye there came a peal of thunder and an awful
crash, and a green mound of water reared itself over the plain.
It seemed to stand upright for a second, then, cut incessantly by
the lightning, goaded on like a great beast, it flung itself upon
the prophet's hut. When the morning broke there was nothing to
be seen alive but one man--if indeed be were a man; Szeu-kha, the
son of the Creator, had saved himself by floating on a ball of gum
or resin." This instantaneous catastrophe reminds one forcibly of
the destruction of Atlantis. Szeu-kha killed the eagle, restored
its victims to life, and repeopled the earth with them, as Deucalion
repeopled the earth with the stones.
CHAPTER VI.
SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE DELUGE LEGENDS.
'The Fountains of the Great Deep.'--As Atlantis perished in a volcanic
convulsion, it must have possessed volcanoes. This is rendered the
more probable when we remember that the ridge of land of which it
was a part, stretching from north to south, from Iceland to St.
Helena, contains even now great volcanoes--as in Iceland, the
Azores, the Canaries, etc.--and that the very sea-bed along the
line of its original axis is, to this day, as we have shown, the
scene of great volcanic disturbances.
If, then, the mountains of Atlantis contained volcanoes, of which
the peaks of the Azores are the surviving representatives, it is
not improbable that the convulsion which drowned it in the sea was
accompanied by great discharges of water. We have seen that such
discharges occurred in the island of Java, when four thousand people
perished. "Immense columns of hot water and boiling mud were thrown
out" of the volcano of Galung Gung; the water was projected from the
mountain "like a water-spout." When a volcanic island was created
near Sicily in 1831, it was accompanied by "a waterspout sixty feet
high."
In the island of Dominica, one of the islands constituting the Leeward
group of the West Indies, and nearest to the site of Atlantis, on
the 4th of January, 1880, occurred a series of convulsions which
reminds us forcibly of the destruction of Plato's island; and the
similarity extends to another particular: Dominica contains, like
Atlantis, we are told, numerous hot and sulphur springs. I abridge
the account given by the 'New York Herald' of January 28th, 1880:
"A little after 11 o'clock A.M., soon after high-mass in the Roman
Catholic cathedral, and while divine service was still going on
in the Anglican and Wesleyan chapels, all the indications of an
approaching thunder-storm suddenly showed themselves; the atmosphere,
which just previously had been cool and pleasant--slight showers
falling since early morning--became at once nearly stifling hot;
the rumbling of distant thunder was heard, and the light-blue and
fleecy white of the sky turned into a heavy and lowering black.
Soon the thunder-peals came near and loud, the lightning flashes,
of a blue and red color, more frequent and vivid; and the rain, first
with a few heavy drops, commenced to pour as if the floodgates of
heaven were open. In a moment it darkened, as if night had come;
a strong, nearly overpowering smell of sulphur announced itself;
and people who happened to be out in the streets felt the rain-drops
failing on their heads, backs, and shoulders like showers of
hailstones. The cause of this was to be noted by looking at the
spouts, from which the water was rushing like so many cataracts of
molten lead, while the gutters below ran swollen streams of thick
gray mud, looking like nothing ever seen in them before. In the
mean time the Roseau River had worked itself into a state of mad
fury, overflowing its banks, carrying down rocks and large trees,
and threatening destruction to the bridges over it and the houses
in its neighborhood. When the storm ceased--it lasted till twelve,
mid-day--the roofs and walls of the buildings in town, the street
pavement, the door-steps and back-yards were found covered with a
deposit of volcanic débris, holding together like clay, dark-gray
in color, and in some places more than an inch thick, with small,
shining metallic particles on the surface, which could be easily
identified as iron pyrites. Scraping up some of the stuff,
it required only a slight examination to determine its main
constituents--sandstone and magnesia, the pyrites being slightly
mixed, and silver showing itself in even smaller quantity. This
is, in fact, the composition of the volcanic mud thrown up by the
'soufrières' at Watton Waven and in the Boiling Lake country, and
it is found in solution as well in the lake water. The Devil's
Billiard-table, within half a mile of the Boiling Lake, is composed
wholly of this substance, which there assumes the character of stone
in formation. Inquiries instituted on Monday morning revealed the
fact that, except on the south-east, the mud shower had not extended
beyond the limits of the town. On the north-west, in the direction
of Fond Colo and Morne Daniel, nothing but pure rain-water had
fallen, and neither Loubière nor Pointe Michel had seen
any signs of volcanic disturbance. . . .
"But what happened at Pointe Mulâtre enables us to spot the locale
of the eruption. Pointe Mulâtre lies at the foot of the range of
mountains on the top of which the Boiling Lake frets and seethes.
The only outlet of the lake is a cascade which falls into one of
the branches of the Pointe Mulâtre River, the color and temperature
of which, at one time and another, shows the existence or otherwise
of volcanic activity in the lake-country. We may observe, 'en
passant', that the fall of the water from the lake is similar in
appearance to the falls on the sides of Roairama, in the interior
of British Guiana; there, is no continuous stream, but the water
overleaps its basin. like a kettle boiling over, and comes down in
detached cascades from the top. May there not be a boiling lake
on the unapproachable summit of Roairama? The phenomena noted
at Pointe Mulâtre on Sunday were similar to what we witnessed in
Roseau, but with every feature more strongly marked. The fall of
mud was heavier, covering all the fields; the atmospheric disturbance
was greater, and the change in the appearance of the running water
about the place more surprising. The Pointe Mulâtre River suddenly
began to run volcanic mud and water; then the mud predominated, and
almost buried the stream under its weight, and the odor of sulphur
in the air became positively oppressive. Soon the fish in the
water--brochet, camoo, meye, crocro, mullet, down to the eel, the
crawfish, the loche, the tétar, and the dormer--died, and were
thrown on the banks. The mud carried down by the river has formed
a bank at the month which nearly dams up the stream, and threatens
to throw it back over the low-lying lands of the Pointe Mulâtre
estate. The reports from the Laudat section of the Boiling Lake
district are curious. The Bachelor and Admiral rivers, and the
numerous mineral springs which arise in that part of the island,
are all running a thick white flood, like cream milk. The face of
the entire country, from the Admiral River to the Solfatera Plain,
has undergone some portentous change, which the frightened peasants
who bring the news to Roseau seem unable clearly and connectedly
to describe, and the volcanic activity still continues."
From this account it appears that the rain of water and mud came
from a boiling lake on the mountains; it must have risen to a great
height, "like a water-spout," and then fallen in showers over the
face of the country. We are reminded, in this Boiling Lake of
Dominica, of the Welsh legend of the eruption of the Llyn-llion,
"the Lake of Waves," which "inundated the whole country." On the
top of a mountain in the county of Kerry, Ireland, called Mangerton,
there is a deep lake known as Poulle-i-feron, which signifies
Hell-hole; it frequently overflows, and rolls down the mountain in
frightful torrents. On Slieve-donart, in the territory of Mourne,
in the county of Down, Ireland, a lake occupies the mountain-top,
and its overflowings help to form rivers.
If we suppose the destruction of Atlantis to have been, in like
manner, accompanied by a tremendous outpour of water from one or
more of its volcanoes, thrown to a great height, and deluging the
land, we can understand the description in the Chaldean legend of
"'the terrible water-spout'," which even "the gods grew afraid of,"
and which "rose to the sky," and which seems to have been one of
the chief causes, together with the earthquake, of the destruction
of the country. And in this view we are confirmed by the Aramæan
legend of the Deluge, probably derived at an earlier age from the
Chaldean tradition. In it we are told, "All on a sudden 'enormous
volumes of water issued from the earth', and rains of extraordinary
abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the ocean
overflowed its banks." The disturbance in Dominica duplicates this
description exactly: "In a moment" the water and mud burst from
the mountains, "the floodgates of heaven were opened," and "the
river overflowed its banks."
And here, again, we are reminded of the expression in Genesis,
"the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up"
(chap. vii., 11). That this does not refer to the rain is clear
from the manner in which it is stated: "The same day were all the
fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened. And the rain was upon the earth," etc. And when
the work of destruction is finished, we are told "the fountains
also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped." This is
a reminiscence by an inland people, living where such tremendous
volcanic disturbances were nearly unknown, of "the terrible
water-spout which "rose to the sky," of the Chaldean legend, and
of "the enormous volumes of water issuing from the earth" of the
Aramæan tradition. The Hindoo legend of the Flood speaks of "the
marine god Hayagriva, who dwelt in the abyss," who produced the
cataclysm. This is doubtless "the archangel of the abyss" spoken
of in the Chaldean tradition.
'The Mountains of the North.'--We have in Plato the following
reference to the mountains of Atlantis:
"The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous
on the side of the sea.... The whole region of the island lies
toward the south, and is sheltered from the north.... The surrounding
mountains exceeded all that are to be seen now anywhere."
These mountains were the present Azores. One has but to contemplate
their present elevation, and remember the depth to which they
descend in the ocean, to realize their tremendous altitude and the
correctness of the description given by Plato.
In the Hindoo legend we find the fish-god, who represents Poseidon,
father of Atlantis, helping Mann. over "the Mountain of the North."
In the Chaldean legend Khasisatra's vessel is stopped by "the
Mountain of Nizir" until the sea goes down.
'The Mud which Stopped Navigation.'--We are told by Plato, "Atlantis
disappeared beneath the sea, and then that sea became inaccessible,
so that navigation on it ceased, on account of the quantity of mud
which the ingulfed island left in its place." This is one of the
points of Plato's story which provoked the incredulity and ridicule
of the ancient, and even of the modern, world. We find in the
Chaldean legend something of the same kind: Khasisatra says, "I
looked at the sea attentively, observing, and the whole of humanity
had returned to mud." In the "Popol Vuh" we are told that a "resinous
thickness descended from heaven," even as in Dominica the rain was
full of "thick gray mud," accompanied by an "overpowering smell of
sulphur."
The explorations of the ship 'Challenger' show that the whole of
the submerged ridge of which Atlantis 'is a part is to this day
thickly covered with volcanic débris'.
We have but to remember the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which
were covered with such a mass of volcanic ashes from the eruption
of A.D. 79 that for seventeen centuries they remained buried at a
depth of from fifteen to thirty feet; a new population lived and
labored above them; an aqueduct was constructed over their heads;
and it was only when a farmer, in digging for a well, penetrated
the roof of a house, that they were once more brought to the light
of day and the knowledge of mankind.
We have seen that, in 1783, the volcanic eruption in Iceland covered
the sea with pumice for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles,
"and 'ships were considerably impeded in their course'."
The eruption in the island of Sumbawa, in April, 1815, threw out
such masses of ashes as to darken the air. "The floating cinders
to the west of Sumatra formed, on the 12th of April, a mass 'two
feet thick' and several miles in extent, 'through which ships with
difficulty forced their way'."
It thus appears that the very statement of Plato which has provoked
the ridicule of scholars is in itself one of the corroborating
features of his story. It is probable that the ships of the
Atlanteans, when they returned after the tempest to look for their
country, found the sea impassable from the masses of volcanic
ashes and pumice. They returned terrified to the shores of Europe;
and the shock inflicted by the destruction of Atlantis upon the
civilization of the world probably led to one of those retrograde
periods in the history of our race in which they lost all intercourse
with the Western continent.
'The Preservation of a Record.'--There is a singular coincidence
in the stories of the Deluge in another particular.
The legends of the Phoenicians, preserved by Sanchoniathon, tell
us that Taautos, or Taut, was the inventor of the alphabet and of
the art of writing.
Now, we find in the Egyptian legends a passage of Manetho, in
which Thoth (or Hermes Trismegistus), before the Deluge, inscribed
on stelæ, or tablets, in hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, the
principles of all knowledge. After the Deluge the second Thoth
translated the contents of these stelæ into the vulgar tongue.
Josephus tells us that "The patriarch Seth, in order that wisdom
and astronomical knowledge should not perish, erected, in prevision
of the double destruction by fire and water predicted by Adam, two
columns, one of brick, the other of stone, on which this knowledge
was engraved, and which existed in the Siriadic country."
In the Chaldean legends the god Ea ordered Khasisatra to inscribe
the divine learning, and the principles of all sciences, on tables
of terra-cotta, and bury them, before the Deluge, "in the City of
the Sun at Sippara."
Berosus, in his version of the Chaldean flood, says:
"The deity, Chronos, appeared to him (Xisuthros) in a vision, and
warned him that, upon the 15th day of the month Doesius, there
would be a flood by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore
enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and
conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the City of the Sun at
Sippara, and to build a vessel," etc.
The Hindoo Bhâgavata-Purâna tells us that the fish-god, who warned
Satyravata of the coming of the Flood, directed him to place the
sacred Scriptures in a safe place, "in order to preserve them from
Hayagriva, a marine horse dwelling in the abyss."
Are we to find the original of these legends in the following
passage from Plato's history of Atlantis?
"Now, the relations of their governments to one another were regulated
by the injunctions of Poseidon, as the law had handed them down.
These were inscribed by the first then on a column of orichalcum,
which was situated in the middle of the island, at the Temple
of Poseidon, whither the people were gathered together.... They
received and gave judgments, and at daybreak they wrote down their
sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials with
their robes. There were many special laws which the several kings
had inscribed about the temples." (Critias, p. 120.)
'A Succession of Disasters.'--The Central American books, translated
by De Bourbourg, state that originally a part of the American
continent extended far into the Atlantic Ocean. This tradition is
strikingly confirmed by the explorations of the ship 'Challenger',
which show that the "Dolphin's Ridge" was connected with the shore
of South America north of the mouth of the Amazon. The Central
American books tell us that this region of the continent was
destroyed by a succession of frightful convulsions, probably at
long intervals apart; three of these catastrophes are constantly
mentioned, and sometimes there is reference to one or two more.
"The land," in these convulsions, "was shaken by frightful earthquakes,
and the waves of the sea combined with volcanic fires to overwhelm
and ingulf it.... Each convulsion swept away portions of the land
until the whole disappeared, leaving the line of coast as it now is.
Most of the inhabitants, overtaken amid their regular employments,
were destroyed; but some escaped in ships, and some fled for safety
to the summits of high mountains, or to portions of the land which
for a time escaped immediate destruction." (Baldwin's "Ancient
America," p. 176.)
This accords precisely with the teachings of geology. We know that
the land from which America and Europe were formed once covered
nearly or quite the whole space now occupied by the Atlantic between
the continents; and it is reasonable to believe that it went down
piecemeal, and that Atlantis was but the stump of the ancient
continent, which at last perished from the same causes and in the
same way.
The fact that this tradition existed among the inhabitants of
America is proven by the existence of festivals, "especially one
in the month 'Izcalli', which were instituted to commemorate this
frightful destruction of land and people, and in which, say the
sacred books, 'princes and people humbled themselves before the
divinity, and besought him to withhold a return of such terrible
calamities.'"
Can we doubt the reality of events which we thus find confirmed
by religious ceremonies at Athens, in Syria, and on the shores of
Central America?
And we find this succession of great destructions of the Atlantic
continent in the triads of Wales, where traditions are preserved
of "three terrible catastrophes." We are told by the explorations
of the ship 'Challenger' that the higher lands reach in the direction
of the British Islands; and the Celts had traditions that a part
of their country once extended far out into the Atlantic, and was
subsequently destroyed.
And the same succession of destructions is referred to in the Greek
legends, where a deluge of Ogyges--"the most ancient of the kings
of Boeotia or Attica, a quite mythical person, lost in the night
of ages"--preceded that of Deucalion.
We will find hereafter the most ancient hymns of the Aryans praying
God to 'hold the land firm'. The people of Atlantis, having seen
their country thus destroyed, section by section, and judging that
their own time must inevitably come, must have lived under a great
and perpetual terror, which will go far to explain the origin of
primeval religion, and the hold which it took upon the minds of
men; and this condition of things may furnish us a solution of the
legends which have come down to us of their efforts to perpetuate
their learning on pillars, and also an explanation of that other
legend of the Tower of Babel, which, as I will show hereafter,
was common to both continents, and in which they sought to build
a tower high enough to escape the Deluge.
All the legends of the preservation of a record prove that the
united voice of antiquity taught that the antediluvians had advanced
so far in civilization as to possess an alphabet and a system
of writing; a conclusion which, as we will see hereafter, finds
confirmation in the original identity of the alphabetical signs
used in the old world and the new.
PART III
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD AND NEW COMPARED.
CHAPTER I.
CIVILIZATION AN INHERITANCE.
Material civilization might be defined to be the result of a series
of inventions and discoveries, whereby man improves his condition,
and controls the forces of nature for his own advantage.
The savage man is a pitiable creature; as Menabosbu says, in
the Chippeway legends, he is pursued by a "perpetual hunger;" he
is exposed unprotected to the blasts of winter and the heats of
summer. A great terror sits upon his soul; for every manifestation
of nature--the storm, the wind, the thunder, the lightning, the
cold, the heat--all are threatening and dangerous demons. The
seasons bring him neither seed-time nor harvest; pinched with
hunger, appeasing in part the everlasting craving of his stomach
with seeds, berries, and creeping things, he sees the animals of
the forest dash by him, and he has no means to arrest their flight.
He is powerless and miserable in the midst of plenty. Every step
toward civilization is a step of conquest over nature. The invention
of the bow and arrow was, in its time, a far greater stride forward
for the human race than the steam-engine or the telegraph. The
savage could now reach his game--his insatiable hunger could be
satisfied; the very eagle, "towering in its pride of place," was not
beyond the reach of this new and wonderful weapon. The discovery
of fire and the art of cooking was another immense step forward.
The savage, having nothing but wooden vessels in which to cook,
covered the wood with clay; the day hardened in the fire. The
savage gradually learned that he could dispense with the wood, and
thus pottery was invented. Then some one (if we are to believe the
Chippeway legends, on the shores of Lake Superior) found fragments
of the pure copper of that region, beat them into shape, and the
art of metallurgy was begun; iron was first worked in the same way
by shaping meteoric iron into spear-heads.
But it must not be supposed that these inventions followed one another
in rapid succession. Thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of
years intervened between each step; many savage races have not to
this day achieved some of these steps. Prof. Richard Owen says,
"Unprepossessed and sober experience teaches that arts, language,
literature are of slow growth, the results of gradual development."
I shall undertake to show hereafter that nearly all the arts
essential to civilization which we possess date back to the time
of Atlantis--certainly to that ancient Egyptian civilization which
was coeval with, and an outgrowth from, Atlantis.
'In six thousand years the world made no advance on the civilization
which it received from Atlantis.'
Phoenicia, Egypt, Chaldea, India, Greece, and Rome passed the torch
of civilization from one to the other; but in all that lapse of
time they added nothing to the arts which existed at the earliest
period of Egyptian history. In architecture, sculpture, painting,
engraving, mining, metallurgy, navigation, pottery, glass-ware, the
construction of canals, roads, and aqueducts, the arts of Phoenicia
and Egypt extended, without material change or improvement, to
a period but two or three hundred years ago. The present age has
entered upon a new era; it has added a series of wonderful inventions
to the Atlantean list; it has subjugated steam and electricity to
the uses of man. And its work has but commenced: it will continue
until it lifts man to a plane as much higher than the present as
the present is above the barbaric condition; and in the future it
will be said that between the birth of civilization in Atlantis and
the new civilization there stretches a period of many thousands of
years, during which mankind did not invent, but simply perpetuated.
Herodotus tells us ("Euterpe," cxlii.) that, according to the
information he received from the Egyptian priests, their written
history dated back 11,340 years before his era, or nearly 14,000
years prior to this time. They introduced him into a spacious
temple, and showed him the statues of 341 high-priests who had in
turn succeeded each other; and yet the age of Columbus possessed no
arts, except that of printing (which was ancient in China), which
was not known to the Egyptians; and the civilization of Egypt at
its first appearance was of a higher order than at any subsequent
period of its history, thus testifying that it drew its greatness
from a fountain higher than itself. It was in its early days that
Egypt worshipped one only God; in the later ages this simple and
sublime belief was buried under the corruptions of polytheism. The
greatest pyramids were built by the Fourth Dynasty, and so universal
was education at that time among the people that the stones with
which they were built retain to this day the writing of the workmen.
The first king was Menes.
"At the epoch of Menes," says Winchell, "the Egyptians were already
a civilized and numerous people. Manetho tells us that Athotis,
the son of this first king, Menes, built the palace at Memphis;
that he was a physician, and left anatomical books. All these
statements imply that even at this early period the Egyptians were
in a high state of civilization." (Winchell's "Preadamites," p.
120.) "In the time of Menes the Egyptians had long been architects,
sculptors, painters, mythologists, and theologians." Professor
Richard Owen says, "Egypt is recorded to have been a civilized
and governed community 'before' the time of Menes. The pastoral
community of a group of nomad families, as portrayed in the Pentateuch,
may be admitted as an early step in civilization. But how far in
advance of this stage is a nation administered by a kingly government,
consisting of grades of society, with divisions of labor, of which
one kind, assigned to the priesthood, was to record or chronicle the
names and dynasties of the kings, the duration and chief events of
their reigns!" Ernest Renan points out that "Egypt at the beginning
appears mature, old, and entirely without mythical and heroic ages,
as if the country had never known youth. Its civilization has no
infancy, and its art no archaic period. The civilization of the
Old Monarchy did not begin with infancy. It was already mature."
We shall attempt to show that it matured in Atlantis, and that the
Egyptian people were unable to maintain it at the high standard
at which they had received it, as depicted in the pages of Plato.
What king of Assyria, or Greece, or Rome, or even of these modern
nations, has ever devoted himself to the study of medicine and the
writing of medical books for the benefit of mankind? Their mission
has been to kill, not to heal the people; yet here, at the very
dawn of Mediterranean history, we find the son of the first king
of Egypt recorded "as a physician, and as having left anatomical
books."
I hold it to be incontestable that, in some region of the earth,
primitive mankind must have existed during vast spaces of time, and
under most favorable circumstances, to create, invent, and discover
those arts and things which constitute civilization. When we have
it before our eyes that for six thousand years mankind in Europe,
Asia, and Africa, even when led by great nations, and illuminated
by marvellous minds, did not advance one inch beyond the arts of
Egypt, we may conceive what lapses, what aeons, of time it must
have required to bring savage man to that condition of refinement
and civilization possessed by Egypt when it first comes within the
purview of history.
That illustrious Frenchman, H. A. Taine (" History of English
Literature," p. 23), sees the unity of the Indo-European races manifest
in their languages, literature, and philosophies, and argues that
these pre-eminent traits are "the great marks of an original model,"
and that when we meet with them "fifteen, twenty, thirty centuries
before our era, in an Aryan, an Egyptian, a Chinese, they represent
the work of a great many ages, perhaps of several myriads of
centuries.... Such is the first and richest source of these master
faculties from which historical events take their rise; and one
sees that if it be powerful it is because this is no simple spring,
but a kind of lake, a deep reservoir, wherein other springs have,
for a multitude of centuries, discharged their several streams."
In other words, the capacity of the Egyptian, Aryan, Chaldean,
Chinese, Saxon, and Celt to maintain civilization is simply the
result of civilized training during "myriads of centuries" in some
original home of the race.
I cannot believe that the great inventions were duplicated spontaneously,
as some would have us believe, in different countries; there is no
truth in the theory that men pressed by necessity will always hit
upon the same invention to relieve their wants. If this were so,
all savages would have invented the boomerang; all savages would
possess pottery, bows and arrows, slings, tents, and canoes; in
short, all races would have risen to civilization, for certainly
the comforts of life are as agreeable to one people as another.
Civilization is not communicable to all; many savage tribes are
incapable of it. There are two great divisions of mankind, the
civilized and the savage; and, as we shall show, every civilized
race in the world has had something of civilization from the earliest
ages; and as "all roads lead to Rome," so all the converging lines
of civilization lead to Atlantis. The abyss between the civilized
man and the savage is simply incalculable; it represents not
alone a difference in arts and methods of life, but in the mental
constitution, the instincts, and the predispositions of the soul.
The child of the civilized races in his sports manufactures
water-wheels, wagons, and houses of cobs; the savage boy amuses
himself with bows and arrows: the one belongs to a building and
creating race; the other to a wild, hunting stock. This abyss
between savagery and civilization has never been passed by any nation
through its own original force, and without external influences,
during the Historic Period; those who were savages at the dawn of
history are savages still; barbarian slaves may have been taught
something of the arts of their masters, and conquered races have
shared some of the advantages possessed by their conquerors; but
we will seek in vain for any example of a savage people developing
civilization of and among themselves. I may be reminded of
the Gauls, Goths, and Britons; but these were not savages, they
possessed written languages, poetry, oratory, and history; they
were controlled by religious ideas; they believed in God and the
immortality of the soul, and in a state of rewards and punishments
after death. Wherever the Romans came in contact with Gauls,
or Britons, or German tribes, they found them armed with weapons
of iron. The Scots, according to Tacitus, used chariots and iron
swords in the battle of the Grampians--"enormes gladii sine mucrone."
The Celts of Gaul are stated by Diodorus Siculus to have used
iron-headed spears and coats-of-mail, and the Gauls who encountered
the Roman arms in B.C. 222 were armed with soft iron swords, as
well as at the time when Caesar conquered their country. Among the
Gauls men would lend money to be repaid in the next world, and, we
need not add, that no Christian people has yet reached that sublime
height of faith; they cultivated the ground, built houses and walled
towns, wove cloth, and employed wheeled vehicles; they possessed
nearly all the cereals and domestic animals we have, and they
wrought in iron, bronze, and steel. The Gauls had even invented
a machine on wheels to cut their grain, thus anticipating our
reapers and mowers by two thousand years. The difference between
the civilization of the Romans under Julius Caesar and the Gauls
under Vercingetorix was a difference in degree and not in kind.
The Roman civilization was simply a development and perfection of
the civilization possessed by all the European populations; it was
drawn from the common fountain of Atlantis.
If we find on both sides of the Atlantic precisely the same arts,
sciences, religious beliefs, habits, customs, and traditions, it
is absurd to say that the peoples of the two continents arrived
separately, by precisely the same steps, at precisely the same
ends. When we consider the resemblance of the civilizations of
the Mediterranean nations to one another, no man is silly enough
to pretend that Rome, Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, each
spontaneously and separately invented the arts, sciences, habits,
and opinions in which they agreed; but we proceed to trace out the
thread of descent or connection from one to another. Why should
a rule of interpretation prevail, as between the two sides of the
Atlantic, different from that which holds good as to the two sides
of the Mediterranean Sea? If, in the one case, similarity of
origin has unquestionably produced similarity of arts, customs, and
condition, why, in the other, should not similarity of arts, customs,
and condition prove similarity of origin? Is there any instance
in the world of two peoples, without knowledge of or intercourse
with each other, happening upon the same invention, whether that
invention be an arrow-head or a steam-engine? If it required of
mankind a lapse of at least six thousand years before it began anew
the work of invention, and took up the thread of original thought
where Atlantis dropped it, what probability is there of three or
four separate nations all advancing at the same speed to precisely
the same arts and opinions? The proposition is untenable.
If, then, we prove that, on both sides of the Atlantic, civilizations
were found substantially identical, we have demonstrated that they
must have descended one from the other, or have radiated from some
common source.
CHAPTER II
THE IDENTITY OF THE CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
MOSAICS AT MITLA, MEXICO
'Architecture.'--Plato tells us that the Atlanteans possessed
architecture; that they built walls, temples, and palaces.
We need not add that this art was found in Egypt and all the
civilized countries of Europe, as well as in Peru, Mexico, and
Central America. Among both the Peruvians and Egyptians the walls
receded inward, and the doors were narrower at, the top than at
the threshold.
The obelisks of Egypt, covered with hieroglyphics, are paralleled
by the round columns of Central America, and both are supposed
to have originated in 'Phallus-worship'. "The usual symbol of the
Phallus was an erect stone, often in its rough state, sometimes
sculptured." (Squier, "Serpent Symbol," p. 49; Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. iii., p. 504.) The worship of Priapus was found in
Asia, Egypt, along the European shore of the Mediterranean, and in
the forests of Central America.
The mounds of Europe and Asia were made in the same way and for the
same purposes as those of America. Herodotus describes the burial
of a Scythian king; he says, "After this they set to work to raise
a vast mound above the grave, all of them vying with each other,
and seeking to make it as tall as possible." "It must be confessed,"
says Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p. 193), "that these Scythic burial
rites have a strong resemblance to those of the Mound Builders."
Homer describes the erection of a great symmetrical mound over
Achilles, also one over Hector. Alexander the Great raised a great
mound over his friend Hephæstion, at a cost of more than a million
dollars; and Semiramis raised a similar mound over her husband.
The pyramids of Egypt, Assyria, and Phoenicia had their duplicates
in Mexico and Central America.
CARVING ON THE BUDDHIST TOWER, SARNATH, INDIA
The grave-cists made of stone of the American mounds are exactly
like the stone chests, or 'kistvaen' for the dead, found in the
British mounds. (Fosters "Prehistoric Races," p. 109.) Tumuli have
been found in Yorkshire enclosing wooden coffins, precisely as in
the mounds of the Mississippi Valley. ('Ibid'., p. 185.) The articles
associated with the dead are the same in both continents: arms,
trinkets, food, clothes, and funeral urns. In both the Mississippi
Valley and among the Chaldeans vases were constructed around the
bones, the neck of the vase being too small to permit the extraction
of the skull. (Foster's "Prehistoric Races," p. 200.)
The use of 'cement' was known alike to the European and American
nations.
The use of the 'arch' was known on both sides of the Atlantic.
The manufacture of bricks was known in both the Old and New Worlds.
The style of ornamentation in architecture was much the same on both
hemispheres, as shown in the preceding designs, pages 137, 139.
'Metallurgy.'--The Atlanteans mined ores, and worked in metals;
they used copper, tin, bronze, gold, and silver, and probably iron.
The American nations possessed all these metals. The age of
bronze, or of copper combined with tin, was preceded in America,
'and nowhere else', by a simpler age of copper; and, therefore,
the working of metals probably originated in America, or in some
region to which it was tributary. The Mexicans manufactured bronze,
and the Incas mined iron near Lake Titicaca; and the civilization
of this latter region, as we will show, probably dated back to
Atlantean times. The Peruvians called gold the tears of the sun:
it was sacred to, the sun, as silver was to the moon.
'Sculpture.'--The Atlanteans possessed this art; so did the American
and Mediterranean nations.
Dr. Arthur Schott ("Smith. Rep.," 1869, p. 391), in describing
the "Cara Gigantesca," or gigantic face, a monument of Yzamal, in
Yucatan, says, "Behind and on both sides, from under the mitre, a
short veil falls upon the shoulders, so as to protect the back of
the head and the neck. This particular appendage vividly calls to
mind the same feature in the symbolic adornments of Egyptian and
Hindoo priests, and even those of the Hebrew hierarchy." Dr. Schott
sees in the orbicular wheel-like plates of this statue the wheel
symbol of Kronos and Saturn; and, in turn, it may be supposed that
the wheel of Kronos was simply the cross of Atlantis, surrounded
by its encircling ring.
'Painting.'--This art was known on both sides of the Atlantic. The
paintings upon the walls of some of the temples of Central America
reveal a state of the art as high as that of Egypt.
'Engraving.'--Plato tells us that the Atlanteans engraved upon
pillars. The American nations also had this art in common with
Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria.
'Agriculture.'--The people of Atlantis were pre-eminently an
agricultural people; so were the civilized nations of America and
the Egyptians. In Egypt the king put his hand to the plough at an
annual festival, thus dignifying and consecrating the occupation of
husbandry. In Peru precisely the same custom prevailed. In both
the plough was known; in Egypt it was drawn by oxen, and in Peru
by men. It was drawn by men in the North of Europe down to a
comparatively recent period.
'Public Works.'--The American nations built public works as great
as or greater than any known in Europe. The Peruvians had public
roads, one thousand five hundred to two thousand miles long, made
so thoroughly as to elicit the astonishment of the Spaniards. At
every few miles taverns or hotels were established for the
accommodation of travellers. Humboldt pronounced these Peruvian
roads "among the most useful and stupendous works ever executed
by man." They built aqueducts for purposes of irrigation some of
which were five hundred miles long. They constructed magnificent
bridges of stone, and had even invented suspension bridges thousands
of years before they were introduced into Europe. They had, both
in Peru and Mexico, a system of posts, by means of which news was
transmitted hundreds of miles in a day, precisely like those known
among the Persians in the time of Herodotus, and subsequently among
the Romans. Stones similar to mile-stones were placed along the
roads in Peru. (See Prescott's "Peru,")
'Navigation.'--Sailing vessels were known to the Peruvians and
the Central Americans. Columbus met, in 1502, at an island near
Honduras, a party of the Mayas in a large vessel, equipped with sails,
and loaded with a variety of textile fabrics of divers colors.
ANCIENT IRISH VASE OF THE BRONZE AGE
'Manufactures.'--The American nations manufactured woollen and cotton
goods; they made pottery as beautiful as the wares of Egypt; they
manufactured glass; they engraved gems and precious stones. The
Peruvians had such immense numbers of vessels and ornaments of
gold that the Inca paid with them a ransom for himself to Pizarro
of the value of fifteen million dollars.
'Music.'--It has been pointed out that there is great resemblance
between the five-toned music of the Highland Scotch and that of
the Chinese and other Eastern nations. ("Anthropology," p. 292.)
'Weapons.'--The weapons of the New World were identically the
same as those of the Old World; they consisted of bows and arrows,
spears, darts, short swords, battle-axes, and slings; and both peoples
used shields or bucklers, and casques of wood or hide covered with
metal. If these weapons had been derived from separate sources of
invention, one country or the other would have possessed implements
not known to the other, like the blow-pipe, the boomerang, etc.
Absolute identity in so many weapons strongly argues identity of
origin.
'Religion.'--The religion of the Atlanteans, as Plato tells us,
was pure and simple; they made no regular sacrifices but fruits
and flowers; they worshipped the sun.
In Peru a single deity was worshipped, and the sun, his most
glorious work, was honored as his representative. Quetzalcoatl, the
founder of the Aztecs, condemned all sacrifice but that of fruits
and flowers. The first religion of Egypt was pure and simple; its
sacrifices were fruits and flowers; temples were erected to the
sun, 'Ra', throughout Egypt. In Peru the great festival of the sun
was called 'Ra'-mi. The Phoenicians worshipped Baal and Moloch;
the one represented the beneficent, and the other the injurious
powers of the sun.
'Religious Beliefs.'--The Guanches of the Canary Islands, who
were probably a fragment of the old Atlantean population, believed
in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body,
and preserved their dead as mummies. The Egyptians believed in
the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, and
preserved the bodies of the dead by embalming them. The Peruvians
believed in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the
body, and they too preserved the bodies of their dead by embalming
them. "A few mummies in remarkable preservation have been found
among the Chinooks and Flatheads." (Schoolcraft, vol. v., p. 693.)
The embalmment of the body was also practised in Central America
and among the Aztecs. The Aztecs, like the Egyptians, mummified
their dead by taking out the bowels and replacing them with aromatic
substances. (Dorman, "Origin Prim. Superst.," p. 173.) The bodies
of the kings of the Virginia Indians were preserved by embalming.
(Beverly, p. 47.)
Here are different races, separated by immense distances of land
and ocean, uniting in the same beliefs, and in the same practical
and logical application of those beliefs.
The use of confession and penance was known in the religious ceremonies
of some of the American nations. Baptism was a religious ceremony
with them, and the bodies of the dead were sprinkled with water.
Vestal virgins were found in organized communities on both sides
of the Atlantic; they were in each case pledged to celibacy, and
devoted to death if they violated their vows. In both hemispheres
the recreant were destroyed by being buried alive. The Peruvians,
Mexicans, Central Americans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews
each had a powerful hereditary priesthood.
The Phoenicians believed in an evil spirit called Zebub; the
Peruvians had a devil called Cupay. The Peruvians burnt incense
in their temples. The Peruvians, when they sacrificed animals,
examined their entrails, and from these prognosticated the future.
I need not add that all these nations preserved traditions of the
Deluge; and all of them possessed systems of writing.
The Egyptian priest of Sais told Solon that the myth of Phaëthon,
the son of Helios, having attempted to drive the chariot of the
sun, and thereby burning up the earth, referred to "a declination
of the bodies moving round the earth and in the heavens" (comets),
which caused a "great conflagration upon the earth," from which
those only escaped who lived near rivers and seas. The "Codex
Chimalpopoca"--a Nahua, Central American record--tells us that the
third era of the world, or "third sun," is called, 'Quia Tonatiuh',
or sun of rain, "because in this age there fell a rain of fire, all
which existed burned, and there fell a rain of gravel;" the rocks
"boiled with tumult, and there also arose the rocks of vermilion
color." In other words, the traditions of these people go back to
a great cataclysm of fire, when the earth possibly encountered, as
in the Egyptian story, one of "the bodies moving round the earth
and in the heavens;" they had also memories of "the Drift Period,"
and of the outburst of Plutonic rocks. If man has existed on the
earth as long as science asserts, be must have passed through many
of the great catastrophes which are written upon the face of the
planet; and it is very natural that in myths and legends he should
preserve some recollection of events so appalling and destructive.
Among the early Greeks Pan was the ancient god; his wife was Maia.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg calls attention to the fact that
Pan was adored in all parts of Mexico and Central America; and at
'Panuco', or 'Panca', literally 'Panopolis', the Spaniards found.
upon their entrance into Mexico, superb temples and images of Pan.
(Brasseur's Introduction in Landa's "Relacion.") The names of both
Pan and Maya enter extensively into the Maya vocabulary, Maia being
the same as Maya, the principal name of the peninsula; and 'pan',
added to 'Maya', makes the name of the ancient capital 'Mayapan'.
In the Nahua language 'pan', or 'pani', signifies "equality to that
which is above," and Pentecatl was the progenitor of all beings.
("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 467.)
The ancient Mexicans believed that the sun-god would destroy the
world in the last night of the fifty-second year, and that he would
never come back. They offered sacrifices to him at that time to
propitiate him; they extinguished all the fires in the kingdom; they
broke all their household furniture; they bung black masks before
their faces; they prayed and fasted; and on the evening of the last
night they formed a great procession to a neighboring mountain.
A human being was sacrificed exactly at midnight; a block of wood
was laid at once on the body, and fire was then produced by rapidly
revolving another piece of wood upon it; a spark was carried to a
funeral pile, whose rising flame proclaimed to the anxious people the
promise of the god not to destroy the world for another fifty-two
years. Precisely the same custom obtained among the nations
of Asia Minor and other parts of the continent of Asia, wherever
sun-worship prevailed, at the periodical reproduction of the sacred
fire, but not with the same bloody rites as in Mexico. (Valentini,
"Maya Archaeology," p. 21.)
To this day the Brahman of India "churns" his sacred fire out of
a board by boring into it with a stick; the Romans renewed their
sacred fire in the same way; and in Sweden even now a "need-fire is
kindled in this manner when cholera or other pestilence is about."
(Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 262.)
A belief in ghosts is found on both continents. The American Indians
think that the spirits of the dead retain the form and features
which they wore while living; that there is a hell and a heaven;
that hell is below the earth, and heaven above the clouds; that
the souls of the wicked sometimes wander the face of the earth,
appearing occasionally to mortals. The story of Tantalus is found
among the Chippewayans, who believed that bad souls stand up to
their chins in water in sight of the spirit-land, which they can
never enter. The dead passed to heaven across a stream of water by
means of a narrow and slippery bridge, from which many were lost.
The Zuñis set apart a day in each year which they spent among the
graves of their dead, communing with their spirits, and bringing
them presents--a kind of All-souls-day. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.,"
p. 35.) The Stygian flood, and Scylla and Charybdis, are found
among the legends of the Caribs. ('Ibid'., p. 37.) Even the boat
of Charon reappears in the traditions of the Chippewayans.
The Oriental belief in the transmigration of souls is found in every
American tribe. The souls of men passed into animals or other men.
(Schoolcraft, vol. i., p. 33.) The souls of the wicked passed into
toads and wild beasts. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 50.)
Among both the Germans and the American Indians lycanthropy, or
the metamorphosis of men into wolves, was believed in. In British
Columbia the men-wolves have often been seen seated around a fire,
with their wolf-hides hung upon sticks to dry! The Irish legend of
hunters pursuing an animal which suddenly disappears, whereupon a
human being appears in its place is found among all the American
tribes.
That timid and harmless animal, the hare, was, singularly enough,
an object of superstitious reverence and fear in Europe, Asia,
and America. The ancient Irish killed all the hares they found on
May-day among their cattle, believing them to be witches. Cæsar
gives an account of the horror in which this animal was held by the
Britons. The Calmucks regarded the rabbit with fear and reverence.
Divine honors were paid to the hare in Mexico. Wabasso was changed
into a white rabbit, and canonized in that form.
The white bull, Apis, of the Egyptians, reappears in the Sacred white
buffalo of the Dakotas, which was supposed to possess supernatural
power, and after death became a god. The white doe of European
legend had its representative in the white deer of the Housatonic
Valley, whose death brought misery to the tribe. The transmission
of spirits by the laying on of hands, and the exorcism of demons,
were part of the religion of the American tribes.
The witches of Scandinavia, who produced tempests by their
incantations, are duplicated in America. A Cree sorcerer sold
three days of fair weather for one pound of tobacco! The Indian
sorcerers around Freshwater Bay kept the winds in leather bags,
and disposed of them as they pleased.
Among the American Indians it is believed that those who are insane
or epileptic are "possessed of devils." (Tylor, "Prim. Cult.,"
vol. ii., pp. 123-126.) Sickness is caused by evil spirits entering
into the sick person. (Eastman's "Sioux.") The spirits of animals
are much feared, and their departure out of the body of the invalid
is a cause of thanksgiving. Thus an Omaha, after an eructation,
says, "Thank you, animal." (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 55.) The
confession of their sins was with a view to satisfy the evil spirit
and induce him to leave them. ('Ibid'., p. 57.)
In both continents burnt-offerings were sacrificed to the gods. In
both continents the priests divined the future from the condition
of the internal organs of the man or animal sacrificed. ('Ibid'.,
pp. 214, 226.) In both continents the future was revealed by
the flight of birds and by dreams. In Peru and Mexico there were
colleges of augurs, as in Rome, who practised divination by watching
the movements and songs of birds. ('Ibid'., p. 261.)
Animals were worshipped in Central America and on the banks of the
Nile. ('Ibid'., p. 259.)
The Ojibbeways believed that the barking of a fox was ominous of
ill. ('Ibid'., p. 225). The peasantry of Western Europe have the
same belief as to the howling of a dog.
The belief in satyrs, and other creatures half man and half animal,
survived in America. The Kickapoos are Darwinians. "They think
their ancestors had tails, and when they lost them the impudent
fox sent every morning to ask how their tails were, and the bear
shook his fat sides at the joke." ('Ibid'., p. 232.) Among the natives
of Brazil the father cut a stick at the wedding of his daughter;
"this was done to cut off the tails of any future grandchildren."
(Tylor, vol. i., p. 384.)
Jove, with the thunder-bolts in his hand, is duplicated in the Mexican
god of thunder, Mixcoatl, who is represented holding a bundle of
arrows. "He rode upon a tornado, and scattered the lightnings."
(Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 98.)
Dionysus, or Bacchus, is represented by the Mexican god Texcatzoncatl,
the god of wine. (Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 418.)
Atlas reappears in Chibchacum, the deity of the Chibchas; he bears
the world on his shoulders, and when be shifts the burden from one
shoulder to another severe earthquakes are produced. (Bollært, pp.
12, 13.)
Deucalion repeopling the world is repeated in Xololt, who, after
the destruction of the world, descended to Mictlan, the realm of
the dead, and brought thence a bone of the perished race. This,
sprinkled with blood, grew into a youth, the father of the present
race. The Quiche hero-gods, Hunaphu and Xblanque, died; their
bodies were burnt, their bones ground to powder and thrown into
the waters, whereupon they changed into handsome youths, with the
same features as before. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 193.)
Witches and warlocks, mermaids and mermen, are part of the mythology
of the American tribes, as they were of the European races. ('Ibid'.,
p. 79.) The mermaid of the Ottawas was "woman to the waist and
fair;" thence fish-like. ('Ibid'., p. 278.)
The snake-locks of Medusa are represented in the snake-locks of
At-otarho, an ancient culture-hero of the Iroquois.
A belief in the incarnation of gods in men, and the physical
translation of heroes to heaven, is part of the mythology of the
Hindoos and the American races. Hiawatha, we are told, rose to
heaven in the presence of the multitude, and vanished from sight
in the midst of sweet music.
The vocal statues and oracles of Egypt and Greece were duplicated
in America. In Peru, in the valley of Rimac, there was an idol
which answered questions and became famous as an oracle. (Dorman,
"Prim. Superst.," p. 124.)
The Peruvians believed that men were sometimes metamorphosed into
stones.
The Oneidas claimed descent from a stone, as the Greeks from the
stones of Deucalion. ('Ibid'., p. 132.)
Witchcraft is an article of faith among all the American races.
Among the Illinois Indians "they made small images to represent
those whose days they have a mind to shorten, and which they stab
to the heart," whereupon the person represented is expected to
die. (Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 166.) The witches of Europe made
figures of wax of their enemies, and gradually melted them at the
fire, and as they diminished the victim was supposed to sicken and
die.
A writer in the Popular Science Monthly (April, 1881, p. 828)
points out the fact that there is an absolute identity between the
folk-lore of the negroes on the plantations of the South and the
myths and stories of certain tribes of Indians in South America,
as revealed by Mr. Herbert Smith's "Brazil, the Amazons, and the
Coast." (New York: Scribner, 1879.) Mr. Harris, the author of
a work on the folk-lore of the negroes, asks this question, "When
did the negro or the North American Indian come in contact with
the tribes of South America?"
'Customs.'--Both peoples manufactured a fermented, intoxicating
drink, the one deriving it from barley, the other from maize. Both
drank toasts. Both had the institution of marriage, an important
part of the ceremony consisting in the joining of bands; both
recognized divorce, and the Peruvians and Mexicans established
special courts to decide cases of this kind. Both the Americans
and Europeans erected arches, and had triumphal processions for
their victorious kings, and both strewed the ground before them
with leaves and flowers. Both celebrated important events with
bonfires and illuminations; both used banners, both invoked blessings.
The Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Egyptians practised circumcision.
Palacio relates that at Azori, in Honduras, the natives circumcised
boys before an idol called Icelca. ("Carta," p. 84.) Lord Kingsborough
tells us the Central Americans used the same rite, and McKenzie
(quoted by Retzius) says he saw the ceremony performed by the
Chippeways. Both had bards and minstrels, who on great festivals
sung the deeds of kings and heroes. Both the Egyptians and the
Peruvians held agricultural fairs; both took a census of the people.
Among both the land was divided per capita among the people; in
Judea a new division was made every fifty years. The Peruvians
renewed every year all the fires of the kingdom from the Temple
of the Sun, the new fire being kindled from concave mirrors by the
sun's rays. The Romans under Numa had precisely the same custom.
The Peruvians had theatrical plays. They chewed the leaves of
the coca mixed with lime, as the Hindoo to-day chews the leaves of
the betel mixed with lime. Both the American and European nations
were divided into castes; both practised planet-worship; both used
scales and weights and mirrors. The Peruvians, Egyptians, and
Chaldeans divided the year into twelve months, and the months into
lesser divisions of weeks. Both inserted additional days, so as
to give the year three hundred and sixty-five days. The Mexicans
added five intercalary days; and the Egyptians, in the time of
Amunoph I., had already the same practice.
Humboldt, whose high authority cannot be questioned, by an elaborate
discussion ("Vues des Cordilleras," p. 148 'et. seq.', ed. 1870),
has shown the relative likeness of the Nahua calendar to that
of Asia. He cites the fact that the Chinese, Japanese, Calmucks,
Mongols, Mantchou, and other hordes of Tartars have cycles of sixty
years' duration, divided into five brief periods of twelve years
each. The method of citing a date by means of signs and numbers
is quite similar with Asiatics and Mexicans. He further shows
satisfactorily that 'the majority of the names of the twenty days
employed by the Aztecs are those of a zodiac used since the most
remote antiquity among the peoples of Eastern Asia.'
Cabera thinks he finds analogies between the Mexican and Egyptian
calendars. Adopting the view of several writers that the Mexican
year began on the 26th of February, be finds the date to correspond
with the beginning of the Egyptian year.
The American nations believed in four great primeval ages, as the
Hindoo does to this day.
"In the Greeks of Homer," says Volney, "I find the customs, discourse,
and manners of the Iroquois, Delawares, and Miamis. The tragedies
of Sophocles and Euripides paint to me almost literally the sentiments
of the red men respecting necessity, fatality, the miseries of
human life, and the rigor of blind destiny." (Volney's "View of
the United States.")
The Mexicans represent an eclipse of the moon as the moon being
devoured by a dragon; and the Hindoos have precisely the same figure;
and both nations continued to use this expression long after they
had discovered the real meaning of an eclipse.
The Tartars believe that if they cut with an axe near a fire, or
stick a knife into a burning stick, or touch the fire with a knife,
they will "cut the top off the fire." The Sioux Indians will not
stick an awl or a needle into a stick of wood on the fire, or chop
on it with an axe or a knife.
Cremation was extensively practised in the New World. The dead were
burnt, and their ashes collected and placed in vases and urns, as
in Europe. Wooden statues of the dead were made.
There is a very curious and apparently inexplicable custom, called
the "Couvade," which extends from China to the Mississippi Valley;
it demands "that, when a child is born, the father must take to his
bed, while the mother attends to all the duties of the household."
Marco Polo found the custom among the Chinese in the thirteenth
century.
The widow tells Hudibras--
"Chineses thus are said
To lie-in in their ladies' stead."
The practice remarked by Marco Polo continues to this day among
the hill-tribes of China. "The father of a new-born child, as soon
as the mother has become strong enough to leave her couch, gets
into bed himself, and there receives the congratulations of his
acquaintances." (Max Müller's "Chips from a German Workshop," vol.
ii., p. 272.) Strabo (vol. iii., pp. 4, 17) mentions that, among
the Iberians of the North of Spain, the women, after the birth of
a child, tend their husbands, putting them to bed instead of going
themselves. The same custom existed among the Basques only a few
years ago. "In Biscay," says M. F. Michel, "the women rise immediately
after childbirth and attend to the duties of the household, while
the husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him, and thus receives
the neighbors' compliments." The same custom was found in France,
and is said to 'exist to this day in some cantons of Béarn'. Diodorus
Siculus tells us that among the Corsicans the wife was neglected,
and the husband put to bed and treated as the patient. Apollonius
Rhodius says that among the Tibereni, at the south of the Black
Sea, "when a child was born the father lay groaning, with his head
tied up, while the mother tended him with food and prepared his
baths." The same absurd custom extends throughout the tribes of North
and South America. Among the Caribs in the West Indies (and the
Caribs, Brasseur de Bourbourg says, were the same as the ancient
Carians of the Mediterranean Sea) the man takes to his bed as soon
as a child is born, and kills no animals. And herein we find an
explanation of a custom otherwise inexplicable. Among the American
Indians it is believed that, if the father kills an animal during
the infancy of the child, the spirit of the animal will revenge
itself by inflicting some disease upon the helpless little one. "For
six months the Carib father must not eat birds or fish, for what
ever animals he eats will impress their likeness on the child, or
produce disease by entering its body." (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.,"
p. 58.) Among the Abipones the husband goes to bed, fasts a number
of days, "and you would think," says Dobrizboffer, "that it was he
that had had the child." The Brazilian father takes to his hammock
during and after the birth of the child, and for fifteen days
eats no meat and hunts no game. Among the Esquimaux the husbands
forbear hunting during the lying-in of their wives and for some
time thereafter.
Here, then, we have a very extraordinary and unnatural custom, existing
to this day on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching back to a vast
antiquity, and finding its explanation only in the superstition
of the American races. A practice so absurd could scarcely have
originated separately in the two continents; its existence is a
very strong proof of unity of origin of the races on the opposite
sides of the Atlantic; and the fact that the custom and the reason
for it are both found in America, while the custom remains in Europe
without the reason, would imply that the American population was
the older of the two.
The Indian practice of depositing weapons and food with the dead
was universal in ancient Europe, and in German villages nowadays
a needle and thread is placed in the coffin for the dead to mend
their torn clothes with; "while all over Europe the dead man had a
piece of money put in his hand to pay his way with." ("Anthropology,"
p. 347.)
The American Indian leaves food with the dead; the Russian peasant
puts crumbs of bread behind the saints' pictures on the little iron
shelf, and believes that the souls of his forefathers creep in and
out and eat them. At the cemetery of Père-la-Chaise, Paris, on
All-souls-day, they "still put cakes and sweetmeats on the graves;
and in Brittany the peasants that night do not forget to make up
the fire and leave the fragments of the supper on the table for
the souls of the dead." ('Ibid'.. p. 351.)
The Indian prays to the spirits of his forefathers; the Chinese
religion is largely "ancestor-worship;" and the rites paid
to the dead ancestors, or lares, held the Roman family together."
("Anthropology," p. 351.)
We find the Indian practice of burying the dead in a sitting posture
in use among the Nasamonians, tribe of Libyans. Herodotus, speaking
of the wandering tribes of Northern Africa, says, "They bury their
dead 'according to the fashion of the Greeks'.... They bury them
sitting, and are right careful, when the sick man is at the point
of giving up the ghost, to make him sit, and not let him die lying
down."
The dead bodies of the caciques of Bogota were protected from
desecration by diverting the course of a river and making the
grave in its bed, and then letting the stream return to its natural
course. Alaric, the leader of the Goths, was secretly buried in
the same way. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 195.)
Among the American tribes no man is permitted to marry a wife of
the same clan-name or totem as himself. In India a Brahman is not
allowed to marry a wife whose clan-name (her "cow-stall," as they
say) is the same as his own; nor may a Chinaman take a wife of
his own surname. ("Anthropology," p. 403.) "Throughout India the
hill-tribes are divided into septs or clans, and a man may not
marry a woman belonging to his own clan. The Calmucks of Tartary
are divided into hordes, and a man may not marry a girl of his
own horde. The same custom prevails among the Circassians and the
Samoyeds of Siberia. The Ostyaks and Yakuts regard it as a crime
to marry a woman of the same family, or even of the same name."
(Sir John Lubbock, "Smith. Rep.," p. 347, 1869.)
Sutteeism--the burning of the widow upon the funeral-pile of the
husband--was extensively practised in America (West's "Journal," p.
141); as was also the practice of sacrificing warriors, servants,
and animals at the funeral of a great chief (Dorman, pp. 210-211.)
Beautiful girls were sacrificed to appease the anger of the gods,
as among the Mediterranean races. (Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 471.)
Fathers offered up their children for a like purpose, as among the
Carthaginians.
The poisoned arrows of America had their representatives in Europe.
Odysseus went to Ephyra for the man-slaying drug with which to
smear his bronze-tipped arrows. (Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 237.)
"The bark canoe of America was not unknown in Asia and Africa"
('Ibid'., p. 254), while the skin canoes of our Indians and the
Esquimaux were found on the shores of the Thames and the Euphrates.
In Peru and on the Euphrates commerce was carried on upon rafts
supported by inflated skins. They are still used on the Tigris.
The Indian boils his meat by dropping red-hot stones into a
water-vessel made of hide; and Linnæus found the Both land people
brewing beer in this way--"and to this day the rude Carinthian boor
drinks such stone-beer, as it is called." ('Ibid'., p. 266.)
In the buffalo dance of the Mandan Indians the dancers covered
their heads with a mask made of the head and horns of the buffalo.
To-day in the temples of India, or among the lamas of Thibet,
the priests dance the demons out, or the new year in, arrayed in
animal masks ('Ibid'., p. 297 ); and the "mummers" at Yule-tide,
in England, are a survival of the same custom. ('Ibid'., p. 298.)
The North American dog and bear dances, wherein the dancers acted
the part of those animals, had their prototype in the Greek dances
at the festivals of Dionysia. ('Ibid'., p. 298.)
Tattooing was practised in both continents. Among the Indians it
was fetichistic in its origin; "every Indian had the image of an
animal tattooed on his breast or arm, to charm away evil spirits."
(Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 156.) The sailors of Europe and
America preserve to this day a custom which was once universal
among the ancient races. Banners, flags, and armorial bearings are
supposed to be survivals of the old totemic tattooing. The Arab
woman still tattoos her face, arms, and ankles. The war-paint of
the American savage reappeared in the 'woad' with which the ancient
Briton stained his body; and Tylor suggests that the painted stripes
on the circus clown are a survival of a custom once universal.
(Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 327.)
In America, as in the Old World, the temples of worship were built
over the dead., (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 178.) Says Prudentius,
the Roman bard, "there were as many temples of gods as sepulchres."
The Etruscan belief that evil spirits strove for the possession of
the dead was found among the Mosquito Indians. (Bancroft, "Native
Races," vol. i., p. 744.)
The belief in fairies, which forms so large a part of the folklore of
Western Europe, is found among the American races. The Ojibbeways
see thousands of fairies dancing in a sunbeam; during a rain
myriads of them bide in the flowers. When disturbed they disappear
underground. They have their dances, like the Irish fairies; and,
like them, they kill the domestic animals of those who offend them.
The Dakotas also believe in fairies. The Otoes located the "little
people" in a mound at the mouth of Whitestone River; they were
eighteen inches high, with very large heads; they were armed with
bows and arrows, and killed those who approached their residence.
(See Dorman's "Origin of Primitive Superstitions," p. 23.) "The
Shoshone legends people the mountains of Montana with little imps,
called Nirumbees, two feet long, naked, and 'with a tail'." They
stole the children of the Indians, and left in their stead the
young of their own baneful race, who resembled the stolen children
so much that the mothers were deceived and suckled them, whereupon
they died. This greatly resembles the European belief in "changelings."
('Ibid'., p. 24.)
In both continents we find tree-worship. In Mexico and Central
America cypresses and palms were planted near the temples, generally
in 'groups of threes'; they were tended with great care, and received
offerings of incense and gifts. The same custom prevailed among
the Romans--the cypress was dedicated to Pluto, and the palm to
Victory.
Not only infant baptism by water was found both in the old Babylonian
religion and among the Mexicans, but an offering of cakes, which
is recorded by the prophet Jeremiah as part of the worship of the
Babylonian goddess-mother, "the Queen of Heaven," was also found
in the ritual of the Aztecs. ("Builders of Babel," p. 78.)
In Babylonia, China, and Mexico the caste at the bottom of the social
scale lived upon floating islands of reeds or rafts, covered with
earth, on the lakes and rivers.
In Peru and Babylonia marriages were made but once a year, at a
public festival.
Among the Romans, the Chinese, the Abyssinians, and the Indians of
Canada the singular custom prevails of lifting the bride over the
door-step of her husband's home. (Sir John Lubbock, "Smith. Rep.,"
1869, p. 352.)
"The bride-cake which so invariably accompanies a wedding among
ourselves, and which must always be cut by the bride, may be
traced back to the old Roman form of marriage by ''conferreatio','
or eating together. So, also, among the Iroquois the bride and
bridegroom used to partake together of a cake of sagamite, which
the bride always offered to her husband." ('Ibid'.)
Among many American tribes, notably in Brazil, the husband captured
the wife by main force, as the men of Benjamin carried off the
daughters of Shiloh at the feast, and as the Romans captured the
Sabine women. "Within a few generations the same old habit was
kept up in Wales, where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and
armed as for war, carried off the bride; and in Ireland they used
even to hurl spears at the bride's people, though at such a distance
that no one was hurt, except now and then by accident--as happened
when one Lord Hoath lost an eye, which mischance put an end to this
curious relic of antiquity." (Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 409.)
Marriage in Mexico was performed by the priest. He exhorted them
to maintain peace and harmony, and tied the end of the man's mantle
to the dress of the woman; he perfumed them, and placed on each
a shawl on which was painted a skeleton, "as a symbol that 'only
death could now separate them' from one another." (Dorman, "Prim.
Superst.," p. 379.)
The priesthood was thoroughly organized in Mexico and Peru. They
were prophets as well as priests. "They brought the newly-born
infant into the religious society; they directed their training and
education; they determined the entrance of the young men into the
service of the state; they consecrated marriage by their blessing;
they comforted the sick and assisted the dying." ('Ibid'., p. 374.)
There were five thousand priests in the temples of Mexico. They
confessed and absolved the sinners, arranged the festivals,
and managed the choirs in the churches. They lived in conventual
discipline, but were allowed to marry; they practised flagellation and
fasting, and prayed at regular hours. There were great preachers
and exhorters among them. There were also convents into which
females were admitted. The novice had her hair cut off and took
vows of celibacy; they lived holy and pious lives. ('Ibid'., pp.
375, 376.) The king was the high-priest of the religious orders.
A new king ascended the temple naked, except his girdle; he was
sprinkled four times with water which had been blessed; he was then
clothed in a mantle, and on his knees took an oath to maintain the
ancient religion. The priests then instructed him in his royal
duties. ('Ibid'., p. 378.) Besides the regular priesthood there were
monks who were confined in cloisters. ('Ibid'., p. 390.) Cortes
says the Mexican priests were very strict in the practice of honesty
and chastity, and any deviation was punished with death. They wore
long white robes and burned incense. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.,"
p. 379.) The first fruits of the earth were devoted to the support
of the priesthood. ('Ibid'., p. 383.) The priests of the Isthmus
were sworn to perpetual chastity.
The American doctors practised phlebotomy. They bled the sick man
because they believed the evil spirit which afflicted him would
come away with the blood. In Europe phlebotomy only continued to
a late period, but the original superstition out of which it arose,
in this case as in many others, was forgotten.
There is opportunity here for the philosopher to meditate upon the
perversity of human nature and the persistence of hereditary error.
The superstition of one age becomes the science of another; men were
first bled to withdraw the evil spirit, then to cure the disease;
and a practice whose origin is lost in the night of ages is continued
into the midst of civilization, and only overthrown after it has
sent millions of human beings to untimely graves. Dr. Sangrado
could have found the explanation of his profession only among the
red men of America.
'Folk-lore.'--Says Max Müller: "Not only do we find the same words
and the same terminations in Sanscrit and Gothic; not only do we
find the same name for Zeus in Sanscrit, Latin, and German; not
only is the abstract Dame for God the same in India, Greece, and
Italy; but these very stories, these 'Mährchen' which nurses still
tell, with almost the same words, in the Thuringian forest and
in the Norwegian villages, and to which crowds of children listen
under the Pippal-trees of India--these stories, too, belonged to
the common heirloom of the Indo-European race, and their origin
carries us back to the same distant past, when no Greek had set
foot in Europe, no Hindoo had bathed in the sacred waters of the
Ganges."
And we find that an identity of origin can be established between
the folk-lore or fairy tales of America and those of the Old World,
precisely such as exists between the, legends of Norway and India.
Mr. Tylor tells us the story of the two brothers in Central America
who, starting on their dangerous journey to the land of Xibalba,
where their father had perished, plant each a cane in the middle
of their grandmother's house, that she may know by its flourishing
or withering whether they are alive or dead. Exactly the same
conception occurs in Grimm's "Mährchen," when the two gold-children
wish to see the world and to leave their father; and when their
father is sad, and asks them how he shall bear news of them, they
tell him, "We leave you the two golden lilies; from these you can
see how we fare. If they are fresh, we are well; if they fade, we
are ill; if they fall, we are dead." Grimm traces the same idea in
Hindoo stories. "Now this," says Max Müller, "is strange enough, and
its occurrence in India, Germany, and Central America is stranger
still."
Compare the following stories, which we print in parallel columns,
one from the Ojibbeway Indians, the other from Ireland:
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| THE OJIBBEWAY STORY.... .... THE IRISH STORY.... ........
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....
| The birds met together one da... The birds all met together on....
| to try which could fly th.... | day, and settled among themselves |
| highest. Some flew up ver.... | that whichever of them could fly |
| swift, but soon got tired, an... highest was to be the king of....
| were passed by others o....... all. Well, just as they were on |
| stronger wing. But the eagl.... the hinges of being off, what....
| went up beyond them all, an.... does the little rogue of a wren |
| was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself |
| when the gray linnet, a ver.... unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So |
| small bird, flew from th...... they flew and flew ever so high, |
| eagle's back, where it ha.... | till the eagle was miles abov....
| perched unperceived, and, being | all the rest, and could not fly |
| fresh and unexhausted...... | another stroke, he was so tired. |
| succeeded in going the highest. | "Then," says he, "I'm king of the |
| When the birds came down an.... birds." "You lie!" says the wren, |
| met in council to award the.... darting up a perch and a half....
| prize it was given to th...... above the big fellow. Well, the |
| eagle, because that bird ha.... eagle was so mad to think how he |
| not only gone up nearer to th... was done, that when the wren was |
| sun than any of the large.... | coming down he gave him a stroke |
| birds, but it had carried the... of his wing, and from that day to |
| linnet on its back.... .... this the wren was never able to |
.... .... .... ...... | fly farther than a hawthorn-bush. |
| For this reason the eagle's.... .... .... .... .......
| feathers became the mos.... .... .... .... .... ....
| honorable marks of distinctio.... .... .... .... .... |
| a warrior could bear.... .... .... .... .... .... |
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+
Compare the following stories:
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| THE ASIATIC STORY.... ....... THE AMERICAN STORY.... ....
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....
| In Hindoo mythology Urvasi came... Wampee, a great hunter, onc....
| down from heaven and became the... came to a strange prairie.... |
| wife of the son of Buddha only on | where be heard faint sounds of |
| condition that two pet ram...... music, and looking up sa.... |
| should never be taken from he.... speck in the sky, which proved |
| bedside, and that she shoul.... | itself to be a baske.... ....
| never behold her lord undressed... containing twelve mos........
| The immortals, however, wishing... beautiful maidens, who, o.... |
| Urvasi back in heaven, contrive... reaching the earth, forthwith |
| to steal the rams; and, as th.... set themselves to dance. He....
| king pursued the robbers with his | tried to catch the youngest....
| sword in the dark, the lightnin... but in vain; ultimately h.... |
| revealed his person, the compac... succeeded by assuming th.... |
| was broken, and Urvas.... .... disguise of a mouse. He was....
| disappeared. This same story is... very attentive to his new wife, |
| found in different forms amon.... who was really a daughter o....
| many people of Aryan and Turanian | one of the stars, but sh.... |
| descent, the central idea being... wished to return home, so she |
| that of a man marrying some one... made a wicker basket secretly, |
| of an aerial or aquatic origin,... and, by help of a charm she....
| and living happily with her til... remembered, ascended to her....
| he breaks the condition on whic... father.... .... .......
| her residence with him depends,.... .... .... .... ....
| stories exactly parallel to tha.... .... .... .... ....
| of Raymond of Toulouse, wh.... .... .... .... .......
| chances in the hunt upon th.... .... .... .... .......
| beautiful Melusina at a fountain,.... .... .... .... ....
| and lives with her happily unti.... .... .... .... ....
| he discovers her fish-nature an.... .... .... .... ....
| she vanishes.... .... .... .... .... .... .... |
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+
If the legend of Cadmus recovering Europa, after she has been
carried away by the white bull, the spotless cloud, means that "the
sun must journey westward until he sees again the beautiful tints
which greeted his eyes in the morning," it is curious to find a
story current in North America to the effect that a man once had
a beautiful daughter, 'whom he forbade to leave the lodge lest she
should be carried off by the king of the buffaloes; and that as she
sat, notwithstanding, outside the house combing her hair, "all of
a sudden the king of the buffaloes came dashing on, with his herd
of followers, and, taking her between his horns, away be cantered
over plains, plunged into a river which bounded his land, and
carried her safely to his lodge on the other side," whence she was
finally recovered by her father.
'Games.'--The same games and sports extended from India to the shores
of Lake Superior. The game of the Hindoos, called 'pachisi', is
played upon a cross-shaped board or cloth; it is a combination of
checkers and draughts, with the throwing of dice, the dice determining
the number of moves; when the Spaniards entered Mexico they found
the Aztecs playing a game called 'patolli', identical with the
Hindoo 'pachisi', on a similar cross-shaped board. The game of
ball, which the Indians of America were in the habit of playing at
the time of the discovery of the country, from California to the
Atlantic, was identical with the European 'chueca', 'crosse', or
'hockey'.
One may well pause, after reading this catalogue, and ask himself,
wherein do these peoples differ? It is absurd to pretend that
all these similarities could have been the result of accidental
coincidences.
These two peoples, separated by the great ocean, were baptized alike
in infancy with blessed water; they prayed alike to the gods; they
worshipped together the sun, moon, and stars; they confessed their
sins alike; they were instructed alike by an established priesthood;
they were married in the same way and by the joining of hands;
they armed themselves with the same weapons; when children came,
the man, on both continents, went to bed and left his wife to do
the honors of the household; they tattooed and painted themselves
in the same fashion; they became intoxicated on kindred drinks;
their dresses were alike; they cooked in the same manner; they used
the same metals; they employed the same exorcisms and bleedings for
disease; they believed alike in ghosts, demons, and fairies; they
listened to the same stories; they played the same games; they used
the same musical instruments; they danced the same dances, and when
they died they were embalmed in the same way and buried sitting;
while over them were erected, on both continents, the same mounds,
pyramids, obelisks, and temples. And yet we are asked to believe
that there was no relationship between them, and that they had
never had any ante-Columbian intercourse with each other.
If our knowledge of Atlantis was more thorough, it would no doubt
appear that, in every instance wherein the people of Europe accord
with the people of America, they were both in accord with the
people of Atlantis; and that Atlantis was the common centre from
which both peoples derived their arts, sciences, customs, and
opinions. It will be seen that in every case where Plato gives us
any information in this respect as to Atlantis, we find this agreement
to exist. It existed in architecture, sculpture, navigation,
engraving, writing, an established priesthood, the mode of worship,
agriculture, the construction of roads and canals; and it is
reasonable to suppose that the, same correspondence extended down
to all the minor details treated of in this chapter.
CHAPTER III.
AMERICAN EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPE OR ATLANTIS.
1. On the monuments of Central America there are representations
of bearded men. How could the beardless American Indians have
imagined a bearded race?
2. All the traditions of the civilized races of Central America
point to an 'Eastern' origin.
The leader and civilizer of the Nahua family was Quetzalcoatl.
This is the legend respecting him:
"'From the distant East', from the fabulous Hue Hue Tlapalan,
this mysterious person came to Tula, and became the patron god and
high-priest of the ancestors of the Toltecs. He is described as
having been 'a white man', with strong formation of body, broad
forehead, large eyes, and 'flowing beard'. He wore a mitre on his
bead, and was dressed in a long white robe reaching to his feet,
and covered with red crosses. In his hand he held a sickle. His
habits were ascetic, he never married, was most chaste and pure in
life, and is said to have endured penance in a neighboring mountain,
not for its effects upon himself, but as a warning to others. He
condemned sacrifices, except of fruits and flowers, and was known
as the god of peace; for, when addressed on the subject of war,
he is reported to have stopped his ears with his fingers." ("North
Amer. of Antiq.," p. 268.)
"He was skilled in many arts: he invented" (that is, imported)
"gem-cutting and metal-casting; he originated letters, and invented
the Mexican calendar. He finally returned to the land in the East
from which be came: leaving the American coast at Vera Cruz, he
embarked in a canoe made of serpent-skins, and ''sailed away into
the east'.'" ('Ibid'., p. 271.)
Dr. Le Plongeon says of the columns at Chichen:
"The base is formed by the head of Cukulcan, the shaft of the body
of the serpent, with its feathers beautifully carved to the very
chapiter. On the chapiters of the columns that support the portico,
at the entrance of the castle in Chichen Itza, may be seen the
carved figures of long-bearded men, with upraised hands, in the
act of worshipping sacred trees. They forcibly recall to mind the
same worship in Assyria."
In the accompanying cut of an ancient vase from Tula, we see a
bearded figure grasping a beardless man.
In the cut given below we see a face that might be duplicated among
the old men of any part of Europe.
The Cakchiquel MS. says: "Four persons came from Tulan, from the
'direction of the rising sun'--that is one Tulan. There is another
Tulan in Xibalbay, and another where the sun sets, 'and it is there
that we came'; and in the direction of the setting sun there is
another, where is the god; so that there are four Tulans; and it
is where the sun sets that we came to Tulan, 'from the other side
of the sea', where this Tulan is; and it is there that we were
conceived and begotten by our mothers and fathers."
That is to say, the birthplace of the race was in the East, across
the sea, at a place called Tulan and when they emigrated they
called their first stopping-place on the American continent Tulan
also; and besides this there were two other Tulans.
"Of the Nahua predecessors of the Toltecs in Mexico the Olmecs and
Xicalaucans were the most important. They were the forerunners of
the great races that followed. According to Ixtlilxochitl, these
people-which are conceded to be one occupied the world in the third
age; 'they came from the East in ships or barks' to the land of
Potonchan, which they commenced to populate."
3. The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in one of the notes of the
Introduction of the "Popol Vuh," presents a very remarkable analogy
between the kingdom of Xibalba, described in that work, and Atlantis.
He says:
"Both countries are magnificent, exceedingly fertile, and abound
in the precious metals. The empire of Atlantis was divided into
ten kingdoms, governed by five couples of twin sons of Poseidon,
the eldest being supreme over the others; and the ten constituted
a tribunal that managed the affairs of the empire. Their descendants
governed after them. The ten kings of Xibalba, who reigned (in
couples) under Hun-Came and Vukub-Came (and who together constituted
a grand council of the kingdom), certainly furnish curious points
of comparison. And there is wanting neither a catastrophe--for
Xibalba had a terrific inundation--nor the name of Atlas, of which
the etymology is found only in the Nahuatl tongue: it comes from
atl, water; and we know that a city of Atlan (near the water) still
existed on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama at the time
of the Conquest."
"In Yucatan the traditions all point to an 'Eastern and foreign'
origin for the race. The early writers report that the natives
believe their ancestors to have crossed the sea by a passage which
was opened for them." (Landa's "Relacion," p. 28.)
"It was also believed that part of the population came into the
country from the West. Lizana says that the smaller portion, 'the
little descent,' came from the East, while the greater portion,
'the great descent,' came from the West. Cogolluda considers the
Eastern colony to have been the larger.... The culture-hero Zamna,
the author of all civilization in Yucatan, is described as 'the
teacher of letters', and the leader of the people from their ancient
home.... He was the leader of a colony from the East." ("North
Amer. of Antiq.," p. 229.)
The ancient Mexican legends say that, after the Flood, Coxcox and
his wife, after wandering one hundred and four years, landed at
'Antlan', and passed thence to Capultepec, and thence to Culhuacan,
and lastly to Mexico.
Coming from Atlantis, they named their first landing-place 'Antlan'.
All the races that settled Mexico, we are told, traced their origin
back to an 'Aztlan' (Atlan-tis). Duran describes Aztlan as "a most
attractive land." ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 257.)
Samé, the great name of Brazilian legend, came across the ocean
'from the rising sun'. He had power over the elements and tempests;
the trees of the forests would recede to make room for him (cutting
down the trees); the animals used to crouch before him (domesticated
animals); lakes and rivers became solid for him (boats and bridges);
and he taught the use of agriculture and magic. Like him, Bochica,
the great law-giver of the Muyscas, and son of the sun--he who
invented for them the calendar and regulated their festivals--had
a white beard, a detail in which all the American culture-heroes
agree. The "Samé" of Brazil was probably the "Zamna" of Yucatan.
ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN.
4. We find in America numerous representations of the elephant. We
are forced to one of two conclusions: either the monuments date
back to the time of the mammoth in North America, or these people
held intercourse at some time in the past with races who possessed
the elephant, and from whom they obtained pictures of that singular
animal. Plato tells us that the Atlanteans possessed great numbers
of elephants.
There are in Wisconsin a number of mounds of earth representing
different animals-men, birds, and quadrupeds.
ELEPHANT PIPE, LOISA COUNTY, IOWA.
Among the latter is a mound representing an elephant, "so perfect
in its proportions, and complete in its representation of an
elephant, that its builders must have been well acquainted with all
the physical characteristics of the animal which they delineated."
We copy the representation of this mound on page 168.
On a farm in Louisa County, Iowa, a pipe was ploughed up which also
represents an elephant. We are indebted to the valuable work of
John T. Short ("The North Americans of Antiquity," p. 530) for a
picture of this singular object. It was found in a section where
the ancient mounds were very abundant and rich in relies. The
pipe is of sandstone, of the ordinary Mound-Builder's type, and
has every appearance of age and usage. There can be no doubt of
its genuineness. The finder had no conception of its archæological
value.
In the ruined city of Palenque we find, in one of the palaces, a
stucco bass-relief of a priest. His elaborate head-dress or helmet
represents very faithfully the bead of an elephant. The cut on
page 169 is from a drawing made by Waldeck.
The decoration known as "elephant-trunks" is found in many parts
of the ancient ruins of Central America, projecting from above the
door-ways of the buildings.
In Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind," p. 313,
I find a remarkable representation of an elephant, taken from an
ancient Mexican manuscript. It is as follows:
MEXICAN REPRESENTATION OF ELEPHANT.
CHAPTER IV.
CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES.
1. Lenormant insists that the human race issued from Ups Merou, and
adds that some Greek traditions point to "this locality--particularly
the expression me'ropes a?'nðwpoi, which can only mean 'the men
sprung from Merou.'" ("Manual," p.21.)
Theopompus tells us that the people who inhabited Atlantis were
the 'Meropes', the people of 'Merou'.
2. Whence comes the word 'Atlantic'? The dictionaries tell us that
the ocean is named after the mountains of 'Atlas'; but whence did
the 'Atlas' mountains get their name?
"The words Atlas and Atlantic have no satisfactory etymology
in any language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and cannot
be referred to any known language of the Old World. But in the
Nahuatl language we find immediately the radical 'a', 'atl', which
signifies water, war, and the top of the head. (Molina, "Vocab. en
lengua Mexicana y Castellana.") From this comes a series of words,
such as atlan--on the border of or amid the water--from which we
'have the adjective 'Atlantic'. We have also 'atlaça', to combat,
or be in agony; it means likewise to hurl or dart from the water,
and in the preterit makes 'Atlaz'. A city named 'Atlan' existed when
the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the entrance of the
Gulf of Uraba, in Darien. With a good harbor, it is now reduced to
an unimportant pueblo named 'Acla'." (Baldwin's "Ancient America,"
p. 179.)
Plato tells us that Atlantis and the Atlantic Ocean were named
after Atlas, the eldest son of Poseidon, the founder of the kingdom.
3. Upon that part of the African continent nearest to the site of
Atlantis we find a chain of mountains, known from the most ancient
times as the Atlas Mountains. Whence this name Atlas, if it be
not from the name of the great king of Atlantis? And if this be not
its origin, how comes it that we find it in the most north-western
corner of Africa? And how does it happen that in the time of
Herodotus there dwelt near this mountain-chain a people called the
'Atlantes', probably a remnant of a colony from Solon's island?
How comes it that the people of the Barbary States were known to
the Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians as the "Atlantes," this name
being especially applied to the inhabitants of Fezzan and Bilma?
Where did they get the name from? There is no etymology for it east
of the Atlantic Ocean. (Lenormants "Anc. Hist. of the East," p.
253.)
Look at it! An "Atlas" mountain on the shore of Africa; an "Atlan"
town on the shore of America; the "Atlantes" living along the north
and west coast of Africa; an Aztec people from Aztlan, in Central
America; an ocean rolling between the two worlds called the
"Atlantic;" a mythological deity called "Atlas" holding the world
on his shoulders; and an immemorial tradition of an island of
Atlantis. Can all these things be the result of accident?
4. Plato says that there was a "passage west from Atlantis to the
rest of the islands, as well as from these islands to the whole
opposite continent that surrounds that real sea." He calls it
a real sea, as contradistinguished from the Mediterranean, which,
as he says, is not a real sea (or ocean) but a landlocked body of
water, like a harbor.
Now, Plato might have created Atlantis out of his imagination;
but how could he have invented the islands beyond (the West India
Islands), and the whole continent (America) enclosing that real
sea? If we look at the map, we see that the continent of America
does "surround" the ocean in a great half-circle. Could Plato
have guessed all this? If there had been no Atlantis, and no series
of voyages from it that revealed the half-circle of the continent
from Newfoundland to Cape St. Roche, how could Plato have guessed
it? And how could he have known that the Mediterranean was only a
harbor compared with the magnitude of the great ocean surrounding
Atlantis? Long sea-voyages were necessary to establish that fact,
and the Greeks, who kept close to the shores in their short journeys,
did not make such voyages.
5. How can we, without Atlantis, explain the presence of the
Basques in Europe, who have no lingual affinities with any other
race on the continent of Europe, but whose language 'is similar to
the languages of America'?
Plato tells us that the dominion of Gadeirus, one of the kings of
Atlantis, extended "toward the pillars of Heracles (Hercules) as
far as the country which is still called the region of Gades in that
part of the world." Gades is the Cadiz of today, and the dominion
of Gadeirus embraced the land of the Iberians or Basques, their chief
city taking its name from a king of Atlantis, and they themselves
being Atlanteans.
Dr. Farrar, referring to the Basque language, says:
"What is certain about it is, that its structure is polysynthetic,
like the languages of America. Like them, it forms its compounds
by the elimination of certain radicals in the simple words; so
that 'ilhun', the twilight, is contracted from 'hill', dead, and
'egun', day; and 'belhaur', the knee, from 'belhar', front, and
'oin', leg.... The fact is indisputable, and is eminently noteworthy,
that while the affinities of the Basque roots have never been
conclusively elucidated, there has never been any doubt that this
isolated language, preserving its identity in a western corner of
Europe, between two mighty kingdoms, resembles, in its grammatical
structure, the aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent
(America), and those alone." ("Families of Speech," p. 132.)
If there was an Atlantis, forming, with its connecting ridges, a
continuous bridge of land from America to Africa, we can understand
how the Basques could have passed from one continent to another;
but if the wide Atlantic rolled at all times unbroken between the
two continents, it is difficult to conceive of such an emigration
by an uncivilized people.
6. Without Atlantis, how can we explain the fact that the early
Egyptians were depicted by themselves as red men on their own
monuments? And, on the other hand, how can we account for the
representations of negroes on the monuments of Central America?
Dêsirè Charnay, now engaged in exploring those monuments, has published
in the North American Review for December, 1880, photographs of a
number of idols exhumed at San Juan de Teotihuacan, from which I
select the following strikingly negroid faces:
NEGRO IDOLS FOUND IN MEXICO.
Dr. Le Plongeon says:
"Besides the sculptures of long-bearded men seen by the explorer at
Chichen Itza, there were tall figures of people with small heads,
thick lips, and curly short hair or wool, regarded as negroes. 'We
always see them as standard or parasol bearers, but never engaged
in actual warfare.'" ("Maya Archæology," p. 62.)
The following cut is from the court of the Palace of Palenque,
figured by Stephens. The face is strongly Ethiopian.
The figure below represents a gigantic granite head, found near the
volcano of Tuxtla, in the Mexican State of Vera Cruz, at Caxapa.
The features are unmistakably negroid.
As the negroes have never been a sea-going race, the presence of
these faces among the antiquities of Central America proves one
of two things, either the existence of a land connection between
America and Africa via Atlantis, as revealed by the deep-sea soundings
of the 'Challenger', or commercial relations between America and
Africa through the ships of the Atlanteans or some other civilized
race, whereby the negroes were brought to America as slaves at a
very remote epoch.
And we find some corroboration of the latter theory in that singular
book of the Quiches, the "Popol Vuh," in which, after describing
the creation of the first men "'in the region of the rising sun'"
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 548), and enumerating
their first generations, we are told, "All seem to have spoken one
language, and to have lived in great peace, 'black men and white
together'. Here they awaited the rising of the sun, and prayed to
the Heart of Heaven." (Bancroft's "Native Races," p. 547.) How did
the red men of Central America know anything about "black men and
white men?" The conclusion seems inevitable that these legends
of a primitive, peaceful, and happy land, an Aztlan in the East,
inhabited by black and white men, to which all the civilized nations
of America traced their origin, could only refer to Atlantis--that
bridge of land where the white, dark, and red races met. The
"Popol Vuh" proceeds to tell how this first home of the race became
over-populous, and how the people under Balam-Quitze migrated; how
their language became "confounded," in other words, broken up into
dialects, in consequence of separation; and how some of the people
"'went to the East', and many came hither to Guatemala." ('Ibid'.,
p. 547.)
M. A. de Quatrefages ("Human Species," p. 200) says, "Black
populations have been found in America in very small numbers only,
as isolated tribes in the midst of very different populations. Such
are the Charruas, of Brazil, the Black Carribees of Saint Vincent,
in the Gulf of Mexico; the Jamassi of Florida, and the dark-complexioned
Californians.... Such, again, is the tribe that Balboa saw some
representatives of in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513;
. . . they were true negroes."
7. How comes it that all the civilizations of the Old World radiate
from the shores of the Mediterranean? The Mediterranean is a 'cul
de sac', with Atlantis opposite its mouth. Every civilization on
its shores possesses traditions that point to Atlantis. We hear of
no civilization coining 'to' the Mediterranean from Asia, Africa,
or Europe--from north, south, or west; but north, south, east,
and west we find civilization radiating from the Mediterranean to
other lands. We see the Aryans descending upon Hindostan from the
direction of the Mediterranean; and we find the Chinese borrowing
inventions from Hindostan, and claiming descent from a region not
far from the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean has been the centre of the modern world, because
it lay in the path of the extension of an older civilization,
whose ships colonized its shores, as they did also the shores .of
America. Plato says, "the nations are gathered around the shores
of the Mediterranean like frogs around a marsh."
Dr. McCausland says:
The obvious conclusion from these facts is, that at some time previous
to these migrations a people speaking a language of a superior
and complicated structure broke up their society, and, under some
strong impulse, poured out in different directions, and gradually
established themselves in all the lands now inhabited by the
Caucasian race. Their territories extend from the Atlantic to the
Ganges, and from Iceland to Ceylon, and are bordered on the north
and east by the Asiatic Mongols, and on the south by the negro
tribes of Central Africa. They present all the appearances of a
later race, expanding itself between and into the territories of
two pre-existing neighboring races, and forcibly appropriating the
room required for its increasing population." (McCausland's "Adam
and the Adamites," p. 280.)
Modern civilization is Atlantean. Without the thousands of years
of development which were had in Atlantis modern civilization
could not have existed. The inventive faculty of the present age
is taking up the great delegated work of creation where Atlantis
left it thousands of years ago.
8. How are we to explain the existence of the Semitic race in
Europe without Atlantis? It is an intrusive race; a race colonized
on sea-coasts. Where are its Old World affinities?
9. Why is it that the origin of wheat, barley, oats, maize, and
rye--the essential plants of civilization--is totally lost in the
mists of a vast antiquity? We have in the Greek mythology legends
of the introduction of most of these by Atlantean kings or gods
into Europe; but no European nation claims to have discovered or
developed them, and it has been impossible to trace them to their
wild originals. Out of the whole 'flora' of the world mankind in
the last seven thousand years has not developed a single food-plant
to compare in importance to the human family with these. If a wise
and scientific nation should propose nowadays to add to this list,
it would have to form great botanical gardens, and, by systematic
and long-continued experiments, develop useful plants from the
humble productions of the field and forest. Was this done in the
past on the island of Atlantis?
10. Why is it that we find in Ptolemy's "Geography of Asia Minor,"
in a list of cities in Armenia Major in A.D. 140, the names of five
cities which have their counterparts in the names of localities in
Central America?
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Armenian Cities. | Central American Localities. |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Chol...... | Chol-ul.... .... ....
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Colua...... | Colua-can.... ........
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Zuivana....... Zuivan.... .... ....
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Cholima....... Colima.... .... ....
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Zalissa....... Xalisco.... .... ....
+------------------+------------------------------+
(Short's "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 497.)
11. How comes it that the sandals upon the feet of the statue of
Chacmol, discovered at Chichen Itza, are "exact representations of
those found on the feet of the Guanches, the early inhabitants of
the Canary Islands, whose mummies are occasionally discovered in
the eaves of Teneriffe?" Dr. Merritt deems the axe or chisel heads
dug up at Chiriqui, Central America, "almost identical in form as
well as material with specimens found in Suffolk County, England."
(Bancroft's Native Races," vol. iv., p. 20.) The rock-carvings
of Chiriqui are pronounced by Mr. Seemann to have a striking
resemblance to the ancient incised characters found on the rocks
of Northumberland, England. ('Ibid'.)
"Some stones have recently been discovered in Hierro and Las Palmas
(Canary Islands), bearing sculptured symbols similar to those found
on the shores of Lake Superior; and this has led M. Bertholet, the
historiographer of the Canary Islands, to conclude that the first
inhabitants of the Canaries and those of the great West were one
in race." (Benjamin, "The Atlantic Islands," p. 130.)
12. How comes it that that very high authority, Professor Retzius
("Smithsonian Report," 1859, p. 266), declares, "With regard to
the primitive dolichocephalæ of America I entertain a hypothesis
still more bold, namely, that they are nearly related to the Guanches
in the Canary Islands, and to the Atlantic populations of Africa,
the Moors, Tuaricks, Copts, etc., which Latham comprises under the
name of Egyptian-Atlantidæ. We find one and the same form of skull
in the Canary Islands, in front of the African coast, and in the
Carib Islands, on the opposite coast, which faces Africa. The
color of the skin on both sides of the Atlantic is represented in
these populations as being of a reddish-brown."
13. The Barbarians who are alluded to by Homer and Thucydides
were a race of ancient navigators and pirates called 'Cares', or
'Carians', who occupied the isles of Greece before the Pelasgi,
and antedated the Phoenicians in the control of the sea. The Abbé
Brasseur de Bourbourg claims that these Carians were identical with
the 'Caribs' of the West Indies, the 'Caras' of Honduras, and the
'Gurani' of South America. (Landa's "Relacion," pp. 52-65.)
14. When we consider it closely, one of the most extraordinary customs
ever known to mankind is that to which I have already alluded in
a preceding chapter, to wit, the embalming of the body of the dead
man, with a purpose that the body itself may live again in a future
state. To arrive at this practice several things must coexist:
a. The people must be highly religious, and possessed of an organized
and influential priesthood, to perpetuate so troublesome a custom
from age to age.
b. They must believe implicitly in the immortality of the soul;
and this implies a belief in rewards and punishments after death;
in a heaven and a hell.
c. They must believe in the immortality of the body, and its
resurrection from the grave on some day of judgment in the distant
future.
d. But a belief in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection
of the body is not enough, for all Christian nations hold to these
beliefs; they must supplement these with a determination that the
body shall not perish; that the very flesh and blood in which the
man died shall rise with him on the last day, and not a merely
spiritual body.
Now all these four things must coexist before a people proceed to
embalm their dead for religious purposes. The probability that
all these four things should coexist by accident in several widely
separated races is slight indeed. The doctrine of chances is all
against it. There is here no common necessity driving men to the
same expedient, with which so many resemblances have been explained;
the practice is a religious ceremony, growing out of religious
beliefs by no means common or universal, to wit, that the man who
is dead shall live again, and live again in the very body in which
he died. Not even all the Jews believed in these things.
If, then, it should appear that among the races which we claim
were descended from Atlantis this practice of embalming the dead
is found, and nowhere else, we have certainly furnished evidence
which can only be explained by admitting the existence of Atlantis,
and of some great religious race dwelling on Atlantis, who believed
in the immortality of soul and body, and who embalmed their dead.
We find, as I have shown:
First. That the Guanches of the Canary Islands, supposed to be a
remnant of the Atlantean population, preserved their dead as mummies.
Second. That the Egyptians, the oldest colony of Atlantis, embalmed
their dead in such vast multitudes that they are now exported by the
ton to England, and ground up into manures to grow English turnips.
Third. That the Assyrians, the Ethiopians, the Persians, the
Greeks, and even the Romans embalmed their dead.
Fourth. On the American continents we find that the Peruvians,
the Central Americans, the Mexicans, and some of the Indian tribes,
followed the same practice.
Is it possible to account for this singular custom, reaching through
a belt of nations, and completely around the habitable world,
without Atlantis?
15. All the traditions of the Mediterranean races look to the ocean
as the source of men and gods. Homer sings of
"Ocean, the origin of gods and Mother Tethys."
Orpheus says, "The fair river of Ocean was the first to marry,
and he espoused his sister Tethys, who was his mothers daughter."
(Plato's "Dialogues," 'Cratylus', p. 402.) The ancients always
alluded to the ocean as a river encircling the earth, as in the
map of Cosmos (see page 95 'ante'); probably a reminiscence of
the great canal described by Plato which surrounded the plain of
Atlantis. Homer (Iliad, book xviii.) describes Tethys, "the mother
goddess," coming to Achilles "from the deep abysses of the main:"
"The circling Nereids with their mistress weep, And all the sea-green
sisters of the deep."
Plato surrounds the great statue of Poseidon in Atlantis with the
images of one hundred Nereids.
16. in the Deluge legends of the Hindoos (as given on page 87
'ante'), we have seen Manu saving a small fish, which subsequently
grew to a great size, and warned him of the coming of the Flood.
In this legend all the indications point to an ocean as the scene
of the catastrophe. It says: "At the close of the last 'calpa'
there was a general destruction, caused by the sleep of Brahma,
whence his creatures, in different worlds, 'were drowned in a vast
ocean'.... A holy king, named Satyavrata, then reigned, a servant
of 'the spirit which moved on the waves'" (Poseidon?), "and so
devout that water was his only sustenance.... In seven days the
three worlds" (remember Poseidon's trident) "shall be 'plunged in
an ocean of death'..... "'Thou shalt enter the spacious ark, and
continue in it secure from the Flood 'on one immense ocean'.....
'The sea overwhelmed its shores', deluged the whole earth, augmented
by showers from immense clouds." ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i.,
p. 230.)
All this reminds us of "the fountains of the great deep and the
flood-gates of heaven," and seems to repeat precisely the story of
Plato as to the sinking of Atlantis in the ocean.
17. While I do not attach much weight to verbal similarities in the
languages of the two continents, nevertheless there are some that
are very remarkable. We have seen the Pan and Maia of the Greeks
reappearing in the Pan and Maya of the Mayas of Central America.
The god of the Welsh triads, "Hu the mighty," is found in the
Hu-nap-bu, the hero-god of the Quiches; in Hu-napu, a hero-god;
and in Hu-hu-nap-hu, in Hu-ncam, in Hu-nbatz, semi-divine heroes
of the Quiches. The Phoenician deity 'El' "was subdivided into
a number of hypostases called the 'Baalim', secondary divinities,
emanating from the substance of the deity" ("Anc. Hist. East,"
vol. ii., p. 219); and this word 'Baalim' we find appearing in
the mythology of the Central Americans, applied to the semi-divine
progenitors of the human race, 'Balam-Quitze', 'Balam-Agab', and
'Iqui-Balam'.
CHAPTER V.
THE QUESTION OF COMPLEXION.
The tendency of scientific thought in ethnology is in the direction
of giving more and more importance to the race characteristics,
such as height, color of the hair, eyes and skin, and the formation
of the skull and body generally, than to language. The language
possessed by a people may be merely the result of conquest
or migration. For instance, in the United States to-day, white,
black, and red men, the descendants of French, Spanish, Italians,
Mexicans, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Africans, all speak the
English language, and by the test of language they are all Englishmen;
and yet none of them are connected by birth or descent with the
country where that language was developed.
There is a general misconception as to the color of the European
and American races. Europe is supposed to be peopled exclusively
by white men; but in reality every shade of color is represented
on that continent, from the fair complexion of the fairest of the
Swedes to the dark-skinned inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast,
only a shade lighter than the Berbers, or Moors, on the opposite
side of that sea. Tacitus spoke of the "Black Celts," and the term,
so far as complexion goes, might not inappropriately be applied to
some of the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, while the Basques
are represented as of a still darker hue. Tylor says ("Anthropology,"
p. 67), "On the whole, it seems that the distinction of color, from
the fairest Englishman to the darkest African, has no hard and fast
lines. but varies gradually from one tint to another."
And when we turn to America we find that the popular opinion that
all Indians are "red men," and of the same hue from Patagonia to
Hudson's Bay, is a gross error.
Prichard says ("Researches into the Physical History of Mankind,"
vol. i., p. 269, 4th ed., 1841):
"It will be easy to show that the American races show nearly as
great a variety in this respect as the nations of the old continent;
there are among them white races with a florid complexion, and
tribes black or of a very dark hue; that their stature, figure,
and countenance are almost equally diversified."
John T. Short says ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 189):
"The Menominees, sometimes called the 'White Indians,' formerly
occupied the region bordering on Lake Michigan, around Green Bay.
The whiteness of these Indians, which is compared to that of white
mulattoes, early attracted the attention of the Jesuit missionaries,
and has often been commented on by travellers. While it is true
that hybridy has done much to lighten the color of many of the
tribes, still the peculiarity of the complexion of this people
has been marked since the first time a European encountered them.
Almost every shade, from the ash-color of the Menominees through
the cinnamon-red, copper, and bronze tints, may be found among the
tribes formerly occupying the territory cast of the Mississippi,
until we reach the dark-skinned Kaws of Kansas, who are nearly as
black as the negro. The variety of complexion is as great in South
America as among the tribes of the northern part of the continent."
In foot-note of p. 107 of vol. iii. of "U. S. Explorations for a
Railroad Route to the Pacific Ocean," we are told,
"Many of the Indians of Zuni (New Mexico) are white. They have
a fair skin, blue eyes, chestnut or auburn hair, and are quite
good-looking. They claim to be full-blooded Zunians, and have no
tradition of intermarriage with any foreign race. The circumstance
creates no surprise among this people, for from time immemorial a
similar class of people has existed among the tribe."
Winchell says:
"The ancient Indians of California, in the latitude of forty-two
degrees, were as black as the negroes of Guinea, while in Mexico
were tribes of an olive or reddish complexion, relatively light.
Among the black races of tropical regions we find, generally, some
light-colored tribes interspersed. These sometimes have light hair
and blue eyes. This is the case with the Tuareg of the Sahara, the
Afghans of India, and the aborigines of the banks of the Oronoco
and the Amazon." (Winchell's "Preadamites, p. 185.)
William Penn said of the Indians of Pennsylvania, in his letter of
August, 1683:
"The native.... are generally tall, straight, well-built, and of
singular proportion; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk
with a lofty chin.... Their eye is little and black, not unlike
a straight-looked Jew.... I have seen among them as comely
European-like faces of both sexes as on your side of the sea; and
truly an Italian complexion hath not much more of the white, and
the noses of several of them have as much of the Roman.... For
their original, I am ready to believe them to be of the Jewish
race--I mean of the stock of the ten tribes--and that for the
following reasons: first, in the next place, I find them to be of
the like countenance, and their children of so lively a resemblance
that a man would think himself in Duke's Place or Berry Street in
London when he seeth them. But this is not all: they agree in
rites, they reckon by moons, they offer their first-fruits, they
have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay their
altars upon twelve stones, their mourning a year, customs of women,
with many other things that do not now occur."
Upon this question of complexion Catlin, in his "Indians of North
America," vol. i., p. 95, etc., gives us some curious information.
We have already seen that the Mandans preserved an image of the
ark, and possessed legends of a clearly Atlantean character. Catlin
says:
"A stranger in the Mandan village is first struck with the different
shades of complexion and various colors of hair which he sees in
a crowd about him, and is at once disposed to exclaim, 'These are
not Indians.' There are a great many of these people whose complexions
appear as light as half-breeds; and among the women particularly
there are many whose skins are almost white, with the most pleasing
symmetry and proportion of feature; with hazel, with gray, and with
blue eyes; with mildness and sweetness of expression and excessive
modesty of demeanor, which render them exceedingly pleasing and
beautiful. Why this diversity of complexion I cannot tell, nor
can they themselves account for it. Their traditions, so far as
I can learn them, afford us no information of their having had any
knowledge of white men before the visit of Lewis and Clarke, made
to their village thirty-three years ago. Since that time until now
(1835) there have been very few visits of white men to this place,
and surely not enough to have changed the complexions and customs
of a nation. And I recollect perfectly well that Governor Clarke
told me, before I started for this place, that I would find the
Mandans a strange people and half white.
"Among the females may be seen every shade and color of hair that
can be seen in our own country except red or auburn, which is not
to be found. ... There are very many of both sexes, and of every
age, from infancy to manhood and old age, with hair of a bright
silvery-gray, and in some instances almost perfectly white. This
unaccountable phenomenon is not the result of disease or habit,
but it is unquestionably an hereditary characteristic which runs in
families, and indicates no inequality in disposition or intellect.
And by passing this hair through my hands I have found it uniformly
to be as coarse and harsh as a horse's mane, differing materially
from the hair of other colors, which, among the Mandans, is generally
as fine and soft as silk.
"The stature of the Mandans is rather below the ordinary size of
man, with beautiful symmetry of form and proportion, and wonderful
suppleness and elasticity."
Catlin gives a group (54) showing this great diversity in complexion:
one of the figures is painted almost pure white, and with light
hair. The faces are European.
GOVERNOR AND OTHER INDIANS OF THE PUEBLO OF SAN DOMINGO, NEW MEXICO.
Major James W. Lynd, who lived among the Dakota Indians for nine
years, and was killed by them in the great outbreak of 1862, says
(MS. "Hist. of Dakotas," Library, Historical Society, Minnesota,
p. 47), after calling attention to the fact that the different
tribes of the Sioux nation represent several different degrees of
darkness of color:
"The Dakota child is of lighter complexion than the young brave;
this one lighter than the middle-aged man, and the middle-aged
man lighter than the superannuated 'homo', who, by smoke, paint,
dirt, and a drying up of the vital juices, appears to be the true
copper-colored Dakota. The color of the Dakotas varies with the
nation, and also with the age and condition of the individual. It
may be set down, however, as a shade lighter than olive; yet it
becomes still lighter by change of condition or mode of life, and
nearly vanishes, even in the child, under constant ablutions and
avoiding of exposure. Those children in the Mission at Hazlewood,
who are taken very young, and not allowed to expose themselves,
lose almost entirely the olive shade, and become quite as white as
the American child. The Mandans are as light as the peasants of
Spain, while their brothers, the Crows, are as dark as the Arabs.
Dr. Goodrich, in the 'Universal Traveller,' p. 154, says that the
modern Peruvians, in the warmer regions of Peru, are as fair as
the people of the south of Europe."
"The Aymaras, the ancient inhabitants of the mountains of Peru and
Bolivia, are described as having an olive-brown complexion, with
regular features, large heads, and a thoughtful and melancholy cast
of countenance. They practised in early times the deformation of
the skull.
Professor Wilson describes the hair of the ancient Peruvians, as
found upon their mummies, as "a lightish brown, and of a fineness
of texture which equals that of the Anglo-Saxon race." "The ancient
Peruvians," says Short ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 187),
"appear, from numerous examples of hair found in their tombs, to
have been an auburn-haired race." Garcilasso, who had an opportunity
of seeing the body of the king, Viracocha, describes the hair of
that monarch as snow-white. Haywood tells us of the discovery, at
the beginning of this century, of three mummies in a cave on the
south side of the Cumberland River (Tennessee), who were buried in
baskets, as the Peruvians were occasionally buried, and whose skin
was fair and white, and their hair auburn, and of a fine texture.
("Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee," p. 191.)
CHOCTAW.
Neither is the common opinion correct which asserts all the American
Indians to be of the same type of features. The portraits on this
page and on pages 187 and 191, taken from the "Report of the U. S.
Survey for a Route for a Pacific Railroad," present features very
much like those of Europeans; in fact, every face here could be
precisely matched among the inhabitants of the southern part of
the old continent.
SHAWNEES.
On the other hand, look at the portrait of the great Italian orator
and reformer, Savonarola, on page 193. It looks more like the hunting
Indians of North-western America than any of the preceding faces.
In fact, if it was dressed with a scalp-lock it would pass muster
anywhere as a portrait of the "Man-afraid-of-his-horses," or "Sitting
Bull."
SAVONAROLA.
Adam was, it appears, a 'red' man. Winchell tells us that Adam is
derived from the 'red' earth. The radical letters ÂDâM are found
in ADaMaH, "something out of which vegetation was made to germinate,"
to wit, the earth. ÂDôM and ÂDOM signifies 'red, ruddy, bay-colored',
as of a horse, the color of a red heifer. "ÂDâM, a man, a human
being, male or female, 'red, ruddy'." ("Preadamites," p.161.)
"The Arabs distinguished mankind into two races, one 'red, ruddy',
the other black." ('Ibid'.) They classed themselves among the red
men.
Not only was Adam a red man, but there is evidence that, from the
highest antiquity, red was a sacred color; the gods of the ancients
were always painted 'red'. The Wisdom of Solomon refers to this
custom: "The carpenter carved it elegantly, and formed it by the
skill of his understanding, and fashioned it to the shape of a man,
or made it like some vile beast, laying it over with vermilion,
and with paint, coloring it red, and covering every spot therein."
The idols of the Indians were also painted red, and red was the
religious color. (Lynd's MS. "Hist. of Dakotas," Library, Hist.
Society, Minn.)
The Cushites and Ethiopians, early branches of the Atlantean stock,
took their name from their "sunburnt" complexion; they were red
men.
The name of the Phoenicians signified 'red'. 'Himyar', the prefix
of the 'Himyaritic' Arabians, also means red, and the Arabs were
painted red on the Egyptian monuments.
The ancient Egyptians were red men. They recognized four races
of men--the red, yellow, black, and white men. They themselves
belonged to the "'Rot'," or red men; the yellow men they called
"'Namu'"--it included the Asiatic races; the black men were called
"'Nahsu'," and the white men "'Tamhu'." The following figures are
copied from Nott and Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," p. 85, and were
taken by them from the great works of Belzoni, Champollion, and
Lepsius.
In later ages so desirous were the Egyptians of preserving, the
aristocratic distinction of the color of their skin, that they
represented themselves on the monuments as of a crimson hue--an
exaggeration of their original race complexion.
In the same way we find that the ancient Aryan writings divided
mankind into four races--the white, red, yellow, and black: the
four castes of India were founded upon these distinctions in color;
in fact, the word for color in Sanscrit ('varna') means caste. The
red men, according to the 'Mahâbhârata', were the Kshatriyas--the
warrior caste-who were afterward engaged in a fierce contest with
the whites--the Brahmans--and were nearly exterminated, although
some of them survived, and from their stock Buddha was born. So that
not only the Mohammedan and Christian but the Buddhistic religion
seem to be derived from branches of the Hamitic or red stock. The
great Manu was also of the red race.
THE RACES OF MEN ACCORDING TO THE EGYPTIANS.
The Egyptians, while they painted themselves red-brown, represented
the nations of Palestine as yellow-brown, and the Libyans yellow-white.
The present inhabitants of Egypt range from a yellow color in the
north parts to a deep 'bronze'. Tylor is of opinion ("Anthropology,"
p. 95) that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a brown race, which
embraced the Nubian tribes and, to some extent, the Berbers of
Algiers and Tunis. He groups the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians,
Greeks, Romans, Andalusians, Bretons, dark Welshmen, and people of
the Caucasus into one body, and designates them as "dark whites."
The Himyarite Arabs, as I have shown, derived their name originally
from their red color, and they were constantly depicted on the
Egyptian monuments as red or light brown. Herodotus tells us that
there was a nation of Libyans, called the Maxyans, who claimed
descent from the people of Troy (the walls of Troy, we shall see,
were built by Poseidon; that is to say, Troy was an Atlantean colony).
These Maxyans painted their whole bodies red. The Zavecians, the
ancestors of the Zuavas of Algiers (the tribe that gave their name
to the French Zouaves), also painted themselves red. Some of the
Ethiopians were "copper-colored." ("'Amer. Cyclop.," art. 'Egypt',
p. 464.) Tylor says ("Anthropology," p. 160): "The language of
the ancient Egyptians, though it cannot be classed in the Semitic
family with Hebrew, has important points of correspondence, whether
due to the long intercourse between the two races in Egypt 'or to
some deeper ancestral connection'; and such analogies also appear
in the Berber languages of North Africa."
These last were called by the ancients the Atlanteans.
"If a congregation of twelve representatives from Malacca, China,
Japan, Mongolia, Sandwich Islands, Chili, Peru, Brazil, Chickasaws,
Comanches, etc., were dressed alike, or undressed and unshaven, the
most skilful anatomist could not, from their appearance, separate
them." (Fontaine's "How the World was Peopled," pp. 147, 244.)
Ferdinand Columbus, in his relation of his father's voyages, compares
the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders (an Atlantean
race), and describes the inhabitants of San Domingo as still more
beautiful and fair. In Peru the Charanzanis, studied by M. Angraud,
also resemble the Canary Islanders. L'Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg
imagined himself surrounded by Arabs when all his Indians of
Rabinal were around him; for they had, he said, their complexion,
features, and beard. Pierre Martyr speaks of the Indians of the
Parian Gulf as having fair hair. ("The Human Species," p. 201.) The
same author believes that tribes belonging to the Semitic type are
also found in America. He refers to "certain traditions of Guiana,
and 'the use in the country of a weapon entirely characteristic of
the ancient Canary Islanders'."
When science is able to disabuse itself of the Mortonian theory that
the aborigines of America are all red men, and all belong to one
race, we may hope that the confluence upon the continent of widely
different races from different countries may come to be recognized
and intelligently studied. There can be no doubt that red, white,
black, and yellow men have united to form the original population
of America. And there can be as little doubt that the entire
population of Europe and the south shore of the Mediterranean is a
mongrel race--a combination, in varying proportions, of a dark-brown
or red race with a white race; the characteristics of the different
nations depending upon the proportions in which the dark and light
races are mingled, for peculiar mental and moral characteristics
go with these complexions. The red-haired people are a distinct
variety of the white stock; there were once whole tribes and nations
with this color of hair; their blood is now intermingled with all
the races of men, from Palestine to Iceland. Everything in Europe
speaks of vast periods of time and long. continued and constant
interfusion of bloods, until there is not a fair-skinned man on
the Continent that has not the blood of the dark-haired race in
his veins; nor scarcely a dark-skinned man that is not lighter in
hue from intermixture with the white stock.
CHAPTER VI.
GENESIS CONTAINS A HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
The Hebrews are a branch of the great family of which that powerful
commercial race, the Phoenicians, who were the merchants of the
world fifteen hundred years before the time of Christ, were a part.
The Hebrews carried out from the common storehouse of their race a
mass of traditions, many of which have come down-to us in that oldest
and most venerable of human compositions, the Book of Genesis. I
have shown that the story of the Deluge plainly refers to
the destruction of Atlantis, and that it agrees in many important
particulars with the account given by Plato. The people destroyed
were, in both instances, the ancient race that had created civilization;
they had formerly been in a happy and sinless condition; they had
become great and wicked; they were destroyed for their sins--they
were destroyed by water.
But we can go farther, and it can be asserted that there is scarcely
a prominent fact in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis
that cannot be duplicated from the legends of the American nations,
and scarcely a custom known to the Jews that does not find its
counterpart among the people of the New World.
Even in the history of the Creation we find these similarities:
The Bible tells us (Gen. i., 2) that in the beginning the earth
was without form and void, and covered with water. In the Quiche
legends we are told, "at first all was sea--no man, animal, bird,
or green herb--there was nothing to be seen but the sea and the
heavens."
The Bible says (Gen. i., 2), "And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters." The Quiche legend says, "The Creator--the
Former, the Dominator--the feathered serpent--those that give life,
moved upon the waters like a glowing light."
The Bible says (Gen. i., 9), "And God said, Let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear: and it was so." The Quiche legend says, "The creative
spirits cried out 'Earth!' and in an instant it was formed, and
rose like a vapor-cloud; immediately the plains and the mountains
arose, and the cypress and pine appeared."
The Bible tells us, "And God saw that it was good." The Quiche legend
says, "Then Gucumatz was filled with joy, and cried out, 'Blessed
be thy coming, O Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, thunder-bolt.'"
The order in which the vegetables, animals, and man were formed is
the same in both records.
In Genesis (chap. ii., 7) we are told, "And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground." The Quiche legend says. "The first
man was made of clay; but he had no intelligence, and was consumed
in the water."
In Genesis the first man is represented as naked. The Aztec legend
says, "The sun was much nearer the earth then than now, and his
grateful warmth rendered clothing unnecessary."
Even the temptation of Eve reappears in the American legends. Lord
Kingsborough says: "The Toltecs had paintings of a garden, with
a single tree standing in the midst; round the root of the tree is
entwined a serpent, whose head appearing above the foliage displays
the face of a woman. Torquemada admits the existence of this
tradition among them, and agrees with the Indian historians, who
affirm that this was the first woman in the world, who bore children,
and from whom all mankind are descended." ("Mexican Antiquities,"
vol. viii., p. 19.) There is also a legend of Suchiquecal, who
disobediently gathered roses from a tree, and thereby disgraced
and injured herself and all her posterity. ("Mexican Antiquities,"
vol. vi., p. 401.)
The legends of the Old World which underlie Genesis, and were used
by Milton in the "Paradise Lost," appear in the Mexican le(fends of
a war of angels in heaven, and the fall of 'Zou-tem-que' ('Soutem',
'Satan'--Arabic, 'Shatana?') and the other rebellious spirits.
We have seen that the Central Americans possessed striking parallels
to the account of the Deluge in Genesis.
There is also a clearly established legend which singularly resembles
the Bible record of the Tower of Babel.
Father Duran, in his MS. "Historia Antiqua de la Nueva Espana,"
A.D. 1585, quotes from the lips of a native of Cholula, over one
hundred years old, a version of the legend as to the building of
the great pyramid of Cholula. It is as follows:
"In the beginning, before the light of the sun had been created,
this land (Cholula) was in obscurity and darkness, and void
of any created thing; all was a plain, without hill or elevation,
encircled in every part by water, without tree or created thing;
and immediately 'after the light and the sun arose in the east'
there appeared gigantic men of deformed stature and possessed the
land, and desiring to see the nativity of the sun, as well as his
occident, proposed to go and seek them. Dividing themselves into
two parties, some journeyed to the west and others toward the east;
these travelled; until the sea cut off their road, whereupon they
determined to return to the place from which they started, and
arriving at this place (Cholula), not finding the means of reaching
the sun, enamored of his light and beauty, they determined to
build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky. Having
collected materials for the purpose, they found a very adhesive
clay and bitumen, with which they speedily commenced to build the
tower; and having reared it to the greatest possible altitude,
so that they say it reached to the sky, the Lord of the Heavens,
enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, 'Have you observed
how they of the earth have built a high and haughty tower to mount
hither, being enamored of the light of the sun and his beauty? Come
and confound them, because it is not right that they of the earth,
living in the flesh, should mingle with us.' Immediately the
inhabitants of the sky sallied forth like flashes of lightning;
they destroyed the edifice, and divided and scattered its builders
to all parts of the earth."
RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CHOLULA.
One can recognize in this legend the recollection, by a ruder race,
of a highly civilized people; for only a highly civilized people
would have attempted such a vast work. Their mental superiority and
command of the arts gave them the character of giants who arrived
from the East; who had divided into two great emigrations, one
moving eastward (toward Europe), the other westward (toward America).
They were sun-worshippers; for we are told "they were enamored of
the light and beauty of the sun," and they built a high place for
his worship.
The pyramid of Cholula is one of the greatest constructions ever
erected by human hands. It is even now, in its ruined condition,
160 feet high, 1400 feet square at the base, and covers forty-five
acres; we have only to remember that the greatest pyramid of Egypt,
Cheops, covers but twelve or thirteen acres, to form some conception
of the magnitude of this American structure.
It must not be forgotten that this legend was taken down by a Catholic
priest, shortly after the conquest of Mexico, from the lips of an
old Indian who was born before Columbus sailed from Spain.
Observe the resemblances between this legend and the Bible account
of the building of the Tower of Babel:
"All was a plain without hill or elevation," says the Indian legend.
"They found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there,"
says the Bible. They built of brick in both cases. "Let us build
us a tower whose top may reach unto heaven," says the Bible. "They
determined to build a tower so high that its summit should reach
the sky," says the Indian legend. "And the Lord came down to see
the city and the tower which the children of men had builded. And
the Lord said, Behol.... nothing will be restrained from them
which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound
them," says the Bible record. "The Lord of the Heavens, enraged,
said to the inhabitants of the sky, 'Have you observed,' etc. Come
and confound them," says the Indian record. "And the Lord scattered
them abroad from thence on all the face of the earth," says the
Bible. "They scattered its builders to all parts of the earth,"
says the Mexican legend.
Can any one doubt that these two legends must have sprung in some
way from one another, or from some common source? There are enough
points of difference to show that the American is not a servile copy
of the Hebrew legend. In the former the story comes from a native
of Cholula: it is told under the shadow of the mighty pyramid it
commemorates; it is a local legend which he repeats. The men who
built it, according to his account, were foreigners. They built
it to reach the sun--that is to say, as a sun-temple; while in
the Bible record Babel was built to perpetuate the glory of its
architects. In the Indian legend the gods stop the work by a great
storm, in the Bible account by confounding the speech of the people.
Both legends were probably derived from Atlantis, and referred to
some gigantic structure of great height built by that people; and
when the story emigrated to the east and west, it was in the one
case affixed to the tower of the Chaldeans, and in the other to
the pyramid of Cholula, precisely as we find the ark of the Deluge
resting upon separate mountain-chains all the way from Greece to
Armenia. In one form of the Tower of Babel legend, that of the
Toltecs, we are told that the pyramid of Cholula was erected "as
a means of escape from a second flood, should another occur."
But the resemblances between Genesis and the American legends do
not stop here.
We are told (Gen. ii., 21) that "the Lord God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam," and while he slept God made Eve out of one of
his ribs. According to the Quiche tradition, there were four men
from whom the races of the world descended (probably a recollection
of the red, black, yellow, and white races); and these men were
without wives, and the Creator made wives for them "while they
slept."
Some wicked misanthrope referred to these traditions when he said,
"And man's first sleep became his last repose."
In Genesis (chap. iii., 22), "And the Lord God said, Behold, the
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest
he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat,
and live forever:" therefore God drove him out of the garden. In
the Quiche legends we are told, "The gods feared that they had
made men too perfect, and they breathed a cloud of mist over their
vision."
When the ancestors of the Quiches migrated to America the Divinity
parted the sea for their passage, as the Red Sea was parted for
the Israelites.
The story of Samson is paralleled in the history of a hero named
Zipanca, told of in the "Popol Vuh," who, being captured by his
enemies and placed in a pit, pulled down the building in which his
captors had assembled, and killed four hundred of them.
"There were giants in those days," says the Bible. A great deal
of the Central American history is taken up with the doings of an
ancient race of giants called Quinames.
This parallelism runs through a hundred particulars:
Both the Jews and Mexicans worshipped toward the east.
Both called the south "the right hand of the world."
Both burnt incense toward the four corners of the earth.
Confession of sin and sacrifice of atonement were common to both
peoples.
Both were punctilious about washings and ablutions.
Both believed in devils, and both were afflicted with leprosy.
Both considered women who died in childbirth as worthy of honor as
soldiers who fell in battle.
Both punished adultery with stoning to death.
As David leaped and danced before the ark of the Lord, so did the
Mexican monarchs before their idols.
Both had an ark, the abiding-place of an invisible god.
Both had a species of serpent-worship.
GREAT SERPENT MOUND, OHIO.
Compare our representation of the great serpent-mound in Adams County,
Ohio, with the following description of a great serpent-mound in
Scotland:
"'Serpent-worship in the West'.--Some additional light appears to
have been thrown upon ancient serpent-worship in the West by the
recent archaeological explorations of Mr. John S. Phené, F.G.S.,
F.R.G.S., in Scotland. Mr. Phené has just investigated a curious
earthen mound in Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, referred to by him, at
the late meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, as being
in the form of a serpent or saurian. The mound, says the 'Scotsman',
is a most perfect one. The head is a large cairn, and the body of
the earthen reptile 300 feet long; and in the centre of the bead
there were evidences, when Mr. Phené first visited it, of an altar
having been placed there. The position with regard to Ben Cruachan
is most remarkable. The three peaks are seen over the length of
the reptile when a person is standing on the head, or cairn. The
shape can only be seen so as to be understood when looked down upon
from an elevation, as the outline cannot be understood unless the
whole of it can be seen. This is most perfect when the spectator
is on the bead of the animal form, or on the lofty rock to the west
of it. This mound corresponds almost entirely with one 700 feet
long in America, an account of which was lately published, after
careful survey, by Mr. Squier. The altar toward the head in each
case agrees. In the American mound three rivers (also objects of
worship with the ancients) were evidently identified. The number
three was a sacred number in all ancient mythologies. The sinuous
winding and articulations of the vertebral spinal arrangement
are anatomically perfect in the Argyleshire mound. The gentlemen
present with Mr. Phené during his investigation state that beneath
the cairn forming the head of the animal was found a megalithic
chamber, in which was a quantity of charcoal and burnt earth and
charred nutshells, a flint instrument, beautifully and minutely
serrated at the edge, and burnt bones. The back or spine of the
serpent, which, as already stated, is 300 feet long, was found,
beneath the peat moss, to be formed by a careful adjustment of
stones, the formation of which probably prevented the structure
from being obliterated by time and weather." ('Pall Mall Gazette'.)
STONE IMPLEMENTS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA
We find a striking likeness between the works of the Stone Age in
America and Europe, as shown in the figures here given.
The same singular custom which is found among the Jews and the
Hindoos, for "a man to raise up seed for his deceased brother by
marrying his widow," was found among the Central American nations.
(Las Casas, MS. "Hist. Apoloq.," cap. ccxiii., ccxv. Torquemada,
"Monarq. Ind.," tom. ii., 377-8.)
No one but the Jewish high-priest might enter the Holy of Holies.
A similar custom obtained in Peru. Both ate the flesh of the
sacrifices of atonement; both poured the blood of the sacrifice
on the earth; they sprinkled it, they marked persons with it, they
smeared it upon walls and stones. The Mexican temple, like the
Jewish, faced the east. "As among the Jews the ark was a sort of
portable temple, in which the Deity was supposed to be continually
present, so among the Mexicans, the Cherokees, and the Indians of
Michoacan and Honduras, an ark was held in the highest veneration,
and was considered an object too sacred to be touched by any but
the priests." (Kingsborough, "Mex. Antiq., "vol. viii., p.258.)
The Peruvians believed that the rainbow was a sign that the earth
would not be again destroyed by a deluge. ('Ibid'., p. 25.)
The Jewish custom of laying the sins of the people upon the head
of an animal, and turning him out into the wilderness, had its
counterpart among the Mexicans, who, to cure a fever, formed a
dog of maize paste and left it by the roadside, saying the first
passer-by would carry away the illness. (Dorman, "Prim. Super.,"
p. 59.) Jacob's ladder had its duplicate in the vine or tree of the
Ojibbeways, which led from the earth to heaven, up and down which
the spirits passed. ('Ibid'., p. 67.)
Both Jews and Mexicans offered water to a stranger that be might
wash his feet; both ate dust in token of humility; both anointed
with oil; both sacrificed prisoners; both periodically separated
the women, and both agreed in the strong and universal idea of
uncleanness connected with that period.
Both believed in the occult power of water, and both practised
baptism.
"Then the Mexican midwife gave the child to taste of the water,
putting her moistened fingers in its mouth, and said, 'Take this;
by this thou hast to live on the earth, to grow and to flourish;
through this we get all things that support existence on the earth;
receive it.' Then with moistened fingers she touched the breast
of the child, and said, 'Behold the pure water that washes and
cleanses thy heart, that removes all filthiness; receive it: may
the goddess see good to purify And cleanse thine heart.' Then the
midwife poured water upon the head of the child, saying, 'O my
grandson--my son--take this water of the Lord of the world, which
is thy life, invigorating and refreshing, washing and cleansing.
I pray that this celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter
into thy body, and there live; I pray that it may destroy in thee
and put away from thee all the things evil and adverse that were
'given thee before the beginning of the world'.... Wheresoever
thou art in this child, O thou hurtful thing, begone! leave it, put
thyself apart; for now does it live anew, and 'anew is it born';
now again is it purified and cleansed; now again is it shaped and
engendered by our mother, the goddess of water." (Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. iii., p. 372.)
Here we find many resemblances to the Christian ordinance of
baptism: the pouring of the water on the head, the putting of the
fingers in the mouth, the touching of the breast, the new birth,
and the washing away of the original sin. The Christian rite, we
know, was not a Christian invention, but was borrowed from ancient
times, from the great storehouse of Asiatic traditions and beliefs.
The Mexicans hung up the heads of their sacrificed enemies; this
was also a Jewish custom:
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people,
and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce
anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said
unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were
joined unto Baal-peor." (Numb., xxv., 4, 5.)
The Scythians, Herodotus tells us, scalped their enemies, and
carried the scalp at the pommel of their saddles; the Jews probably
scalped their enemies:
"But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp
of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses." (Psa., lxviii.,
21.)
The ancient Scandinavians practised scalping. When Harold Harefoot
seized his rival, Alfred, with six hundred followers, be "had them
maimed, blinded, hamstrung, scalped, or embowelled. (Taine's "Hist.
Eng. Lit.," p. 35.)
Herodotus describes the Scythian mode of taking the scalp:
He makes a cut round the head near the ears, and shakes the skull
out." This is precisely the Indian custom. "The more scalps a man
has," says Herodotus, "the more highly he is esteemed among them."
The Indian scalp-lock is found on the Egyptian monuments as one
of the characteristics of the Japhetic Libyans, who shaved all the
head except one lock in the middle.
The Mantchoos of Tartary wear a scalp-lock, as do the modern Chinese.
Byron describes the heads of the dead Tartars under the walls of
Corinth, devoured by the wild dogs:
"Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear, And each scalp
had a single long tuft of hair, All the rest was shaven and bare."
These resemblances are so striking and so numerous that repeated
attempts have been made to prove that the inhabitants of America
are the descendants of the Jews; some have claimed that they
represented "the lost tribes" of that people. But the Jews were
never a maritime or emigrating people; they formed no colonies; and
it is impossible to believe (as has been asserted) that they left
their flocks and herds, marched across the whole face of Asia, took
ships and sailed across the greatest of the oceans to a continent
of the existence of which they had no knowledge.
If we seek the origin of these extraordinary coincidences in
opinions and habits, we must go far back of the time of the lost
tribes. We must seek it in the relationship of the Jews to the
family of Noah, and in the identity of the Noachic race destroyed
in the Deluge with the people of the drowned Atlantis.
Nor need it surprise us to find traditions perpetuated for thousands
upon thousands of years, especially among a people having a religious
priesthood.
The essence of religion is conservatism; little is invented; nothing
perishes; change comes from without; and even when one religion
is supplanted by another its gods live on as the demons of the
new faith, or they pass into the folk-lore and fairy stories of
the people. We see Votan, a hero in America, become the god Odin
or Woden in Scandinavia; and when his worship as a god dies out
Odin survives (as Dr. Dasent has proved) in the Wild Huntsman of
the Hartz, and in the Robin Hood (Oodin) of popular legend. The
Hellequin of France becomes the Harlequin of our pantomimes. William
Tell never existed; he is a myth; a survival of the sun-god Apollo,
Indra, who was worshipped on the altars of Atlantis.
Nothing here but it doth change into something rich and strange."
The rite of circumcision dates back to the first days of Phoenicia,
Egypt, and the Cushites. It, too, was probably an Atlantean custom,
invented in the Stone Age. Tens of thousands of years have passed
since the Stone Age; the ages of copper, bronze, and iron bare
intervened; and yet to this day the Hebrew rabbi performs the
ceremony of circumcision with a stone knife.
Frothingham says, speaking of St. Peter's Cathedral, in Rome:
"Into what depths of antiquity the ceremonies carried me back! To
the mysteries of Eleusis; to the sacrificial rites of Phoenicia. The
boys swung the censors as censors had been swung in the adoration
of Bacchus. The girdle and cassock of the priests came from Persia;
the veil and tonsure were from Egypt; the alb and chasuble were
prescribed by Numa Pompilius; the stole was borrowed from the
official who used to throw it on the back of the victim that was
to be sacrificed; the white surplice was the same as described by
Juvenal and Ovid."
Although it is evident that many thousands of years must have passed
since the men who wrote in Sanscrit, in Northwestern India, could
have dwelt in Europe, yet to this day they preserve among their
ancient books maps and descriptions of the western coast of Europe,
and even of England and Ireland; and we find among them a fuller
knowledge of the vexed question of the sources of the Nile than
was possessed by any nation in the world twenty-five years ago.
This perpetuation of forms and beliefs is illustrated in the fact
that the formulas used in the Middle Ages in Europe to exorcise evil
spirits were Assyrian words, imported probably thousands of years
before from the magicians of Chaldea. When the European conjurer
cried out to the demon, "'Hilka, hilka, besha, besha'," he had
no idea that he was repeating the very words of a people who had
perished ages before, and that they signified 'Go away, go away,
evil one, evil one'. (Lenormant, "Anc. Hist. East," vol. i., p.
448.)
Our circle of 360 degrees; the division of a chord of the circle
equal to the radius into 60 equal parts, called degrees: the
division of these into 60 minutes, of the minute into 60 seconds,
and the second into 60 thirds; the division of the day into 24
hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds; the
division of the week into seven days, and the very order of the
days--all have come down to us from the Chaldeo-Assyrians; and
these things will probably be perpetuated among our posterity "to
the last syllable of recorded time."
We need not be surprised, therefore, to find the same legends and
beliefs cropping out among the nations of Central America and the
people of Israel. Nay, it should teach us to regard the Book of
Genesis with increased veneration, as a relic dating from the most
ancient days of man's history on earth; its roots cross the great
ocean; every line is valuable; a word, a letter, an accent may
throw light upon the gravest problems of the birth of civilization.
The vital conviction which, during thousands of years, at all times
pressed home upon the Israelites, was that they were a "chosen people,"
selected out of all the multitude of the earth, to perpetuate the
great truth that there was but one God--an illimitable, omnipotent,
paternal spirit, who rewarded the good and punished the wicked--in
contradistinction from the multifarious, subordinate, animal and
bestial demi-gods of the other nations of the earth. This sublime
monotheism could only have been the outgrowth of a high civilization,
for man's first religion is necessarily a worship of "stocks and
stones," and history teaches us that the gods decrease in number
as man increases in intelligence. It was probably in Atlantis that
monotheism was first preached. The proverbs of "Ptah-hotep," the
oldest book of the Egyptians, show that this most ancient colony
from Atlantis received the pure faith from the mother-land at the
very dawn of history: this book preached the doctrine of 'one'
God, "the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked."
(Reginald S. Poole, 'Contemporary Rev'., Aug., 1881, p. 38.) "In
the early days the Egyptians worshipped one only God, the maker
of all things, without beginning and without end. To the last the
priests preserved this doctrine and taught it privately to a select
few." ("Amer. Encycl.," vol. vi., p. 463.) The Jews took up this
great truth where the Egyptians dropped it, and over the beads and
over the ruins of Egypt, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, and India
this handful of poor shepherds--ignorant, debased, and despised--have
carried down to our own times a conception which could only have
originated in the highest possible state of human society.
And even skepticism must pause before the miracle of the continued
existence of this strange people, wading through the ages, bearing
on their shoulders the burden of their great trust, and pressing
forward under the force of a perpetual and irresistible impulse.
The speech that may be heard to-day in the synagogues of Chicago and
Melbourne resounded two thousand years ago in the streets of Rome;
and, at a still earlier period, it could be heard in the palaces
of Babylon and the shops of Thebes--in Tyre, in Sidon, in Gades,
in Palmyra, in Nineveh. How many nations have perished, how many
languages have ceased to exist, how many splendid civilizations
have crumbled into ruin, bow many temples and towers and towns
have gone down to dust since the sublime frenzy of monotheism first
seized this extraordinary people! All their kindred nomadic tribes
are gone; their land of promise is in the hands of strangers; but
Judaism, with its offspring, Christianity, is taking possession
of the habitable world; and the continuous life of one people--one
poor, obscure, and wretched people--spans the tremendous gulf
between "Ptah-hotep" and this nineteenth century.
If the Spirit of which the universe is but an expression--of whose
frame the stars are the infinite molecules--can be supposed ever
to interfere with the laws of matter and reach down into the doings
of men, would it not be to save from the wreck and waste of time the
most sublime fruit of the civilization of the drowned Atlantis--a
belief in the one, only, just God, the father of all life, the
imposer of all moral obligations?
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORIGIN OF OUR ALPHABET
One of the most marvellous inventions for the advancement of mankind
is the phonetic alphabet, or a system of signs representing the
sounds of human speech. Without it our present civilization could
scarcely have been possible.
No solution of the origin of our European alphabet has. yet been
obtained: we can trace it back from nation to nation, and form to
form, until we reach the Egyptians, and the archaic forms of the
Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Cushites, but. beyond this the light
fails us.
The Egyptians spoke of their hieroglyphic system of writing not as
their own invention, but as "the language of the gods." (Lenormant
and Cheval, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. ii., p. 208.) "The gods"
were, doubtless, their highly civilized ancestors--the people of
Atlantis--who, as we shall hereafter see, became the gods of many
of the Mediterranean races.
"According to the Phoenicians, the art of writing was invented by
Taautus, or Taut, 'whom the Egyptians call Thouth,' and the Egyptians
said it was invented by Thouth, or Thoth, otherwise called 'the
first Hermes,' in which we clearly see that both the Phoenicians
and Egyptians referred the invention to a period older than their
own separate political existence, and to an older nation, from
which both peoples received it." (Baldwin's "Prehistoric Nations,"
p. 91.)
The "first Hermes," here referred to (afterward called Mercury by
the Romans), was a son of Zeus and Maia, a daughter of Atlas. This
is the same 'Maia' whom the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg identifies
with the Maya of Central America.
Sir William Drummond, in his "Origines," said:
"There seems to be no way of accounting either for the early use
of letters among so many different nations, or for the resemblance
which existed between some of the graphic systems employed by
those nations, than by supposing hieroglyphical writing, if I may
be allowed the term, to have been in use among the Tsabaists in
the first ages after the Flood, when Tsabaisin (planet-worship)
was the religion of almost every country that was yet inhabited."
Sir Henry Rawlinson says:
"So great is the analogy between the first principles of the Science
of writing, as it appears to have been pursued in Chaldea, and as
we can actually trace its progress in Egypt, that we can hardly
hesitate to assign the original invention 'to a period before the
Hamitic race had broken up and divided'."
It is not to be believed that such an extraordinary system of
sound-signs could have been the invention of any one man or even
of any one age. Like all our other acquisitions, it must have been
the slow growth and accretion of ages; it must have risen step by
step from picture-writing through an intermediate condition like
that of the Chinese, where each word or thing was represented by
a separate sign. The fact that so old and enlightened a people as
the Chinese have never reached a phonetic alphabet, gives us some
indication of the greatness of the people among whom it was invented,
and the lapse of time before they attained to it.
Humboldt says:
"According to the views which, since Champollion's great discovery,
have been gradually adopted regarding the earlier condition of
the development of alphabetical writing, the Phoenician as well as
the Semitic characters are to be regarded as a phonetic alphabet
that has originated from pictorial writing; as one in which the
ideal signification of the symbols is wholly disregarded, and the
characters are regarded as mere signs for sounds." ("Cosmos," vol.
ii., p. 129.)
Baldwin says (" Prehistoric Nations," p. 93):
"The nation that became mistress of the seas, established communication
with every shore, and monopolized the commerce of the known world,
must have substituted a phonetic alphabet for the hieroglyphics
as it gradually grew to this eminence; while isolated Egypt,
less affected by the practical wants and tendencies of commercial
enterprise, retained the hieroglyphic system, and carried it to a
marvellous height of perfection."
It must be remembered that some of the letters of our alphabet are
inventions of the later nations. In the oldest alphabets there
was no 'c', the 'g' taking its place. The Romans converted the
'g' into 'c'; and then, finding the necessity for a 'g' Sign, made
one by adding a tail-piece to the 'c' ('C, G'). The Greeks added
to the ancient alphabet the 'upsilon', shaped like our V or Y, the
two forms being used at first indifferently: they added the X sign;
they converted the t of the Phoenicians into 'th', or 'theta'; 'z'
and 's' into signs for double consonants; they turned the Phoenician
'y' ('yod') into 'i' ('iota'). The Greeks converted the Phoenician
alphabet, which was partly consonantal, into one purely phonetic--"a
perfect instrument for the expression of spoken language." The 'w'
was also added to the Phoenician alphabet. The Romans added the
'y'. At first 'i' and 'j' were both indicated by the same sound;
a sign for 'j' was afterward added. We have also, in common with
other European languages, added a double U, that is, VV, or W, to
represent the 'w' sound.
The letters, then, which we owe to the Phoenicians, are A, B, C,
D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, Z. If we are to trace
out resemblances with the alphabet of any other country, it must
be with these signs.
Is there any other country to which we can turn which possessed
a phonetic alphabet in any respect kindred to this Phoenician
alphabet? It cannot be the Chinese alphabet, which has more signs
than words; it cannot be the cuneiform alphabet of Assyria, with
its seven hundred arrow-shaped characters, none of which bear the
slightest affinity to the Phoenician letters.
It is a surprising fact that 'we find in Central America a phonetic
alphabet'. This is in the alphabet of the Mayas, the ancient people
of the peninsula of Yucatan, who claim that their civilization
came to them across the sea in ships from the east, that is, from
the direction of Atlantis. The Mayas succeeded to the Colhuas,
whose era terminated one thousand years before the time of Christ;
from them they received their alphabet. It has come to us through
Bishop Landa, one of the early missionary bishops, who confesses
to having burnt a great number of Maya books because they contained
nothing but the works of the devil. He fortunately, however,
preserved for posterity the alphabet of this people. We present
it herewith.
LANDA'S ALPHABET (From "North Amer. of Antiquity," p. 434.)
Diego de Landa was the first bishop of Yucatan. He wrote a history
of the Mayas and their country, which was preserved in manuscript
at Madrid in the library of the Royal Academy of History.... It
contains a description and explanation of the phonetic alphabet
of the Mayas. Landa's manuscript seems to have lain neglected in
the library, for little or nothing was heard of it until it was
discovered by the French priest Brasseur de Bourbourg, who, by
means of it, has deciphered some of the old American writings. he
says, 'the alphabet and signs explained by Landa have been to me
a Rosetta stone.'" (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p. 191.)
When we observe, in the table of alphabets of different European
nations which I give herewith, how greatly the forms of the
Phoenician letters have been modified, it would surprise us to find
any resemblance between the Maya alphabet of two or three centuries
since and the ancient European forms. It must, however, be
remembered that the Mayas are one of the most conservative peoples
in the world. They still adhere with striking pertinacity to the
language they spoke when Columbus landed on San Salvador; and it
is believed that that language is the same as the one inscribed on
the most ancient monuments of their country. Señor Pimental says
of them, "The Indians have preserved this idiom with such tenacity
that they will speak no other; it is necessary for the whites to
address them in their own language to communicate with them." It
is therefore probable, as their alphabet did not pass from nation
to nation, as did the Phoenician, that it has not departed so widely
from the original forms received from the Colhuas.
The Alphabet
But when we consider the vast extent of time which has elapsed,
and the fact that we are probably without the intermediate stages
of the alphabet which preceded the archaic Phoenician, it will
be astonishing if we find resemblances between 'any' of the Maya
letters and the European forms, even though we concede that they
are related. If we find decided affinities between two or three
letters, we may reasonably presume that similar coincidences existed
as to many others which have disappeared under the attrition of
centuries.
The first thought that occurs to us on examining the Landa alphabet
is the complex and ornate character of the letters. Instead of
the two or three strokes with which we indicate a sign for a sound,
we have here rude pictures of objects. And we find that these are
themselves simplifications of older forms of a still more complex
character. Take, for instance, the letter 'pp' in Landa's alphabet,
### : here are evidently the traces of a face. The same appear,
but not so plainly, in the sign for 'x', which is ### . Now, if
we turn to the ancient hieroglyphics upon the monuments of Central
America, we will find the human face appearing in a great many of
them, as in the following, which we copy from the Tablet of the
Cross at Palenque. We take the hieroglyphs from the left-hand
side of the inscription. Here it will be seen that, out of seven
hieroglyphical figures, six contain human faces. And we find that
in the whole inscription of the Tablet of the Cross there are 33
figures out of 108 that are made up in part of the human countenance.
We can see, therefore, in the Landa alphabet a tendency to
simplification. And this is what we would naturally expect. When
the emblems--which were probably first intended for religious
inscriptions, where they could be slowly and carefully elaborated--were
placed in the bands of a busy, active, commercial people, such as
were the Atlanteans, and afterward the Phoenicians, men with whom
time was valuable, the natural tendency would be to simplify and
condense them; and when the original meaning of the picture was
lost, they would naturally slur it, as we find in the letters 'pp'
and 'x' of the Maya alphabet, where the figure of the human face
remains only in rude lines.
The same tendency is plainly shown in the two forms of the letter
'h', as given in Landa's alphabet; the original form is more
elaborate than the variation of it. The original form is ### The
variation is given as ###. Now let us suppose this simplification
to be carried a step farther: we have seen the upper and lower
parts of the first form shrink into a smaller and less elaborate
shape; let us imagine that the same tendency does away with them
altogether; we would then have the letter H of the Maya alphabet
represented by this figure, ###; now, as it takes less time to make
a single stroke than a double one, this would become in time ###.
We turn now to the archaic Greek and the old Hebrew, and we find the
letter 'h' indicated by this sign, ###, precisely the Maya letter
'h' simplified. We turn to the archaic Hebrew, and we find ###.
Now it is known that the Phoenicians wrote from right to left, and
just as we in writing from left to right slope our letters to the
right, so did the Phoenicians slope their letters to the left.
Hence the Maya sign becomes in the archaic Phoenician this, ###.
In some of the Phoenician alphabets we even find the letter h
made with the double strokes above and below, as in the Maya 'h'.
The Egyptian hieroglyph for 'h' is ### while 'ch' is ###. In time
the Greeks carried the work of simplification still farther, and
eliminated the top lines, as we have supposed the Atlanteans to
have eliminated the double strokes, and they left the letter as it
has come down to us, H.
Now it may be said that all this is coincidence. If it is, it is
certainly remarkable. But let us go a step farther:
We have seen in Landa's alphabet that there are two forms of the
letter m. The first is ###. But we find also an 'm' combined with
the letter 'o', 'a', or 'e', says Landa, in this form, ###. The 'm'
here is certainly indicated by the central part of this combination,
the figure ###; where does that come from? It is clearly taken
from the heart of the original figure wherein it appears. What
does this prove? That the Atlanteans, or Mayas, when they sought
to simplify their letters and combine them with others, took from
the centre of the ornate hieroglyphical figure some characteristic
mark with which they represented the whole figure. Now let us
apply this rule:
We have seen in the table of alphabets that in every language, from
our own day to the time of the Phoenicians, 'o' has been represented
by a circle or a circle within a circle. Now where did the Phoenicians
get it? Clearly from the Mayas. There are two figures for 'o' in
the Maya alphabet; they are ### and ###; now, if we apply the rule
which we have seen to exist in the case of the Maya 'm' to these
figures, the essential characteristic found in each is the circle,
in the first case pendant from the hieroglyph; in the other, in the
centre of the lower part of it. And that this circle was withdrawn
from the hieroglyph, and used alone, as in the case of the 'm',
is proved by the very sign used at the foot of Landa's alphabet,
which is, ### Landa calls this 'ma', 'me', or 'mo'; it is probably
the latter, and in it we have the circle detached from the hieroglyph.
We find the precise Maya 'o' a circle in a circle, or a dot within
a circle, repeated in the Phoenician forms for 'o', thus, ### and
###, and by exactly the same forms in the Egyptian hieroglyphics;
in the Runic we have the circle in the circle; in one form of the
Greek o the dot was placed along-side of the circle instead of
below it, as in the Maya.
Are these another set of coincidences?
Take another letter:
The letter 'n' of the Maya alphabet is represented by this sign,
itself probably a simplification of some more ornate form, ###.
This is something like our letter S, but quite unlike our N. But
let us examine into the pedigree of our 'n'. We find in the archaic
Ethiopian, a language as old as the Egyptian, and which represents
the Cushite branch of the Atlantean stock, the sign for 'n' ('na')
is ###; in archaic Phoenician it comes still closer to the S shape,
thus, ###, or in this form, ###; we have but to curve these angles
to approximate it very closely to the Maya 'n'; in Troy this form
was found, ###. The Samaritan makes it ###; the old Hebrew ###;
the Moab stone inscription gives it ###; the later Phoenicians
simplified the archaic form still further, until it became ###;
then it passed into ###: the archaic Greek form is ###; the later
Greeks made ###, from which it passed into the present form, N.
All these forms seem to be representations of a serpent; we turn to
the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyphic
for 'n' was the serpent, ###; the Pelasgian 'n' was ###; the
Arcadian, ###; the Etruscan, ###.
Can anything be more significant than to find the serpent the sign
for 'n' in Central America, and in all these Old World languages?
Now turn to the letter 'k'. The Maya sign for 'k' is ###. This does
not look much like our letter K; but let us examine it. Following
the precedent established for us by the Mayas in the case of the
letter m, let us see what is the distinguishing feature here; it
is clearly the figure of a serpent standing erect, with its tail
doubled around its middle, forming a circle. It has already been
remarked by Savolini that this erect serpent is very much like the
Egyptian 'Uræus', an erect serpent with an enlarged body--a sacred
emblem found in the hair of their deities. We turn again to the
valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for
'k' was a serpent with a convolution or protuberance in the middle,
precisely as in the Maya, thus, ###; this was transformed into the
Egyptian letter ###; the serpent and the protuberance reappear in
one of the Phoenician forms of 'k', to wit, ###; while in the Punic
we have these forms, ### and ###. Now suppose a busy people trying
to give this sign: instead of drawing the serpent in all its
details they would abbreviate it into something like this, ###; now
we turn to the ancient Ethiopian sign for 'k' ('ka'), and we have
###, or the Himyaritic Arabian ###; while in the Phoenician it
becomes ###; in the archaic Greek, ###; and in the later Greek,
when they changed the writing from left to right, ###. So that the
two lines projecting from the upright stroke of our English K are
a reminiscence of the convolution of the serpent in the Maya original
and the Egyptian copy.
Turn now to the Maya sign for 't': it is ###. What is the
distinctive mark about this figure? It is the cross composed of
two curved lines, thus, ###. It is probable that in the Maya sign
the cross is united at the bottom, like a figure '8'. Here again
we turn to the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian
hieroglyph for 't' is ### and ###; and in the Syriac 't' it is
###. We even find the curved lines of the Maya 't' which give it
something of the appearance of the numeral '8', repeated accurately
in the Mediterranean alphabets; thus the Punic 't' repeats the
Maya form almost exactly as ### and ###. Now suppose a busy people
compelled to make this mark every day for a thousand years, and
generally in a hurry, and the cross would soon be made without
curving the lines; it would become X. But before it reached even
that simplified form it had crossed the Atlantic, and appeared in
the archaic Ethiopian sign for 'tsa', thus, ###. In the archaic
Phoenician the sign for ### is ### and ###; the oldest Greek form
is ### or ### and the later Greeks gave it to the Romans ###, and
modified this into ###; the old Hebrew gave it as ### and ###; the
Moab stone as ###; this became in time ### and ###.
Take the letter 'a'. In the Maya there are three forms given for
this letter. The first is ###; the third is ###. The first looks
very much like the foot of a lion or tiger; the third is plainly
a foot or boot. If one were required to give hurriedly a rude
outline of either of these, would he not represent it thus, ###;
and can we not conceive that this could have been in time modified
into the Phoenician 'a', which was ###? The hieratic Egyptian
'a' was ###; the ancient Hebrew, which was ### or ###; the ancient
Greek was the foot reversed, ###; the later Greek became our A.
Turn next to the Maya sign for 'q' ('ku'): it is ###. Now
what is the peculiarity of this hieroglyph? The circle below is
not significant, for there are many circular figures in the Maya
alphabet. Clearly, if one was called upon to simplify this, he
would retain the two small circles joined side by side at the top,
and would indicate the lower circle with a line or dash. And when
we turn to the Egyptian 'q' we find it in this shape, ###; we turn
to the Ethiopian 'q' ('khua'), and we find it ###, as 'qua', ###;
while the Phoenician comes still nearer the supposed Maya form in
###; the Moab stone was ###; the Himyaritic Arabian form became ###;
the Greek form was ###, which graduated into the Roman Q. But a
still more striking proof of the descent of the Phoenician alphabet
from the Maya is found in the other form of the 'q', the Maya 'cu',
which is ###. Now, if we apply the Maya rule to this, and discard
the outside circle, we have this left, ###. In time the curved line
would be made straight, and the figure would assume this form, ###;
the next step would be to make the cross on the straight line, thus,
###. One of the ancient Phoenician forms is ###. Can all this be
accident?
The letter 'c' or 'g' (for the two probably gave the same sound as
in the Phoenician) is given in the Maya alphabet as follows, ###.
This would in time be simplified into a figure representing the
two sides of a triangle with the apex upward, thus, ###. This is
precisely the form found by Dr. Schliemann in the ruins of Troy,
###. What is the Phoenician form for 'g' as found on the Moab
stone? It is ###. The Carthaginian Phoenicians gave it more of a
rounded form, thus, ###. The hieratic Egyptian figure for 'g' was
###; in the earlier Greek form the left limb of the figure was
shortened, thus, ###; the later Greeks reversed it, and wrote it
###; the Romans, changed this into ### and it finally became C.
In the Maya we have one sign for 'p', and another for 'pp'. The
first contains a curious figure, precisely like our 'r' laid on
its back ###, There is, apparently, no 'r' in the Maya alphabet;
and the Roman 'r' grew out of the later Phoenician 'r' formed thus,
###; it would appear that the earliest Phoenician alphabet did
not contain the letter 'r'. But if we now turn to the Phoenician
alphabet, we will find one of the curious forms of the 'p' given
thus, ###, a very fair representation of an 'r' lying upon its
face. Is it not another remarkable coincidence that the 'p', in
both Maya and Phoenician, should contain this singular sign?
The form of 'pp' in the Maya alphabet is this, ###. If we are
asked, on the principle already indicated, to reduce this to its
elements, we would use a figure like this, ###; in time the tendency
would be to shorten one of these perpendicular lines, thus, and
this we find is very much like the Phoenician 'p', ###. The Greek
'ph' is ###.
The letter 'l' in the Maya is in two forms; one of these is ###,
the other is ###. Now, if we again apply the rule which we observed
to hold good with the letter 'm'--that is, draw from the inside
of the hieroglyph some symbol that will briefly indicate the whole
letter--we will have one of two forms, either a right-angled figure
formed thus, ###, or an acute angle formed by joining the two lines
which are unconnected, thus, ###; and either of these forms brings
us quite close to the letter 'l' of the Old World. We find 'l' on
the Moab stone thus formed, ###. The archaic Phoenician form of 'l'
was ###, or ###; the archaic Hebrew was ### and ###; the hieratic
Egyptian was ###; the Greek form was ###--the Roman L.
The Maya letter 'b' is shaped thus, ###. Now, if we turn to the
Phoenician, we find that 'b' is represented by the same crescent-like
figure which we find in the middle of this hieroglyph, but reversed
in the direction of the writing, thus, ###; while in the archaic
Hebrew we have the same crescent figure as in the Maya, turned in
the same direction, but accompanied by a line drawn downward, and
to the left, thus, ###; a similar form is also found in the Phoenician
###, and this in the earliest Greek changed into ###, and in the
later Greek into B. One of the Etruscan signs for 'b' was ###, while
the Pelasgian 'b' was represented thus, ###; the Chaldaic 'b' was
###; the Syriac sign for 'b' was ###; the Illyrian 'b' was ###.
The Maya 'e' is ###; this became in time ###; then ### (we see
this form on the Maya monuments); the dots in time were indicated
by strokes, and we reach the hieratic Egyptian form, ###: we even
find in some of the ancient Phoenician inscriptions the original
Maya circles preserved in making the letter 'e', thus, ###; then
we find the old Greek form, ###; the old Hebrew, ###; and the later
Phoenician, ###: when the direction of the writing was changed this
became ###. Dr. Schliemann found a form like this on inscriptions
deep in the ruins of Troy, ###. This is exactly the form found on
the American monuments.
The Maya 'i' is ###; this became in time ###; this developed into
a still simpler form, ###; and this passed into the Phoenician form,
###. The Samaritan 'i' was formed thus, ### ; the Egyptian letter
'i' is ### : gradually in all these the left-hand line was dropped,
and we come to the figure used on the stone of Moab, ### and ###;
this in time became the old Hebrew ###, or ###; and this developed
into the Greek ###.
We have seen the complicated symbol for 'm' reduced by the Mayas
themselves into this figure, ###: if we attempt to write this
rapidly, we find it very difficult to always keep the base lines
horizontal; naturally we form something like this, ###: the
distinctive figure within the sign for 'm' in the Maya is ### or
###. We see this repeated in the Egyptian hieroglyphics for 'm',
###, and ###, and ###; and in the Chaldaic 'm', ###; and in the
Ethiopic ###. We find one form of the Phoenician where the 'm' is
made thus, ###; and in the Punic it appears thus, ###; and this
is not unlike the 'm' on the stone of Moab, ###, or the ancient
Phoenician forms ###, ###, and the old Greek ###, or the ancient
Hebrew ###, ###.
The ###, 'x', of the Maya alphabet is a hand pointing downward ###,
this, reduced to its elements, would be expressed some thing like
this, ### or ###; and this is very much like the 'x' of the archaic
Phoenician, ###; or the Moab stone, ###; or the later Phoenician
### or the Hebrew ###, ###, or the old Greek, ###: the later Greek
form was ###.
The Maya alphabet contains no sign for the letter 's'; there is,
however, a symbol called 'ca' immediately above the letter 'k'; it
is probable that the sign 'ca' stands for the soft sound of 'c',
as, in our words 'citron', 'circle', 'civil', 'circus', etc. As
it is written in the Maya alphabet 'ca', and not 'k', it evidently
represents a different sound. The sign 'ca' is this, ###. A
somewhat similar sign is found in the body of the symbol for 'k',
thus, ###, this would appear to be a simplification of 'ca', but
turned downward. If now we turn to the Egyptian letters we find
the sign 'k' represented by this figure ###, simplified again into
###; while the sign for 'k' in the Phoenician inscription on the
stone of Moab is ###. If now we turn to the 's' sound, indicated
by the Maya sign 'ca', ###, we find the resemblance still more
striking to kindred European letters. The Phoenician 's' is ###;
in the Greek this becomes ### ###; the Hebrew is ### ###; the
Samaritan, ###. The Egyptian hieroglyph for 's' is ###; the Egyptian
letter 's' is ###; the Ethiopic, ###; the Chaldaic, ###; and the
Illyrian 's c' is ###.
We have thus traced back the forms of eighteen of the ancient letters
to the Maya alphabet. In some cases the pedigree, is so plain as
to be indisputable.
For instance, take the 'h':
Maya, ###; old Greek, ###; old Hebrew, ###; Phoenician, ###.
Or take the letter 'o':
Maya, ###; old Greek, ###; old Hebrew, ###; Phoenician, ###.
Or take the letter 't':
Maya, ###; old Greek, ###; old Phoenician, ### and ###.
Or take the letter 'q':
Maya, ###; old Phoenician, ### and ###; Greek, ###.
Or take the letter 'k':
Maya, ###; Egyptian, ###; Ethiopian, ###; Phoenician, ###.
Or take the letter 'n':
Maya, ###; Egyptian, ###; Pelasgian ###, Arcadian,###; Phoenician,
###.
Surely all this cannot be accident!
But we find another singular proof of the truth of this theory: It
will be seen that the Maya alphabet lacks the letter 'd' and the
letter 'r'. The Mexican alphabet possessed a 'd'. The sounds 'd'
and 't' were probably indicated in the Maya tongue by the same
sign, called 't' in the Landa alphabet. The Finns and Lapps do not
distinguish between these two sounds. In the oldest known form of
the Phoenician alphabet, that found on the Moab stone, we find in
the same way but one sign to express the 'd' and 't'. 'D' does not
occur on the Etruscan monuments, 't' being used in its place. It
would, therefore, appear that after the Maya alphabet passed to the
Phoenicians they added two new signs for the letters 'd' and 'r';
and it is a singular fact that their poverty of invention seems
to have been such that they used to express both 'd' and 'r', the
same sign, with very little modification, which they had already
obtained from the Maya alphabet as the symbol for 'b'. To illustrate
this we place the signs side by side:
It thus appears that the very signs 'd' and 'r', in the Phoenician,
early Greek, and ancient Hebrew, which are lacking in the Maya, were
supplied by imitating the Maya sign for 'b'; and it is a curious
fact that while the Phoenician legends claim that Taaut invented
the art of writing, yet they tell us that Taaut made records, and
"delivered them to his successors and to foreigners, of whom one
was Isiris (Osiris, the Egyptian god), 'the inventor of the three
letters'." Did these three letters include the 'd' and 'r', which
they did not receive from the Atlantean alphabet, as represented
to us by the Maya alphabet?
In the alphabetical table which we herewith append we have represented
the sign V, or vau, or 'f', by the Maya sign for U. "In the present
so-called Hebrew, as in the Syriac, Sabæic, Palmyrenic, and some
other kindred writings, the 'vau' takes the place of F, and indicates
the sounds of 'v' and 'u'. F occurs in the same place also on the
Idalian tablet of Cyprus, in Lycian, also in Tuarik (Berber), and
some other writings." ("American Cyclopædia," art. F.)
Since writing the above, I find in the "Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society" for December, 1880, p. 154, an interesting
article pointing out other resemblances between the Maya alphabet
and the Egyptian. I quote:
It is astonishing to notice that while Landa's first B is,
according to Valentini, represented by a footprint, and that path
and footprint are pronounced 'Be' in the Maya dictionary, the
Egyptian sign for B was the human leg.
"Still more surprising is it that the H of Landa's alphabet is a
tie of cord, while the Egyptian H is a twisted cord.... But the
most striking coincidence of all occurs in the coiled or curled
line representing Landa's U; 'for it is absolutely identical with
the Egyptian curled U'. The Mayan word for to wind or bend is
Uuc; but why should Egyptians, confined as they were to the valley
of the Nile, and abhorring as they did the sea and sailors, write
their U precisely like Landa's alphabet U in Central America?
There is one other remarkable coincidence between Landa's and the
Egyptian alphabets; and, by-the-way, the English and other Teutonic
dialects have a curious share in it. Landa's D (T) is a disk with
lines inside the four quarters, the allowed Mexican symbol for a day
or sun. So far as sound is concerned, the English day represents
it; so far as the form is concerned, the Egyptian 'cake,' ideograph
for (1) country and (2) the sun's orbit is essentially the same."
It would appear as if both the Phoenicians and Egyptians drew their
alphabet from a common source, of which the Maya is a survival,
but did not borrow from one another. They followed out different
characteristics in the same original hieroglyph, as, for instance,
in the letter 'b'. And yet I have shown that the closest resemblances
exist between the Maya alphabet and the Egyptian signs--in the 'c',
'h', 't', 'i', 'k', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'q', and 's'--eleven letters in
all; in some cases, as in the 'n' and 'k', the signs are identical;
the 'k', in both alphabets, is not only a serpent, but a serpent
with a protuberance or convolution in the middle! If we add to
the above the 'b' and 'u', referred to in the "Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society," we have thirteen letters out of
sixteen in the Maya and Egyptian related to each other. Can any
theory of accidental coincidences account for all this? And it must
be remembered that these resemblances are found between the only
two phonetic systems of alphabet in the world.
Let us suppose that two men agree that each shall construct apart
from the other a phonetic alphabet of sixteen letters; that they
shall employ only simple forms--combinations of straight or curved
lines--and that their signs shall not in anywise resemble the letters
now in use. They go to work apart; they have a multitudinous array
of forms to draw from the thousand possible combinations of lines,
angles, circles, and curves; when they have finished, they bring
their alphabets together for comparison. Under such circumstances
it is possible that out of the sixteen signs one sign might appear
in both alphabets; there is one chance in one hundred that such
might be the case; but there is not one chance in five hundred
that this sign should in both cases represent the same sound. It
is barely possible that two men working thus apart should bit upon
two or three identical forms, but altogether impossible that these
forms should have the same significance; and by no stretch of the
imagination can it be supposed that in these alphabets so created,
without correspondence, thirteen out of sixteen signs should be
the same in form and the same in meaning.
It is probable that a full study of the Central American monuments
may throw stronger light upon the connection between the Maya and
the European alphabets, and that further discoveries of inscriptions
in Europe may approximate the alphabets of the New and Old World
still more closely by supplying intermediate forms.
We find in the American hieroglyphs peculiar signs which take the
place of pictures, and which probably, like the hieratic symbols
mingled with the hieroglyphics of Egypt, represent alphabetical
sounds. For instance, we find this sign on the walls of the palace
of Palenque, ###; this is not unlike the form of the Phoenician
't' used in writing, ### and ###; we find also upon these monuments
the letter 'o' represented by a small circle, and entering into
many of the hieroglyphs; we also find the 'tau' sign (thus ###)
often repeated; also the sign which we have supposed to represent
'b', ###; also this sign, ###, which we think is the simplification
of the letter 'k'; also this sign, which we suppose to represent
'e', ###; also this figure, ###; and this ###. There is an evident
tendency to reduce the complex figures to simple signs whenever
the writers proceed to form words.
Although it has so far been found difficult, if not impossible,
to translate the compound words formed from the Maya alphabet, yet
we can go far enough to see that they used the system of simpler
sounds for the whole hieroglyph to which we have referred.
Bishop Landa gives us, in addition to the alphabet, the signs which
represent the days and months, and which are evidently compounds
of the Maya letters. For instance, we have this figure as the
representative of the month 'Mol' ###. Here we see very plainly
the letter ### for 'm', the sign ### for 'o'; and we will possibly
find the sign for 'l' in the right angle to the right of the 'm'
sign, and which is derived from the figure in the second sign for
'l' in the Maya alphabet.
One of the most ancient races of Central America is the Chiapenec,
a branch of the Mayas. They claim to be the first settlers of the
country. They came, their legends tell us, from the East, from
beyond the sea.
And even after the lapse of so many thousand years most remarkable
resemblances have been found to exist between the Chiapenec language
and the Hebrew, the living representative of the Phoenician tongue.
The Mexican scholar, Señor Melgar ("North Americans of Antiquity,"
p. 475) gives the following list of words taken from the Chiapenec
and the Hebrew:
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| 'English....... | 'Chiapenec.' | 'Hebrew.' |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| So.... ...... | Bee....... Ben.....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Daughte.... .... Bat....... Bath....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Fathe.... .... | Abag...... Abba....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Star in Zodia.... | Chima.... | Chimah. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Kin.... ....... Mol....... Maloc. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Name applied to Adam | Abag...... Abah....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Afflicte...... | Chana.... | Chanan. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Go.... ...... | Ela....... Elab....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Septembe...... | Tsiquin.... Tischiri. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Mor.... ....... Chi....... Chi.....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Ric.... ....... Chabi.... | Chabic. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| Son of Set...... | Eno....... Enos....
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
| To giv.... .... Vota...... Votan. |
+----------------------+--------------+-----------+
Thus, while we find such extraordinary resemblances between the Maya
alphabet and the Phoenician alphabet, we find equally surprising
coincidences between the Chiapenec tongue, a branch of the Mayas,
and the Hebrew, a branch of the Phoenician.
Attempts have been repeatedly made by European scholars to trace
the letters of the Phoenician alphabet back to the elaborate
hieroglyphics from which all authorities agree they must have been
developed, but all such attempts have been failures. But here, in
the Maya alphabet, we are not only able to extract from the heart
of the hieroglyphic the typical sign for the sound, but we are able
to go a step farther, and, by means of the inscriptions upon the
monuments of Copan and Palenque, deduce the alphabetical hieroglyph
itself from an older and more ornate figure; we thus not Only
discover the relationship of the European alphabet to the American,
but we trace its descent in the very mode in which reason tells us
it must have been developed. All this proves that the similarities
in question did not come from Phoenicians having accidentally visited
the shores of America, but that we have before us the origin, the
source, the very matrix in which the Phoenician alphabet was formed.
In the light of such a discovery the inscriptions upon the monuments
of Central America assume incalculable importance; they take us
back to a civilization far anterior to the oldest known in Europe;
they represent the language of antediluvian times.
It may be said that it is improbable that the use of an alphabet
could have ascended to antediluvian times, or to that prehistoric
age when intercourse existed between ancient Europe and America;
but it must be remembered that if the Flood legends of Europe and
Asia are worth anything they prove that the art of writing existed
at the date of the Deluge, and that records of antediluvian learning
were preserved by those who escaped the Flood; while Plato tells
us that the people of Atlantis engraved their laws upon columns of
bronze and plates of gold.
There was a general belief among the ancient nations that the art
of writing was known to the antediluvians. The Druids believed in
books more ancient than the Flood. They styled them "the books of
Pheryllt," and "the writings of Pridian or Hu." "Ceridwen consults
them before she prepares the mysterious caldron which shadows out
the awful catastrophe of the Deluge." (Faber's "Pagan Idolatry,"
vol. ii., pp. 150, 151.) In the first 'Avatar' of Vishnu we are told
that "the divine ordinances were stolen by the demon Haya-Griva.
Vishnu became a fish; and after the Deluge, when the waters
had subsided, he recovered the holy books 'from the bottom of the
ocean'." Berosus, speaking of the time before the Deluge, says:
"Oannes wrote concerning the generations of mankind and their
civil polity." The Hebrew commentators on Genesis say, "Our rabbins
assert that Adam, our father of blessed memory, composed a book of
precepts, which were delivered to him by God in Paradise." (Smith's
"Sacred Annals," p. 49.) That is to say, the Hebrews preserved a
tradition that the Ad-ami, the people of Ad, or Adlantis, possessed,
while yet dwelling in Paradise, the art of writing. It has been
suggested that without the use of letters it would have been impossible
to preserve the many details as to dates, ages, and measurements,
as of the ark, handed down to us in Genesis. Josephus, quoting
Jewish traditions, says, "The births and deaths of illustrious
men, between Adam and Noah, were noted down at the time with great
accuracy." (Ant., lib. 1, cap. iii., see. 3.) Suidas, a Greek
lexicographer of the eleventh century, expresses tradition when
he says, "Adam was the author of arts and letters." The Egyptians
said that their god Anubis was an antediluvian, and it wrote annals
'before' the Flood." The Chinese have traditions that the earliest
race of their nation, prior to history, "taught all the arts of
life and wrote books." "The Goths always had the use of letters;"
and Le Grand affirms that before or soon after the Flood "there were
found the acts of great men engraved in letters on large stones."
(Fosbroke's "Encyclopædia of Antiquity," vol. i., p. 355.) Pliny
says, "Letters were always in use." Strabo says, "The inhabitants
of Spain possessed records 'written before the Deluge'." (Jackson's
"Chronicles of Antiquity," vol. iii., p. 85.) Mitford ("History of
Greece," vol. i, p. 121) says, "Nothing appears to us so probable
as that it (the alphabet) was derived from the antediluvian world."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRONZE AGE IN EUROPE.
There exist in Europe the evidences of three different ages of
human development:
1. The Stone Age, which dates back to a vast antiquity. It is
subdivided into two periods: an age of rough stone implements; and
a later age, when these implements were ground smooth and made in
improved forms.
2. The Bronze Age, when the great mass of implements were manufactured
of a compound metal, consisting of about nine parts of copper and
one part of tin.
3. An age when iron superseded bronze for weapons and cutting
tools, although bronze still remained in use for ornaments. This
age continued down to what we call the Historical Period, and embraces
our present civilization; its more ancient remains are mixed with
coins of the Gauls, Greeks, and Romans.
The Bronze Period has been one of the perplexing problems of
European scientists. Articles of bronze are found over nearly all
that continent, but in especial abundance in Ireland and Scandinavia.
They indicate very considerable refinement and civilization upon the
part of the people who made them; and a wide diversity of opinion
has prevailed as to who that people were and where they dwelt.
In the first place, it was observed that the age of bronze (a
compound of copper and tin) must, in the natural order of things,
have been preceded by an age when copper and tin were used separately,
before the ancient metallurgists had discovered the art of combining
them, and yet in Europe the remains of no such age have been found.
Sir John Lubbock says ("Prehistoric Times," p. 59), "The absence
of implements made either of copper or tin seems to me to indicate
that 'the art of making bronze was introduced into, not invented in,
Europe'." The absence of articles of copper is especially marked,
nearly all the European specimens of copper implements have been
found in Ireland; and yet out of twelve hundred and eighty-three
articles of the Bronze Age, in the great museum at Dublin, only
thirty celts and one sword-blade are said to be made of pure copper;
and even as to some of these there seems to be a question.
Where on the face of the earth are we to find a Copper Age? Is it
in the barbaric depths of that Asia out of whose uncivilized tribes
all civilization is said to have issued? By no means. Again we are
compelled to turn to the West. In America, from Bolivia to Lake
Superior, we find everywhere the traces of a long-enduring Copper
Age; bronze existed, it is true, in Mexico, but it held the same
relation to the copper as the copper held to the bronze in Europe--it
was the exception as against the rule. And among the Chippeways
of the shores of Lake Superior, 'and among them alone', we find any
traditions of the origin of the manufacture of copper implements;
and on the shores of that lake we find pure copper, out of which
the first metal tools were probably hammered before man had learned
to reduce the ore or run the metal into moulds. And on the shores
of this same American lake we find the ancient mines from which some
people, thousands of years ago, derived their supplies of copper.
IMPLEMENTS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE BRONZE AGE
Sir W. R. Wilde says, "It is remarkable that so few antique copper
implements have been found (in Europe), although a knowledge of
that metal must have been the preliminary stage in the manufacture
of bronze." He thinks that this may be accounted for by supposing
that "but a short time elapsed between the knowledge of smelting and
casting copper ore and the introduction of tin, and the subsequent
manufacture and use of bronze."
But here we have in America the evidence that thousands of years
must have elapsed during which copper was used alone, before it was
discovered that by adding one-tenth part of tin it gave a harder
edge, and produced a superior metal.
The Bronze Age cannot be attributed to the Roman civilization. Sir
John Lubbock shows ("Prehistoric Times," p. 21) that bronze weapons
have never been found associated with Roman coins or pottery, or
other remains of the Roman Period; that bronze articles have been
found in the greatest abundance in countries like Ireland and
Denmark, which were never invaded by Roman armies; and that the
character of the ornamentation of the works of bronze is not Roman
in character, and that the Roman bronze contained a large proportion
of lead, which is never the case in that of the Bronze Age.
It has been customary to assume that the Bronze Age was due to
the Phoenicians, but of late the highest authorities have taken
issue with this opinion. Sir John Lubbock ('Ibid'., p. 73) gives
the following reasons why the Phoenicians could not have been the
authors of the Bronze Age: First, the ornamentation is different.
In the Bronze Age "this always consists of geometrical figures,
and we rarely, if ever, find upon them representations of animals
and plants, while on the ornamented shields, etc., described by
Homer, as well as in the decoration of Solomon's Temple, animals
and plants were abundantly represented." The cuts on p. 242 will
show the character of the ornamentation of the Bronze Age. In the
next place, the form of burial is different in the Bronze Age from
that of the Phoenicians. "In the third place, the Phoenicians, so
far as we know them, were well acquainted with the use of iron;
in Homer we find the warriors already armed with iron weapons, and
the tools used in preparing the materials for Solomon's Temple were
of this metal."
This view is also held by M. de Fallenberg, in the "Bulletin de la
Société des Sciences" of Berne. (See "Smithsonian Rep.," 1865-66,
p. 383.) He says,
ORNAMENTS OF THE BRONZE AGE
"It seems surprising that the nearest neighbors of the Phoenicians--the
Greeks, the Egyptians, the Etruscans, and the Romans--should have
manufactured 'plumbiferous' bronzes, while the Phoenicians carried
to the people of the North only pure bronzes without the alloy
of lead. If the civilized people of the Mediterranean added lead
to their bronzes, it can scarcely be doubted that the calculating
Phoenicians would have done as much, and, at least, with distant
and half-civilized tribes, have replaced the more costly tin by the
cheaper metal.... On the whole, then, I consider that the first
knowledge of bronze may have been conveyed to the populations of
the period tinder review not only by the Phoenicians, but by other
civilized people dwelling more to the south-east."
Professor E. Desor, in his work on the "Lacustrian Constructions
of the Lake of Neuchatel," says,
"The Phoenicians certainly knew the use of iron, and it can scarcely
be conceived why they should have excluded it from their commerce
on the Scandinavian coasts.... The Etruscans, moreover, were
acquainted with the use of iron as well as the Phoenicians, and
it has already been seen that the composition of their bronzes is
different, since it contains lead, which is entirely a stranger
to our bronze epoch.... We must look, then, 'beyond' both the
Etruscans and Phoenicians in attempting to identify the commerce
of the Bronze Age of our palafittes. It will be the province
of the historian to inquire whether, exclusive of Phoenicians and
Carthaginians, there may not have been some maritime and commercial
people who carried on a traffic through the ports of Liguria with
the populations of the age of bronze of the lakes of Italy 'before
the discovery of iron'. We may remark, in passing, that there is
nothing to prove that the Phoenicians were the first navigators.
History, on the Contrary, positively mentions prisoners, under the
name of Tokhari, who were vanquished in a naval battle fought by
Rhamses III. in the thirteenth century before our era, and whose
physiognomy, according to Morton, would indicate the Celtic type.
Now there is room to suppose that if these Tokhari were energetic
enough to measure their strength on the sea with one of the powerful
kings of Egypt, they must, with stronger reason, have been in a
condition to carry on a commerce along the coasts of the Mediterranean,
and perhaps of the Atlantic. If such a commerce really existed
before the time of the Phoenicians, it would not be limited to
the southern slope of the Alps; it would have extended also to the
people of the age of bronze in Switzerland. The introduction of
bronze would thus ascend to a very high antiquity, doubtless beyond
the limits of the most ancient European races."
For the merchants of the Bronze Age we must look beyond even the
Tokhari, who were contemporaries of the Phoenicians.
The Tokhari, we have seen, are represented as taken prisoners, in
a sea-fight with Rhamses III., of the twentieth dynasty, about the
thirteenth century B.C. They are probably the 'Tochari' of Strabo.
The accompanying figure represents one of these people as they
appear upon the Egyptian monuments. (See Nott and Gliddon's "Types
of Mankind," p. 108.) Here we have, not an inhabitant of Atlantis,
but probably a representative of one of the mixed races that sprung
from its colonies.
Dr. Morton thinks these people, as painted on the Egyptian monuments,
to have "strong Celtic features. Those familiar with the Scotch
Highlanders may recognize a speaking likeness."
It is at least interesting to have a portrait of one of the daring
race who more than three thousand years ago left the west of Europe
in their ships to attack the mighty power of Egypt.
They were troublesome to the nations of the East for many centuries;
for in 700 B.C. we find them depicted on the Assyrian monuments.
This figure represents one of the Tokhari of the time of Sennacherib.
It will be observed that the headdress (apparently of feathers)
is the same in both portraits, al, though separated by a period of
six hundred years.
It is more reasonable to suppose that the authors of the bronze
Age of Europe were the people described by Plato, who were workers
in metal, who were highly civilized, who preceded in time all
the nations which we call ancient. It was this people who passed
through an age of copper before they reached the age of bronze, and
whose colonies in America represented this older form of metallurgy
as it existed for many generations.
Professor Desor says:
"We are asked if the preparation of bronze was not an indigenous
invention which had originated on the slopes of the Alps.... In this
idea we acquiesced for a moment. But we are met by the objection
that, if this were so, the natives, like the ancient tribes of
America, would have commenced by manufacturing utensils of 'copper';
yet thus far no utensils of this metal have been found except a
few in the strand of Lake Garda. The great majority of metallic
objects is of bronze, which necessitated the employment of tin,
and this could not be obtained except by commerce, inasmuch as it
is a stranger to the Alps. It would appear, therefore, more natural
to admit that the art of combining tin with copper--in other words,
'that the manufacture of bronze--was of foreign importation'." He
then shows that, although copper ores are found in the Alps, the
probability is that even "the copper also was of foreign importation.
Now, in view of the prodigious quantity of bronze manufactured
at that epoch, this single branch of commerce must itself have
'necessitated the most incessant commercial communications'."
And as this commerce could not, as we have seen, have been carried
on by the Romans, Greeks, Etruscans, or Phoenicians, because their
civilizations flourished during the Iron Age, to which this age of
bronze was anterior, where then are we to look for a great maritime
and commercial people, who carried vast quantities of copper,
tin, and bronze (unalloyed by the lead of the south of Europe) to
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, England, France, Spain, Switzerland,
and Italy? Where can we find them save in that people of Atlantis,
whose ships, docks, canals, and commerce provoked the astonishment
of the ancient Egyptians, as recorded by Plato. The Toltec root
for water is 'Atl'; the Peruvian word for copper is 'Anti' (from
which, probably, the Andes derived their name, as there was a
province of Anti on their slopes): may it not be that the name of
Atlantis is derived from these originals, and signified the copper
island, or the copper mountains in the sea? And from these came the
thousands of tons of copper and tin that must, during the Bronze
Age, have been introduced into Europe? There are no ancient works
to indicate that the tin mines of Cornwall were worked for any
length of time in the early days (see "Prehistoric Times," p. 74).
Morlot has pointed out that the bronze implements of Hallstadt, in
Austria, were of foreign origin, because they contain no lead or
silver.
Or, if we are to seek for the source of the vast amount of copper
brought into Europe somewhere else than in Atlantis, may it not
be that these supplies were drawn in large part from the shores
of Lake Superior in America? The mining operations of some ancient
people were there carried on upon a gigantic scale, not only along
the shores of the lake but even far out upon its islands. At Isle
Royale vast works were found, reaching to a depth of sixty feet;
great intelligence was shown in following up the richest veins
even when interrupted; the excavations were drained by underground
drains. On three sections of land on this island the amount of
mining exceeded that mined in twenty years in one of our largest
mines, with a numerous force constantly employed. In one place
the excavations extended in a nearly continuous line for two miles.
No remains of the dead and no mounds are found near these mines:
it would seem, therefore, that the miners came from a distance,
and carried their dead back with them. Henry Gillman ("Smithsonian
Rep.," 1873, p. 387) supposes that the curious so-called "Garden
Beds" of Michigan were the fields from which they drew their supplies
of food. He adds,
"The discoveries in Isle Royale throw a new light on the character
of the 'Mound Builders,' giving us a totally distinct conception
of them, and dignifying them with something of the prowess and
spirit of adventure which we associate with the higher races. The
copper, the result of their mining, to be available, must, in all
probability, have been conveyed in vessels, great or small, across
a treacherous and stormy sea, whose dangers are formidable to us
now, being dreaded even by our largest craft, and often proving
their destruction. Leaving their homes, those men dared to face
the unknown, to brave the hardships and perils of the deep and of
the wilderness, actuated by an ambition which we to-day would not
be ashamed to acknowledge."
Such vast works in so remote a land must have been inspired by the
commercial necessities of some great civilization; and why not by
that ancient and mighty people who covered Europe, Asia, and Africa
with their manufactures of bronze-and who possessed, as Plato
tells us, enormous fleets trading to all parts of the inhabited
world-whose cities roared with the continual tumult of traffic,
whose dominion extended to Italy and Egypt, and who held parts of
"the great opposite continent" of America under their control? A
continuous water-way led, from the island of Atlantis to the Gulf
of Mexico, and thence up the Mississippi River and its tributaries
almost to these very mines of Lake Superior.
Arthur Mitchell says ("The Past in the Present," p. 132),
"The discovery of bronze, and the knowledge of how to make it, may,
as a mere intellectual effort, be regarded as rather above than
below the effort which is involved in the discovery and use of
iron. As regards bronze, there is first the discovery of copper,
and the way of getting it from its ore; then the discovery of tin,
and the way to get it from its ore; and then the further discovery
that, by an admixture of tin with copper in proper proportions, an
alloy with the qualities of a hard metal can be produced. It is
surely no mistake to say that there goes quite as much thinking to
this as to the getting of iron from its ore, and the conversion of
that iron into steel. There is a considerable leap from stone to
bronze, but the leap from bronze to iron is comparatively small....
It seems highly improbable, if not altogether absurd, that the
human mind, at some particular stage of its development, should
here, there, and everywhere--independently, and as the result of
reaching that stage--discover that an alloy of copper and tin yields
a hard metal useful in the manufacture of tools and weapons. There
is nothing analogous to such an occurrence in the known history
of human progress. It is infinitely more probable that bronze was
discovered in one or more centres by one or more men, and that its
first use was solely in such centre or centres. That the invention
should then be perfected, and its various applications found out,
and that it should thereafter spread more or less broadly over the
face of the earth, is a thing easily understood."
We will find the knowledge of bronze wherever the colonies of
Atlantis extended, and nowhere else; and Plato tells us that the
people of Atlantis possessed and used that metal.
The indications are that the Bronze Age represents the coming in of
a new people--a civilized people. With that era, it is believed,
appears in Europe for the first time the domesticated animals-the
horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and the hog. (Morlot, "Smithsonian
Rep.," 1860, p. 311.) It was a small race, with very small hands;
this is shown in the size of the sword-hilts: they are not large
enough to be used by the present races of Europe. They were a race
with long skulls, as contradistinguished. from the round heads of
the Stone Period. The drawings on the following page represent
the types of the two races.
SKULLS OF THE AGE OF STONE, DENMARK
This people must have sent out colonies to the shores of France,
Spain, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, and Norway, who bore with them the
arts and implements of civilized life. They raised crops of grain,
as is proved by the bronze sickles found in different parts of
Europe.
It is not even certain that their explorations did not reach to
Iceland. Says Humboldt,
"When the Northmen first landed in Iceland (A.D. 875), although the
country was uninhabited, they found there Irish books, mass-bells,
and other objects which had been left behind by earlier visitors,
called Papar; these papæ (fathers) were the clerici of Dicuil. If,
then, as we may suppose from the testimony here referred to, these
objects belonged to Irish monks (papar), who had come from the Faroe
Islands, why should they have been termed in the native sagas 'West
men' (Vestmen), ''who had come over the sea from the westward''
(kommer til vestan um haf)?" (Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii., 238.)
If they came "from the West" they could not have come from Ireland;
and the Scandinavians may easily have mistaken Atlantean books and
bells for Irish books and mass-bells. They do not say that there
were any evidences that these relics belonged to a people who had
recently visited the island; and, as they found the island uninhabited,
it would be impossible for them to tell how many years or centuries
had elapsed since the books and bells were left there.
The fact that the implements of the Bronze Age came from some common
centre, and did not originate independently in different countries,
is proved by the striking similarity which exists between the bronze
implements of regions as widely separated as Switzerland, Ireland,
Denmark, and Africa. It is not to be supposed that any overland
communication existed in that early age between these countries;
and the coincidence of design which we find to exist can only be
accounted for by the fact that the articles of bronze were obtained
from some sea-going people, who carried on a commerce at the same
time with all these regions.
CELTS
Compare, for instance, these two decorated bronze celts. the first
from Ireland, the second from Denmark; and then compare both these
with a stone celt found in a mound in Tennessee, given below. Here
we have the same form precisely.
LEAF SHAPED BRONZE SWORDS
Compare the bronze swords in the four preceding illustrations-from
Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark-and then observe the
same very peculiar shape--the leaf-shape, as it is called--in the
stone sword from Big Harpeth River, Tennessee.
We shall find, as we proceed, that the Phoenicians were unquestionably
identified with Atlantis, and that it was probably from Atlantis
they derived their god Baal, or Bel, or El, whose name crops out
in the Bel of the Babylonians, the Elohim, and the Beelzebub of the
Jews, and the Allah of the Arabians, And we find that this great
deity, whose worship extended so widely among the Mediterranean
races, was known and adored also upon the northern and western
coasts of Europe. Professor Nilsson finds traces of Baal worship
in Scandinavia; he tells us that the festival of Baal, or Balder,
was celebrated on midsummer's night in Scania, and far up into
Norway, almost to the Loffoden Islands, until within the last fifty
years. The feast of Baal, or Beltinne, was celebrated in Ireland
to a late period. I argue from these facts, not that the worship
of Baal came to Ireland and Norway from Assyria or Arabia, but that
the same great parent-race which carried the knowledge of Baal to
the Mediterranean brought it also to the western coasts of Europe,
and with the adoration of Baal they imported also the implements
of bronze now found in such abundance in those regions.
The same similarity of form exists in the bronze knives from Denmark
and Switzerland, as represented in the illustrations on p. 254.
In the central figure we have a representation of an Egyptian-looking
man holding a cup before him. We shall see, as we proceed, that
the magnetic needle, or "mariner's compass," dates back to the days
of Hercules, and that it consisted of a bar of magnetized iron
floating upon a piece of wood in a cup. It is possible that in
this ancient relic of the Bronze Age we have a representation of
the magnetic cup. The magnetic needle must certainly have been an
object of great interest to a people who, through its agency, were
able to carry on commerce on all the shores of Europe, from the
Mediterranean to the Baltic. The second knife represented above
has upon its handle a wheel, or cross surrounded by a ring, which,
we shall see here after, was pre-eminently the symbol of Atlantis.
If we are satisfied that these implements of bronze were the work
of the artisans of Atlantis--of the antediluvians--they must acquire
additional and extraordinary interest in our eyes, and we turn to
them to earn something of the habits and customs of "that great,
original, broad-eyed, sunken race."
We find among the relies of the Bronze Age an urn, which probably
gives us some idea of the houses of the Atlanteans: it is evidently
made to represent a house, and shows us even the rude fashion in
which they fastened their doors. The Mandan Indiana built round
houses very much of this appearance.
The museum at Munich contains a very interesting piece of pottery,
which is supposed to represent one of the lake villages or hamlets
of the era when the people of Switzerland dwelt in houses erected
on piles driven into the bottom of the lakes of that country. The
accompanying illustration represents it. The double spiral ornament
upon it shows that it belongs to the Bronze Age.
Among the curious relies of the Bronze Age are a number of
razor-like knives; from which we may conclude that the habit of
shaving the whole or some part of the face or head dates back to
a great antiquity. The illustrations below represent them.
These knives were found in Denmark. The figures upon them represent
ships, and it is not impossible that their curious appendages may
have been a primitive kind of sails.
BRONZE RAZOR-KNIVES.
An examination of the second of these bronze knives reveals
a singular feature: Upon the handle of the razor there are 'ten'
series of lines; the stars in the sky are 'ten' in number; and there
were probably 'ten' rings at the left-hand side of the figure, two
being obliterated. There were, we are told, ten sub-kingdoms in
Atlantis; and precisely as the thirteen stripes on the American
flag symbolize the thirteen original States of the Union, so
the recurrence of the figure ten in the emblems upon this bronze
implement may have reference to the ten subdivisions of Atlantis.
The large object in the middle of this ship may be intended
to represent a palm-tree-the symbol, as we shall see, in America,
of Aztlan, or Atlantis. We have but to compare the pictures of
the ships upon these ancient razor-knives with the accompanying
representations of a Roman galley and a ship of William the
Conqueror's time, to see that t |
