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Title: Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Author: Donnelly, Ignatius, 1831-1901
Language: English
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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 OF 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
ATLANTIS:
THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
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 an 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 he 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, he tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There he 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 he commenced in verse a history and description of Atlantis, which
he left unfinished at his death; and it requires no great stretch of the
imagination to believe that this manuscript reached the hands 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 he 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 he 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 he 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 he
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 how 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 he 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 how 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 he 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 he 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, he 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 he 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 he touched the
roof of the building with his head; 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, he 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 he 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 that 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, and 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 forty 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, he 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 hog, 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; he 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 he 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, an 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 = 17,520 | |
+--------------------+----------+
| | = 39,180 |
+--------------------+----------+
| 12 X 1805 = 21,660 | |
+--------------------+----------+
"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. |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,460 | 1,805 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 1,822 | 712 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| _____ | _____ |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 2,782 | 2,517 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 4,242 | 4,322 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 5,702 | 6,127 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 7,162 | 7,932 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 8,622 | 9,737 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 10,082 | 11,542 |
+-----------------+--------------+
| 11,542 | |
+-----------------+--------------+
"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 comet 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: It 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 in 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,
sank 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 Yaiza,
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 up 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, lit 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 MEDITERRANEAN, 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 bones 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 caves,
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 say, 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 scarcely 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. Schoebel (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 hills, 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 he 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 in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply
upon the earth.
"And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his 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): he was the first that tilled the
earth, having emerged from a more primitive condition in which he 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 the
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;
how 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, he 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 full 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 in 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 it] 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 caverns ... -- ... I will exercise my
judgment on that which is on high and that which is below ... -- ...
Close the vessel ... -- ... 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 fix ... --I
shall see ... and the vessel ... --the vessel thou commandest me to
build [thus] which in...."
"'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. I 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 heads 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 sun ...
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 broke ... of the surface of the earth like...;--[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.
"'I 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," he 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 an 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 Mann, 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.' Mann descended
with the waters, and this is what is called the descent of Mann 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 Mann 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 he 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 he 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 up. 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 was 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 Edda.
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 he 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 yet 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
heard 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 (caves), 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 royalty ... 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 no 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, he built a raft, on which he 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 an 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 he 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 he 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. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| I | 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. | Mawr | 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. | Saxon | Sanscrit. | German. | Danish. | Sioux. | Other | Primary |
| | | | | | | | Languages. | Signification. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | See, | Seon | | Sehen | Sigt | Sin | | Appearing, |
| | seen | | | | | | | visible. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Pinso | Pound | Punian | | | | Pau | W., | Beating |
| | | | | | | | Pwynian | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Vado | Went | Wendan | | | | Winta | | Passage. |
| | Wend | | | | | | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Town | Tun | | Zaun | Tun | Tonwe | Gaelic, | |
| | | | | | | | Dun | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Qui | Who | Hwa | Kwas | Wir | | Tuwe | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Weapon | Wepn | | Wapen | Vaapen | Wipe | | Sioux dimin. |
| | | | | | | | | Wipena |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Ego | I | Ic | Agam | Ich | Jeg | Mish | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Cor | Core | | | | | Co | Gr., Kear | Centre, heart |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Eight | Achta | Aute | Acht | Otte | Shaktogan | Gr., Okto | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Canna | Cane | | | | | Can | Heb., Can | Reed, weed, |
| | | | | | | | W., Cawn | wood. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Pock | Pock | Poc | | Pocke | Pukkel | Poka | Dutch, | Swelling. |
| | | | | | | | Poca | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | With | With | | Wider | | Wita | Goth., | |
| | | | | | | | Gewithan. | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Doughty | Dohtig | | Taugen | Digtig | Dita | | Hot, brave, |
| | | | | | | Ditaya | | daring. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Tight | Tian | | Dicht | Digt | Titan | | Strain. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Tango | Touch | Taecan | | Ticken | Tekkan | Tan | | Touch, take. |
| Tactus | Take | | | | | Htaka | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Child | Cild | | Kind | Kuld | Cin | | Progeny. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Work | Wercan | | | | Woccas | Dutch, | Labor, motion. |
| | | | | | | Hecon | Werk | |
| | | | | | | | Span., | |
| | | | | | | | Hecho | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Shackle | Seoacul | | | | Shka | Ar., | to bind (a |
| | | | | | | | Schakala, | link). |
| | | | | | | | Dutch, | |
| | | | | | | | Schakel | |
| | | | | | | | Teton, | |
| | | | | | | | Shakalan | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Query | | | | | | Kuiva | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Shabby | | | | 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 he 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 falling 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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar
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
Mannfactures.--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, he 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 hands; 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, he 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
name 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 day | The birds all met together one |
| to try which could fly the | day, and settled among themselves |
| highest. Some flew up very | that whichever of them could fly |
| swift, but soon got tired, and | highest was to be the king of |
| were passed by others of | all. Well, just as they were on |
| stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what |
| went up beyond them all, and | 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 very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So |
| small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, |
| eagle's back, where it had | till the eagle was miles above |
| 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 and | birds." "You lie!" says the wren, |
| met in council to award the | darting up a perch and a half |
| prize it was given to the | above the big fellow. Well, the |
| eagle, because that bird had | eagle was so mad to think how he |
| not only gone up nearer to the | was done, that when the wren was |
| sun than any of the larger | 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 most | |
| honorable marks of distinction | |
| a warrior could bear. | |
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+
Compare the following stories:
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| THE ASIATIC STORY. | THE AMERICAN STORY. |
| | |
| In Hindoo mythology Urvasi came | Wampee, a great hunter, once |
| down from heaven and became the | came to a strange prairie, |
| wife of the son of Buddha only on | where he heard faint sounds of |
| condition that two pet rams | music, and looking up saw a |
| should never be taken from her | speck in the sky, which proved |
| bedside, and that she should | itself to be a basket |
| never behold her lord undressed. | containing twelve most |
| The immortals, however, wishing | beautiful maidens, who, on |
| Urvasi back in heaven, contrived | reaching the earth, forthwith |
| to steal the rams; and, as the | set themselves to dance. He |
| king pursued the robbers with his | tried to catch the youngest, |
| sword in the dark, the lightning | but in vain; ultimately he |
| revealed his person, the compact | succeeded by assuming the |
| was broken, and Urvasi | disguise of a mouse. He was |
| disappeared. This same story is | very attentive to his new wife, |
| found in different forms among | who was really a daughter of |
| many people of Aryan and Turanian | one of the stars, but she |
| 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 till | remembered, ascended to her |
| he breaks the condition on which | father. |
| her residence with him depends, | |
| stories exactly parallel to that | |
| of Raymond of Toulouse, who | |
| chances in the hunt upon the | |
| beautiful Melusina at a fountain, | |
| and lives with her happily until | |
| he discovers her fish-nature and | |
| 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 head, 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
he 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 the ones who 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 relics. 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 head 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.'" ("Mannal," 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 coming 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-ula |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| 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 caves 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 Mann 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 east 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 natives ... 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 Mann 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 legends 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, Behold ...
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
archæological 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 head 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 head 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 he 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, he "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 to 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 have 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 heads 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, how 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
hands 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
hit 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. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Son | Been | Ben. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Daughter | Batz | Bath. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Father | Abagh | Abba. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Star in Zodiac | Chimax | Chimah. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| King | Molo | Maloc. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Name applied to Adam | Abagh | Abah. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Afflicted | Chanam | Chanan. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| God | Elab | Elab. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| September | Tsiquin | Tischiri. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| More | Chic | Chi. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Rich | Chabin | Chabic. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| Son of Seth | Enot | Enos. |
+----------------------+------------+-----------+
| To give | Votan | 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 under 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 learn
something of the habits and customs of "that great, original,
broad-eyed, sunken race."
We find among the relics 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 Indians 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 relics 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 there can
be no question that they represented the galleys of that remote age.
They are doubtless faithful portraits of the great vessels which Plato
described as filling the harbors of Atlantis.
SHIP OF WILLIAM THE CONQUERER.
We give on page 258 a representation of a bronze dagger found in
Ireland, a strongly-made weapon. The cut below it represents the only
implement of the Bronze Age yet found containing an inscription. It has
been impossible to decipher it, or even to tell to what group of
languages its alphabet belongs.
It is proper to note, in connection with a discussion of the Bronze Age,
that our word bronze is derived from the Basque, or Iberian broncea,
from which the Spanish derive bronce, and the Italians bronzo. The
copper mines of the Basques were extensively worked at a very early age
of the world, either by the people of Atlantis or by the Basques
themselves, a colony from Atlantis. The probabilities are that the name
for bronze, as well as the metal itself, dates back to Plato's island.
I give some illustrations on pages 239 and 242 of ornaments and
implements of the Bronze Age, which may serve to throw light upon the
habits of the ancient people. It will be seen that they had reached a
considerable degree of civilization; that they raised crops of grain,
and cut them with sickles; that their women ornamented themselves with
bracelets, armlets, earrings, finger-rings, hair-pins, and amulets; that
their mechanics used hammers, adzes, and chisels; and that they
possessed very fair specimens of pottery. Sir John Lubbock argues
("Prehistoric Times," pp. 14, 16, etc.):
"A new civilization is indicated not only by the mere presence of bronze
but by the beauty and variety of the articles made from it. We find not
only, as before, during the Stone Age, axes, arrows, and knives, but, in
addition, swords, lances, sickles, fish-hooks, ear-rings, bracelets,
pins, rings, and a variety of other articles."
If the bronze implements of Europe had been derived from the Phoenicians,
Greeks, Etruscans, or Romans, the nearer we approached the site of those
nations the greater should be the number of bronze weapons we would
find; but the reverse is the case. Sir John Lubbock ("Prehistoric
Times," p. 20) shows that more than three hundred and fifty bronze
swords have been found in Denmark, and that the Dublin Museum contains
twelve hundred and eighty-three bronze weapons found in Ireland;
"while," he says, "I have only been able to hear of six bronze swords in
all Italy." This state of things is inexplicable unless we suppose that
Ireland and Denmark received their bronze implements directly from some
maritime nation whose site was practically as near their shores as it
was to the shores of the Mediterranean. We have but to look at our map
on page 43, ante, to see that Atlantis was considerably nearer to
Ireland than it was to Italy.
The striking resemblance between the bronze implements found in the
different portions of Europe is another proof that they were derived
from one and the same source--from some great mercantile people who
carried on their commerce at the same time with Denmark, Norway,
Ireland, Spain, Greece, Italy, Egypt, Switzerland, and Hungary. Mr.
Wright ("Essays on Archæology," p. 120) says, "Whenever we find the
bronze swords or celts,
VASES FROM MOUNDS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
whether in Ireland, in the far west, in Scotland, in distant
Scandinavia, in Germany, or still farther east, in the Sclavonic
countries, they are the same--not similar in character, but identical."
Says Sir John Lubbock ("Prehistoric Times," p. 59), "Not only are the
several varieties of celts found throughout Europe alike, but some of
the swords, knives, daggers, etc., are so similar that they seem as if
they must have been cast by the same maker."
What race was there, other than the people of Atlantis, that existed
before the Iron Age--before the Greek, Roman, Etruscan, and
Phoenician--that was civilized, that worked in metals, that carried on a
commerce with all parts of Europe? Does history or tradition make
mention of any such?
We find a great resemblance between the pottery of the Bronze Age in
Europe and the pottery of the ancient inhabitants of America. The two
figures on page 260 represent vases from one of the mounds of the
Mississippi Valley. Compare them with the following from the lake
dwellings of Switzerland:
VASES FROM SWITZERLAND.
It will be seen that these vases could scarcely stand upright
unsupported; and we find that the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland had
circles or rings of baked earth in which they placed them when in use,
as in the annexed figure. The Mound Builders used the same contrivance.
The illustrations of discoidal stones on page 263 are from the "North
Americans of Antiquity," p. 77. The objects represented were taken from
an ancient mound in Illinois. It would be indeed surprising if two
distinct peoples, living in two different continents, thousands of miles
apart, should, without any intercourse with each other, not only form
their vases in the same inconvenient form, but should hit upon the same
expedient as a remedy.
We observe, in the American spear-head and the Swiss hatchets, on the
opposite page, the same overlapping of the metal around the staff, or
handle--a very peculiar mode of uniting them together, which has now
passed out of use.
A favorite design of the men of the Bronze Age in Europe is the spiral
or double-spiral form. It appears on the face of the urn in the shape of
a lake dwelling, which is given on p. 255; it also appears in the rock
sculptures of Argyleshire, Scotland, here shown.
We find the same figure in an ancient fragment of pottery from the
Little Colorado, as given in the "United States Pacific Railroad Survey
Report," vol. iii., p. 49, art. Pottery. It was part of a large vessel.
The annexed illustration represents this.
DISCOIDAL STONES, ILLINOIS.
COPPER SPEAR-HEAD, LAKE SUPERIOR.
BRONZE HATCHETS, SWITZERLAND.
The same design is also found in ancient rock etchings of the Zuñis of
New Mexico, of which the cut on p. 265 is an illustration.
We also find this figure repeated upon vase from a Mississippi Valley
mound, which we give elsewhere. (See p. 260.)
It is found upon many of the monuments of Central America. In the
Treasure House of Atreus, at Mycenæ, Greece, a fragment of a pillar was
found which is literally covered with this double spiral design. (See
"Rosengarten's Architectural Styles," p. 59.)
This Treasure House of Atreus is one of the oldest buildings in Greece.
We find the double-spiral figure upon a shell ornament found on the
breast of a skeleton, in a carefully constructed stone coffin, in a
mound near Nashville, Tennessee.
Lenormant remarks ("Anc. Civil.," vol. ii., p. 158) that the bronze
implements found in Egypt, near Memphis, had been buried for six
thousand years; and that at that time, as the Egyptians had a horror of
the sea, some commercial nation must have brought the tin, of which the
bronze was in part composed, from India, the Caucasus, or Spain, the
nearest points to Egypt in which tin is found.
Heer has shown that the civilized plants of the lake dwellings are not
of Asiatic, but of African, and, to a great extent, of Egyptian origin.
Their stone axes are made largely of jade or nephrite, "a mineral which,
strange to say, geologists have not found in place on the continent of
Europe." (Foster's "Prehistoric Races," p. 44.)
Compare this picture of a copper axe from a mound near Laporte, Indiana,
with this representation of a copper axe of the Bronze Age, found near
Waterford, Ireland. Professor Foster pronounces them almost identical.
Compare this specimen of pottery from the lake dwellings of Switzerland
with the following specimen from San José, Mexico. Professor Foster
calls attention to the striking resemblance in the designs of these two
widely separated works of art, one belonging to the Bronze Age of
Europe, the other to the Copper Age of America.
+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| FRAGMENT OF POTTERY, LAKE | FRAGMENT OF POTTERY, SAN JOSÉ, |
| NEUFCHATEL, SWITZERLAND. | MEXICO. |
+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
These, then, in conclusion, are our reasons for believing that the
Bronze Age of Europe has relation to Atlantis:
1. The admitted fact that it is anterior in time to the Iron Age
relegates it to a great antiquity.
2. The fact that it is anterior in time to the Iron Age is conclusive
that it is not due to any of the known European or Asiatic nations, all
of which belong to the Iron Age.
3. The fact that there was in Europe, Asia, or Africa no copper or tin
age prior to the Bronze Age, is conclusive testimony that the
manufacture of bronze was an importation into those continents from some
foreign country.
4. The fact that in America alone of all the world is found the Copper
Age, which must necessarily have preceded the Bronze Age, teaches us to
look to the westward of Europe and beyond the sea for that foreign
country.
5. We find many similarities in forms of implements between the Bronze
Age of Europe and the Copper Age of America.
6. if Plato told the truth, the Atlanteans were a great commercial
nation, trading to America and Europe, and, at the same time, they
possessed bronze, and were great workers in the other metals.
7. We shall see hereafter that the mythological traditions of Greece
referred to a Bronze Age which preceded an Iron Age, and placed this in
the land of the gods, which was an island in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond
the Pillars of Hercules; and this land was, as we shall see, clearly
Atlantis.
8. As we find but a small development of the Bronze Age in America, it
is reasonable to suppose that there must have been some intermediate
station between America and Europe, where, during a long period of time,
the Bronze Age was developed out of the Copper Age, and immense
quantities of bronze implements were manufactured and carried to Europe.
CHAPTER IX.
ARTIFICIAL DEFORMATION OF THE SKULL.
An examination of the American monuments shows (see figure on page 269)
that the people represented were in the habit of flattening the skull by
artificial means. The Greek and Roman writers had mentioned this
practice, but it was long totally forgotten by the civilized world,
until it was discovered, as an unheard-of wonder, to be the usage among
the Carib Islanders, and several Indian tribes in North America. It was
afterward found that the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans practised this
art: several flattened Peruvian skulls are depicted in Morton's "Crania
Americana." It is still in use among the Flat-head Indians of the
north-western part of the United States.
In 1849 a remarkable memoir appeared from the pen of M. Rathke, showing
that similar skulls had been found near Kertsch, in the Crimea, and
calling attention to the book of Hippocrates, "De Aeris, Aquis et Locu,"
lib. iv., and a passage of Strabo, which speaks of the practice among
the Scythians. In 1854 Dr. Fitzinger published a learned memoir on the
skulls of the Avars, a branch of the Uralian race of Turks. He shows
that the practice of flattening the head had existed from an early date
throughout the East, and described an ancient skull, greatly distorted
by artificial means, which had lately been found in Lower Austria.
Skulls similarly flattened have been found in Switzerland and Savoy. The
Huns under Attila had the same practice of flattening the heads.
Professor Anders Retzius proved (see "Smithsonian Report," 1859) that
the custom still exists in the south of France, and in parts of Turkey.
"Not long since a French physician surprised the world by the fact that
nurses in Normandy were still giving the children's heads a sugar-loaf
shape by bandages and a tight cap,
STUCCO BAS-RELIEF IN THE PALACE OF PALENQUE.
while in Brittany they preferred to press it round. No doubt they are
doing so to this day." (Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 241.)
Professor Wilson remarks:
"Trifling as it may appear, it is not without interest to have the fact
brought under our notice, by the disclosures of ancient barrows and
cysts, that the same practice of nursing the child and carrying it
about, bound to a flat cradle-board, prevailed in Britain and the north
of Europe long before the first notices of written history reveal the
presence of man beyond the Baltic or the English Channel, and that in
all probability the same custom prevailed continuously from the shores
of the German Ocean to Behring's Strait." ("Smithsonian Report," 1862,
p. 286.)
Dr. L. A. Gosse testifies to the prevalence of the same custom among the
Caledonians and Scandinavians in the earliest times; and Dr. Thurman has
treated of the same peculiarity among the Anglo-Saxons. ("Crania
Britannica," chap. iv., p. 38.)
PERUVIAN SKULL.
CHINOOK (FLAT-HEAD), AFTER CATLIN.
Here, then, is an extraordinary and unnatural practice which has existed
from the highest antiquity, over vast regions of country, on both sides
of the Atlantic, and which is perpetuated unto this day in races as
widely separated as the Turks, the French, and the Flat-head Indians. Is
it possible to explain this except by supposing that it originated from
some common centre?
The annexed cut represents an ancient Swiss skull, from a cemetery near
Lausanne, from a drawing of Frederick Troyon. Compare this with the
illustration given on page 271, which represents a Peruvian flat-head,
copied from Morton's "Ethnography and Archæology of the American
Aborigines," 1846. This skull is shockingly distorted. The dotted lines
indicate the course of the bandages by which the skull was deformed.
The following heads are from Del Rio's "Account of Palenque," copied
into Nott and Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," p. 440. They show that the
receding forehead was a natural characteristic of the ancient people of
Central America. The same form of head has been found even in fossil
skulls. We may therefore conclude that the skull-flattening, which we
find to have been practised in both the Old and New Worlds, was an
attempt of other races to imitate the form of skull of a people whose
likenesses are found on the monuments of Egypt and of America. It has
been shown that this peculiar form of the head was present even in the
foetus of the Peruvian mummies.
Hippocrates tells us that the practice among the Scythians was for the
purpose of giving a certain aristocratic distinction.
HEADS FROM PALENQUE.
Amedée Thierry, in his "History of Attila," says the Huns used it for
the same reason; and the same purpose influences the Indians of Oregon.
Dr. Lund, a Swedish naturalist, found in the bone caves of Minas-Geraes,
Brazil, ancient human bones associated with the remains of extinct
quadrupeds. "These skulls," says Lund, "show not only the peculiarity of
the American race but in an excessive degree, even to the entire
disappearance of the forehead." Sir Robert Schomburgh found on some of
the affluents of the Orinoco a tribe known as Frog Indians, whose heads
were flattened by Nature, as shown in newly-born children.
In the accompanying plate we show the difference in the conformation of
the forehead in various races. The upper dotted line, A, represents the
shape of the European forehead; the next line, B, that of the
Australian; the next, C, that of the Mound Builder of the United States;
the next, D, that of the Guanche of the Canary Islands; and the next, E,
that of a skull from the Inca cemetery of Peru. We have but to compare
these lines with the skulls of the Egyptians, Kurds, and the heroic type
of heads in the statues of the gods of Greece, to see that there was
formerly an ancient race marked by a receding forehead; and that the
practice of flattening the skull was probably an attempt to approximate
the shape of the head to this standard of an early civilized and
dominant people.
Not only do we find the same receding forehead in the skulls of the
ancient races of Europe and America, and the same attempt to imitate
this natural and peculiar conformation by artificial flattening of the
head, but it has been found (see Henry Gillman's "Ancient Man in
Michigan," "Smithsonian Report," 1875, p. 242) that the Mound Builders
and Peruvians of America, and the Neolithic people of France and the
Canary Islands, had alike an extraordinary custom of boring a circular
bole in the top of the skulls of their dead, so that the soul might
readily pass in and out. More than this, it has been found that in all
these ancient populations the skeletons exhibit a remarkable degree of
platicnemism, or flattening of the tibiæ or leg bones. (Ibid., 1873,
p. 367.) In this respect the Mound Builders of Michigan were identical
with the man of Cro Magnon and the ancient inhabitants of Wales.
The annexed ancient Egyptian heads, copied from the monuments, indicate
either that the people of the Nile deformed their heads by pressure upon
the front of the skull, or that
EGYPTIAN HEADS.
there was some race characteristic which gave this appearance to their
heads. These heads are all the heads of priests, and therefore
represented the aristocratic class.
The first illustration below is taken from a stucco relief found in a
temple at Palenque, Central America. The second is from an Egyptian
monument of the time of Rameses IV.
The outline drawing on the following page shows the form of the skull of
the royal Inca line: the receding forehead here seems to be natural, and
not the result of artificial compression.
Both illustrations at the bottom of the preceding page show the same
receding form of the forehead, due to either artificial deformation of
the skull or to a common race characteristic.
We must add the fact that the extraordinary practice of deforming the
skull was found all over Europe and America to the catalogue of other
proofs that the people of both continents were originally united in
blood and race. With the couvade, the practice of circumcision, unity of
religious beliefs and customs, folk-lore, and alphabetical signs,
language and flood legends, we array together a mass of unanswerable
proofs of prehistoric identity of race.
PART IV.
THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE OLD WORLD A RECOLLECTION OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I. TRADITIONS OF ATLANTIS.
We find allusions to the Atlanteans in the most ancient traditions of
many different races.
The great antediluvian king of the Mussulman was Shedd-Ad-Ben-Ad, or
Shed-Ad, the son of Ad, or Atlantis.
Among the Arabians the first inhabitants of that country are known as
the Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of
Ham. These Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Ad-lantis.
"They are personified by a monarch to whom everything is ascribed, and
to whom is assigned several centuries of life." ("Ancient History of the
East," Lenormant and Chevallier, vol. ii., p. 295.), Ad came from the
northeast. "He married a thousand wives, had four thousand sons, and
lived twelve hundred years. His descendants multiplied considerably.
After his death his sons Shadid and Shedad reigned in succession over
the Adites. In the time of the latter the people of Ad were a thousand
tribes, each composed of several thousands of men. Great conquests are
attributed to Shedad; he subdued, it is said, all Arabia and Irak. The
migration of the Canaanites, their establishment in Syria, and the
Shepherd invasion of Egypt are, by many Arab writers, attributed to an
expedition of Shedad." (Ibid., p. 296.)
Shedad built a palace ornamented with superb columns, and surrounded by
a magnificent garden. It was called Irem. "It was a paradise that Shedad
had built in imitation of the celestial Paradise, of whose delights he
had heard." ("Ancient History of the East," p. 296.) In other words, an
ancient, sun-worshipping, powerful, and conquering race overran Arabia
at the very dawn of history; they were the sons of Adlantis: their king
tried to create a palace and garden of Eden like that of Atlantis.
The Adites are remembered by the Arabians as a great and civilized race.
"They are depicted as men of gigantic stature; their strength was equal
to their size, and they easily moved enormous blocks of stone." (Ibid.)
They were architects and builders. They raised many monuments of their
power; and hence, among the Arabs, arose the custom of calling great
ruins "buildings of the Adites." To this day the Arabs say "as old as
Ad." In the Koran allusion is made to the edifices they built on "high
places for vain uses;" expressions proving that their "idolatry was
considered to have been tainted with Sabæism or star-worship." (Ibid.)
"In these legends," says Lenormant, "we find traces of a wealthy nation,
constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilization,
analogous to that of Chaldea, professing a religion similar to the
Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied
to great moral depravity and obscene rites. These facts must be true and
strictly historical, for they are everywhere met with among the
Cushites, as among the Canaanites, their brothers by origin."
Nor is there wanting a great catastrophe which destroys the whole Adite
nation, except a very few who escape because they had renounced
idolatry. A black cloud assails their country, from which proceeds a
terrible hurricane (the water-spout?) which sweeps away everything.
The first Adites were followed by a second Adite race; probably the
colonists who had escaped the Deluge. The centre of its power was the
country of Sheba proper. This empire endured for a thousand years. The
Adites are represented upon the Egyptian monuments as very much like the
Egyptians themselves; in other words, they were a red or sunburnt race:
their great temples were pyramidal, surmounted by buildings. ("Ancient
History of the East," p. 321.) "The Sabæans," says Agatharchides ("De
Mari Erythræo," p. 102), "have in their houses an incredible number of
vases, and utensils of all sorts, of gold and silver, beds and tripods
of silver, and all the furniture of astonishing richness. Their
buildings have porticos with columns sheathed with gold, or surmounted
by capitals of silver. On the friezes, ornaments, and the framework of
the doors they place plates of gold incrusted with precious stones."
All this reminds one of the descriptions given by the Spaniards of the
temples of the sun in Peru.
The Adites worshipped the gods of the Phoenicians under names but
slightly changed; "their religion was especially solar... It was
originally a religion without images, without idolatry, and without a
priesthood." (Ibid., p. 325.) They "worshipped the sun from the tops of
pyramids." (Ibid.) They believed in the immortality of the soul.
In all these things we see resemblances to the Atlanteans.
The great Ethiopian or Cushite Empire, which in the earliest ages
prevailed, as Mr. Rawlinson says, "from the Caucasus to the Indian
Ocean, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the mouth of the Ganges,"
was the empire of Dionysos, the empire of "Ad," the empire of Atlantis.
El Eldrisi called the language spoken to this day by the Arabs of
Mahrah, in Eastern Arabia, "the language of the people of Ad," and Dr.
J. H. Carter, in the Bombay Journal of July, 1847, says, "It is the
softest and sweetest language I have ever heard." It would be
interesting to compare this primitive tongue with the languages of
Central America.
The god Thoth of the Egyptians, who was the god of a foreign country,
and who invented letters, was called At-hothes.
We turn now to another ancient race, the Indo-European family--the Aryan
race.
In Sanscrit Adim, means first. Among the Hindoos the first man was
Ad-ima, his wife was Heva. They dwelt upon an island, said to be Ceylon;
they left the island and reached the main-land, when, by a great
convulsion of nature, their communication with the parent land was
forever cut off. (See "Bible in India.")
Here we seem to have a recollection of the destruction of Atlantis.
Mr. Bryant says, "Ad and Ada signify the first." The Persians called the
first man "Ad-amah." "Adon" was one of the names of the Supreme God of
the Phoenicians; from it was derived the name of the Greek god "Ad-onis."
The Arv-ad of Genesis was the Ar-Ad of the Cushites; it is now known as
Ru-Ad. It is a series of connected cities twelve miles in length, along
the coast, full of the most massive and gigantic ruins.
Sir William Jones gives the tradition of the Persians as to the earliest
ages. He says: "Moshan assures us that in the opinion of the best
informed Persians the first monarch of Iran, and of the whole earth, was
Mashab-Ad; that he received from the Creator, and promulgated among men
a sacred book, in a heavenly language, to which the Mussulman author
gives the Arabic title of 'Desatir,' or 'Regulations.' Mashab-Ad was, in
the opinion of the ancient Persians, the person left at the end of the
last great cycle, and consequently the father of the present world. He
and his wife having survived the former cycle, were blessed with a
numerous progeny; he planted gardens, invented ornaments, forged
weapons, taught men to take the fleece from sheep and make clothing; he
built cities, constructed palaces, fortified towns, and introduced arts
and commerce."
We have already seen that the primal gods of this people are identical
with the gods of the Greek mythology, and were originally kings of
Atlantis. But it seems that these ancient divinities are grouped
together as "the Aditya;" and in this name "Ad-itya" we find a strong
likeness to the Semitic "Adites," and another reminiscence of Atlantis,
or Adlantis. In corroboration of this view we find,
1. The gods who are grouped together as the Aditya are the most ancient
in the Hindoo mythology.
2. They are all gods of light, or solar gods. (Whitney's Oriental and
Linguistic Studies," p. 39.)
3. There are twelve of them. (Ibid.)
4. These twelve gods presided over twelve months in the year.
5. They are a dim recollection of a very remote past. Says Whitney, "It
seems as if here was an attempt on the part of the Indian religion to
take a new development in a moral direction, which a change in the
character and circumstances of the people has caused to fail in the
midst, and fall back again into forgetfulness, while yet half finished
and indistinct." (Ibid.)
6. These gods are called "the sons of Aditi," just as in the Bible we
have allusions to "the sons of Adab," who were the first metallurgists
and musicians. "Aditi is not a goddess. She is addressed as a queen's
daughter, she of fair children."
7. The Aditya "are elevated above all imperfections; they do not sleep
or wink." The Greeks represented their gods as equally wakeful and
omniscient. "Their character is all truth; they hate and punish guilt."
We have seen the same traits ascribed by the Greeks to the Atlantean
kings.
8. The sun is sometimes addressed as an Aditya.
9. Among the Aditya is Varuna, the equivalent of Uranos, whose
identification with Atlantis I have shown. In the vedas Varuna is "the
god of the ocean."
10. The Aditya represent an earlier and purer form of religion: "While
in hymns to the other deities long life, wealth, power, are the objects
commonly prayed for, of the Aditya is craved purity, forgiveness of sin,
freedom from guilt, and repentance." ("Oriental and Linguistic Studies,"
p. 43.)
11. The Aditya, like the Adites, are identified with the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul. Yama is the god of the abode beyond the grave.
In the Persian story he appears as Yima, and "is made ruler of the
golden age and founder of the Paradise." (Ibid., p. 45.) (See "Zamna,"
p. 167 ante.)
In view of all these facts, one cannot doubt that the legends of the
"sons of Ad," "the Adites," and "the Aditya," all refer to Atlantis.
Mr. George Smith, in the Chaldean account of the Creation (p. 78),
deciphered from the Babylonian tablets, shows that there was an original
race of men at the beginning of Chaldean history, a dark race, the
Zalmat-qaqadi, who were called Ad-mi, or Ad-ami; they were the race "who
had fallen," and were contradistinguished from "the Sarku, or light
race." The "fall" probably refers to their destruction by a deluge, in
consequence of their moral degradation and the indignation of the gods.
The name Adam is used in these legends, but as the name of a race, not
of a man.
Genesis (chap. v., 2) distinctly says that God created man male and
female, and "called their name Adam." That is to say, the people were
the Ad-ami, the people of "Ad," or Atlantis. "The author of the Book of
Genesis," says M. Schoebel, "in speaking of the men who were swallowed up
by the Deluge, always describes them as 'Haadam,' 'Adamite humanity.'"
The race of Cain lived and multiplied far away from the land of Seth; in
other words, far from the land destroyed by the Deluge. Josephus, who
gives us the primitive traditions of the Jews, tells us (chap. ii., p.
42) that "Cain travelled over many countries" before he came to the land
of Nod. The Bible does not tell us that the race of Cain perished in the
Deluge. "Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah;" he did not call on
his name; the people that were destroyed were the "sons of Jehovah." All
this indicates that large colonies had been sent out by the mother-land
before it sunk in the sea.
Across the ocean we find the people of Guatemala claiming their descent
from a goddess called At-tit, or grandmother, who lived for four hundred
years, and first taught the worship of the true God, which they
afterward forgot. (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii., p. 75.) While
the famous Mexican calendar stone shows that the sun was commonly called
tonatiuh but when it was referred to as the god of the Deluge it was
then called Atl-tona-ti-uh, or At-onatiuh. (Valentini's "Mexican
Calendar Stone," art. Maya Archæology, p. 15.)
We thus find the sons of Ad at the base of all the most ancient races of
men, to wit, the Hebrews, the Arabians, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos, the
Persians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Mexicans, and the Central
Americans; testimony that all these races traced their beginning back to
a dimly remembered Ad-lantis.
CHAPTER II
THE KINGS OF ATLANTIS BECOME THE GODS OF THE GREEKS.
Lord Bacon said:
"The mythology of the Greeks, which their oldest writers do not pretend
to have invented, was no more than a light air, which had passed from a
more ancient people into the flutes of the Greeks, which they modulated
to such descants as best suited their fancies."
This profoundly wise and great man, who has illuminated every subject
which he has touched, guessed very close to the truth in this utterance.
The Hon. W. E. Gladstone has had quite a debate of late with Mr. Cox as
to whether the Greek mythology was underlaid by a nature worship, or a
planetary or solar worship.
Peru, worshipping the sun and moon and planets, probably represents very
closely the simple and primitive religion of Atlantis, with its
sacrifices of fruits and flowers. This passed directly to their colony
in Egypt. We find the Egyptians in their early ages sun and planet
worshippers. Ptah was the object of their highest adoration. He is the
father of the god of the sun, the ruler of the region of light. Ra was
the sun-god. He was the supreme divinity at On, or Heliopolis, near
Memphis. His symbol was the solar disk, supported by two rings. He
created all that exists below the heavens.
The Babylonian trinity was composed of Idea, Anu, and Bel. Bel
represented the sun, and was the favorite god. Sin was the goddess of
the moon.
The Phoenicians were also sun-worshippers. The sun was represented by
Baal-Samin, the great god, the god of light and the heavens, the creator
and rejuvenator.
"The attributes of both Baal and Moloch (the good and bad powers of the
sun) were united in the Phoenician god Melkart, "king of the city," whom
the inhabitants of Tyre considered their special patron. The Greeks
called him "Melicertes," and identified him with Hercules. By his great
strength and power he turned evil into good, brought life out of
destruction, pulled back the sun to the earth at the time of the
solstices, lessened excessive heat and cold, and rectified the evil
signs of the zodiac. In Phoenician legends he conquers the savage races
of distant coasts, founds the ancient settlements on the Mediterranean,
and plants the rocks in the Straits of Gibraltar." ("American
Cyclopædia," art. Mythology.)
The Egyptians worshipped the sun under the name of Ra; the Hindoos
worshipped the sun under the name of Rama; while the great festival of
the sun, of the Peruvians, was called Ray-mi.
Sun-worship, as the ancient religion of Atlantis, underlies all the
superstitions of the colonies of that country. The Samoyed woman says to
the sun, "When thou, god, risest, I too rise from my bed." Every morning
even now the Brahmans stand on one foot, with their hands held out
before them and their faces turned to the east, adoring the sun. "In
Germany or France one may still see the peasant take off his hat to the
rising sun." ("Anthropology," p. 361.) The Romans, even, in later times,
worshipped the sun at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, "typified in
the form of a black conical stone, which it was believed had fallen from
heaven." The conical stone was the emblem of Bel. Did it have relation
to the mounds and pyramids?
Sun-worship was the primitive religion of the red men of America. It was
found among all the tribes. (Dorman, "Origin of Primitive Superstitions,"
p. 338.) The Chichimecs called the sun their father. The Comanches have
a similar belief.
But, compared with such ancient nations as the Egyptians and
Babylonians, the Greeks were children. A priest of Sais said to Solon,
"You Greeks are novices in knowledge of antiquity. You are ignorant of
what passed either here or among yourselves in days of old. The history
of eight thousand years is deposited in our sacred books; but I can
ascend to a much higher antiquity, and tell you what our fathers have
done for nine thousand years; I mean their institutions, their laws, and
their most brilliant achievements."
The Greeks, too young to have shared in the religion of Atlantis, but
preserving some memory of that great country and its history, proceeded
to convert its kings into gods, and to depict Atlantis itself as the
heaven of the human race. Thus we find a great solar or nature worship
in the elder nations, while Greece has nothing but an incongruous jumble
of gods and goddesses, who are born and eat and drink and make love and
ravish and steal and die; and who are worshipped as immortal in presence
of the very monuments that testify to their death.
"These deities, to whom the affairs of the world were intrusted, were,
it is believed, immortal, though not eternal in their existence. In
Crete there was even a story of the death of Zeus, his tomb being
pointed out." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 2.)
The history of Atlantis is the key of the Greek mythology. There can be
no question that these gods of Greece were human beings. The tendency to
attach divine attributes to great earthly rulers is one deeply implanted
in human nature. The savages who killed Captain Cook firmly believed
that he was immortal, that he was yet alive, and would return to punish
them. The highly civilized Romans made gods out of their dead emperors.
Dr. Livingstone mentions that on one occasion, after talking to a
Bushman for some time about the Deity, he found that the savage thought
he was speaking of Sekomi, the principal chief of the district.
We find the barbarians of the coast of the Mediterranean regarding the
civilized people of Atlantis with awe and wonder: "Their physical
strength was extraordinary, the earth shaking sometimes under their
tread. Whatever they did was done speedily. They moved through space
almost without the loss of a moment of time." This probably alluded to
the rapid motion of their sailing-vessels. "They were wise, and
communicated their wisdom to men." That is to say, they civilized the
people they came in contact with. They had a strict sense of justice,
and punished crime rigorously, and rewarded noble actions, though it is
true they were less conspicuous for the latter." (Murray's "Mythology,"
p. 4.) We should understand this to mean that where they colonized they
established a government of law, as contradistinguished from the anarchy
of barbarism.
"There were tales of personal visits and adventures of the gods among
men, taking part in battles and appearing in dreams. They were conceived
to possess the form of human beings, and to be, like men, subject to
love and pain, but always characterized by the highest qualities and
grandest forms that could be imagined." (Ibid.)
Another proof that the gods of the Greeks were but the deified kings of
Atlantis is found in the fact that "the gods were not looked upon as
having created the world." They succeeded to the management of a world
already in existence.
The gods dwelt on Olympus. They lived together like human beings; they
possessed palaces, storehouses, stables, horses, etc.; "they dwelt in a
social state which was but a magnified reflection of the social system
on earth. Quarrels, love passages, mutual assistance, and such instances
as characterize human life, were ascribed to them." (Ibid., p. 10.)
Where was Olympus? It was in Atlantis. "The ocean encircled the earth
with a great stream, and was a region of wonders of all kinds." (Ibid.,
p. 23.) It was a great island, the then civilized world. The encircling
ocean "was spoken of in all the ancient legends. Okeanos lived there
with his wife Tethys: these were the Islands of the Blessed, the garden
of the gods, the sources of the nectar and ambrosia on which the gods
lived." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 23.) Nectar was probably a fermented
intoxicating liquor, and ambrosia bread made from wheat. Soma was a kind
of whiskey, and the Hindoos deified it. "The gods lived on nectar and
ambrosia" simply meant that the inhabitants of these blessed islands
were civilized, and possessed a liquor of some kind and a species of
food superior to anything in use among the barbarous tribes with whom
they came in contact.
This blessed land answers to the description of Atlantis. It was an
island full of wonders. It lay spread out in the ocean "like a disk,
with the mountains rising from it." (Ibid.) On the highest point of this
mountain dwelt Zeus (the king), "while the mansions of the other deities
were arranged upon plateaus, or in ravines lower down the mountain.
These deities, including Zeus, were twelve in number: Zeus (or Jupiter),
Hera (or Juno), Poseidon (or Neptune), Demeter (or Ceres), Apollo,
Artemis (or Diana), Hephæstos (or Vulcan), Pallas Athena (or Minerva),
Ares (or Mars), Aphrodite (or Venus), Hermes (or Mercury), and Hestia
(or Vesta)." These were doubtless the twelve gods from whom the
Egyptians derived their kings. Where two names are given to a deity in
the above list, the first name is that bestowed by the Greeks, the last
that given by the Romans.
It is not impossible that our division of the year into twelve parts is
a reminiscence of the twelve gods of Atlantis. Diodorus Siculus tells us
that among the Babylonians there were twelve gods of the heavens, each
personified by one of the signs of the zodiac, and worshipped in a
certain month of the year. The Hindoos had twelve primal gods, "the
Aditya." Moses erected twelve pillars at Sinai. The Mandan Indians
celebrated the Flood with twelve typical characters, who danced around
the ark. The Scandinavians believed in the twelve gods, the Aesir, who
dwelt on Asgard, the Norse Olympus. Diligent investigation may yet
reveal that the number of a modern jury, twelve, is a survival of the
ancient council of Asgard.
"According to the traditions of the Phoenicians, the Gardens of the
Hesperides were in the remote west." (Murray's "Mannal of Mythology," p.
258.) Atlas lived in these gardens. (Ibid., p. 259.) Atlas, we have
seen, was king of Atlantis. "The Elysian Fields (the happy islands) were
commonly placed in the remote west. They were ruled over by Chronos."
(Ibid., p. 60.) Tartarus, the region of Hades, the gloomy home of the
dead, was also located "under the mountains of an island in the midst of
the ocean in the remote west." (Ibid., p. 58.) Atlas was described in
Greek mythology as "an enormous giant, who stood upon the western
confines of the earth, and supported the heavens on his shoulders, in a
region of the west where the sun continued to shine after he had set
upon Greece." (Ibid., p. 156.)
Greek tradition located the island in which Olympus was situated "in the
far west," "in the ocean beyond Africa," "on the western boundary of the
known world," "where the sun shone when it had ceased to shine on
Greece," and where the mighty Atlas "held up the heavens." And Plato
tells us that the land where Poseidon and Atlas ruled was Atlantis.
"The Garden of the Hesperides" (another name for the dwelling-place of
the gods) "was situated at the extreme limit of Africa. Atlas was said
to have surrounded it on every side with high mountains." (Smith's
"Sacred Annals, Patriarchal Age," p. 131.) Here were found the golden
apples.
This is very much like the description which Plato gives of the great
plain of Atlantis, covered with fruit of every kind, and surrounded by
precipitous mountains descending to the sea.
The Greek mythology, in speaking of the Garden of the Hesperides, tells
us that "the outer edge of the garden was slightly raised, so that the
water might not run in and overflow the land." Another reminiscence of
the surrounding mountains of Atlantis as described by Plato, and as
revealed by the deep-sea soundings of modern times.
Chronos, or Saturn, Dionysos, Hyperion, Atlas, Hercules, were all
connected with "a great Saturnian continent;" they were kings that ruled
over countries on the western shores of the Mediterranean, Africa and
Spain. One account says:
"Hyperion, Atlas, and Saturn, or Chronos, were sons of Uranos, who
reigned over a great kingdom composed of countries around the western
part of the Mediterranean, with certain islands in the Atlantic.
Hyperion succeeded his father, and was then killed by the Titans. The
kingdom was then divided between Atlas and Saturn--Atlas taking Northern
Africa, with the Atlantic islands, and Saturn the countries on the
opposite shore of the Mediterranean to Italy and Sicily." (Baldwin's
"Prehistoric Nations," p. 357.)
Plato says, speaking of the traditions of the Greeks ("Dialogues, Laws,"
c. iv., p. 713), "There is a tradition of the happy life of mankind in
the days when all things were spontaneous and abundant.... In like
manner God in his love of mankind placed over us the demons, who are a
superior race, and they, with great care and pleasure to themselves and
no less to us, taking care of us and giving us place and reverence and
order and justice never failing, made the tribes of men happy and
peaceful ... for Cronos knew that no human nature, invested with
supreme power, is able to order human affairs and not overflow with
insolence and wrong."
In other words, this tradition refers to an ancient time when the
forefathers of the Greeks were governed by Chronos, of the Cronian Sea
(the Atlantic), king of Atlantis, through civilized Atlantean governors,
who by their wisdom preserved peace and created a golden age for all the
populations under their control--they were the demons, that is, "the
knowing ones," the civilized.
Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates these words ("Dialogues,
Cratylus," p. 397): "My notion would be that the sun, moon, and stars,
earth, and heaven, which are still the gods of many barbarians, were the
only gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes.... What shall follow the
gods? Must not demons and heroes and men come next?... Consider the
real meaning of the word demons. You know Hesiod uses the word. He
speaks of 'a golden race of men' who came first. He says of them,
But now that fate has closed over this race,
They are holy demons upon earth,
Beneficent averters of ills, guardians of mortal men.'
He means by the golden men not men literally made of gold, but good and
noble men; he says we are of the 'age of iron.' He called them demons
because they were dah'mones (knowing or wise)."
This is made the more evident when we read that this region of the gods,
of Chronos and Uranos and Zeus, passed through, first, a Golden Age,
then a Silver Age--these constituting a great period of peace and
happiness; then it reached a Bronze Age; then an Iron Age, and finally
perished by a great flood, sent upon these people by Zeus as a
punishment for their sins. We read:
"Men were rich then (in the Silver Age), as in the Golden Age of
Chronos, and lived in plenty; but still they wanted the innocence and
contentment which were the true sources of human happiness in the
former age; and accordingly, while living in luxury and delicacy, they
became overbearing in their manners to the highest degree, were never
satisfied, and forgot the gods, to whom, in their confidence of
prosperity and comfort, they denied the reverence they owed.... Then
followed the Bronze Age, a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of
violence. Instead of cultivated lands, and a life of peaceful
occupations and orderly habits, there came a day when every where might
was right, and men, big and powerful as they were, became physically
worn out.... Finally came the Iron Age, in which enfeebled mankind
had to toil for bread with their hands, and, bent on gain, did their
best to overreach each other. Dike, or Astræa, the goddess of justice
and good faith, modesty and truth, turned her back on such scenes, and
retired to Olympus, while Zeus determined to destroy the human race by a
great flood. The whole of Greece lay under water, and none but Deucalion
and his wife Pyrrha were saved." (Murray's "Mythology" p. 44.)
It is remarkable that we find here the same succession of the Iron Age
after the Bronze Age that has been revealed to scientific men by the
patient examination of the relics of antiquity in Europe. And this
identification of the land that was destroyed by a flood--the land of
Chronos and Poseidon and Zeus--with the Bronze Age, confirms the view
expressed in Chapter VIII. (page 237, ante), that the bronze implements
and weapons of Europe were mainly imported from Atlantis.
And here we find that the Flood that destroyed this land of the gods was
the Flood of Deucalion, and the Flood of Deucalion was the Flood of the
Bible, and this, as we have shown, was "the last great Deluge of all,"
according to the Egyptians, which destroyed Atlantis.
The foregoing description of the Golden Age of Chronos, when "men were
rich and lived in plenty," reminds us of Plato's description of the
happy age of Atlantis, when "men despised everything but virtue, not
caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the
possession of gold and other property;" a time when, as the chants of
the Delaware Indians stated it (page 109, ante), "all were willingly
pleased, all were well-happified." While the description given by Murray
in the above extract of the degeneracy of mankind in the land of the
gods, "a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of violence, when
might was right," agrees with Plato's account of the Atlanteans, when
they became "aggressive," "unable to bear their fortune," "unseemly,"
"base," "filled with unrighteous avarice and power,"--and "in a most
wretched state." And here again I might quote from the chant of the
Delaware Indians--"they became troubled, hating each other; both were
fighting, both were spoiling, both were never peaceful." And in all
three instances the gods punished the depravity of mankind by a great
deluge. Can all these precise coincidences be the result of accident?
May we not even suppose that the very word "Olympus" is a transformation
from "Atlantis" in accordance with the laws that regulate the changes of
letters of the same class into each other? Olympus was written by the
Greeks "Olumpos." The letter a in Atlantis was sounded by the ancient
world broad and full, like the a in our words all or altar; in these
words it approximates very closely to the sound of o. It is not far to
go to convert Otlontis into Oluntos, and this into Olumpos. We may,
therefore, suppose that when the Greeks said that their gods dwelt in
"Olympus," it was the same as if they said that they dwelt in "Atlantis."
Nearly all the gods of Greece are connected with Atlantis. We have seen
the twelve principal gods all dwelling on the mountain of Olympus, in
the midst of an island in the ocean in the far west, which was
subsequently destroyed by a deluge on account of the wickedness of its
people. And when we turn to Plato's description of Atlantis (p. 13,
ante) we find that Poseidon and Atlas dwelt upon a mountain in the midst
of the island; and on this mountain were their magnificent temples and
palaces, where they lived, separated by great walls from their subjects.
It may be urged that Mount Olympus could not have referred to any
mountain in Atlantis, because the Greeks gave that name to a group of
mountains partly in Macedonia and partly in Thessaly. But in Mysia,
Lycia, Cyprus, and elsewhere there were mountains called Olympus; and on
the plain of Olympia, in Elis, there was an eminence bearing the same
designation. There is a natural tendency among uncivilized peoples to
give a "local habitation" to every general tradition.
"Many of the oldest myths," says Baldwin ("Prehistoric Nations," p.
376), "relate to Spain, North-western Africa, and other regions on the
Atlantic, such as those concerning Hercules, the Cronidæ, the
Hyperboreans, the Hesperides, and the Islands of the Blessed. Homer
described the Atlantic region of Europe in his account of the wanderings
of Ulysses.... In the ages previous to the decline of Phoenician
influence in Greece and around the Ægean Sea, the people of those
regions must have had a much better knowledge of Western Europe than
prevailed there during the Ionian or Hellenic period."
The mythology of Greece is really a history of the kings of Atlantis.
The Greek heaven was Atlantis. Hence the references to statues, swords,
etc., that fell from heaven, and were preserved in the temples of the
different states along the shores of the Mediterranean from a vast
antiquity, and which were regarded as the most precious possessions of
the people. They were relics of the lost race received in the early
ages. Thus we read of the brazen or bronze anvil that was preserved in
one city, which fell from heaven, and was nine days and nine nights in
falling; in other words, it took nine days and nights of a
sailing-voyage to bring it from Atlantis.
The modern theory that the gods of Greece never had any personal
existence, but represented atmospheric and meteorological myths, the
movements of clouds, planets, and the sun, is absurd. Rude nations
repeat, they do not invent; to suppose a barbarous people creating their
deities out of clouds and sunsets is to reverse nature. Men first
worship stones, then other men, then spirits. Resemblances of names
prove nothing; it is as if one would show that the name of the great
Napoleon meant "the lion of the desert" (Napo-leon), and should thence
argue that Napoleon never existed, that he was a myth, that he
represented power in solitude, or some such stuff. When we read that
Jove whipped his wife, and threw her son out of the window, the
inference is that Jove was a man, and actually did something like the
thing described; certainly gods, sublimated spirits, aerial sprites, do
not act after this fashion; and it would puzzle the mythmakers to prove
that the sun, moon, or stars whipped their wives or flung recalcitrant
young men out of windows. The history of Atlantis could be in part
reconstructed out of the mythology of Greece; it is a history of kings,
queens, and princes; of love-making, adulteries, rebellions, wars,
murders, sea-voyages, and colonizations; of palaces, temples, workshops,
and forges; of sword-making, engraving and metallurgy; of wine, barley,
wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, and agriculture generally. Who can doubt
that it represents the history of a real people?
Uranos was the first god; that is to say, the first king of the great
race. As he was at the commencement of all things, his symbol was the
sky. He probably represented the race previous even to the settlement of
Atlantis. He was a son of Gæa (the earth). He seems to have been the
parent of three races--the Titans, the Hekatoncheires, and the Kyklopes
or Cyclops.
I incline to the belief that these were civilized races, and that the
peculiarities ascribed to the last two refer to the vessels in which
they visited the shores of the barbarians.
THE EMPIRE OF ATLANTIS.
The empire of the Titans was clearly the empire of Atlantis. "The most
judicious among our mythologists" (says Dr. Rees, "New British
Cyclopædia," art. Titans)--"such as Gerard Vossius, Marsham, Bochart,
and Father Thomassin--are of opinion that the partition of the world
among the sons of Noah--Shem, Ham, and Japheth--was the original of the
tradition of the same partition among Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto," upon
the breaking up of the great empire of the Titans. "The learned Pezron
contends that the division which was made of this vast empire came, in
after-times, to be taken for the partition of the whole world; that Asia
remaining in the hands of Jupiter (Zeus), the most potent of the three
brothers, made him looked upon as the god of Olympus; that the sea and
islands which fell to Neptune occasioned their giving him the title of
'god of the sea;' and that Spain, the extremity of the then known world,
thought to be a very low country in respect of Asia, and famous for its
excellent mines of gold and silver, failing to Pluto, occasioned him to
be taken for the 'god of the infernal regions.'" We should suppose that
Pluto possibly ruled over the transatlantic possessions of Atlantis in
America, over those "portions of the opposite continent" which Plato
tells us were dominated by Atlas and his posterity, and which, being far
beyond or below sunset, were the "under-world" of the ancients; while
Atlantis, the Canaries, etc., constituted the island division with
Western Africa and Spain. Murray tells us ("Mythology," p. 58) that
Pluto's share of the kingdom was supposed to lie "in the remote west."
The under-world of the dead was simply the world below the western
horizon; "the home of the dead has to do with that far west region where
the sun dies at night." ("Anthropology," p. 350.) "On the coast of
Brittany, where Cape Raz stands out westward into the ocean, there is
'the Bay of Souls,' the launching-place where the departed spirits sail
off across the sea." (Ibid.) In like manner, Odysseus found the land of
the dead in the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules. There, indeed, was
the land of the mighty dead, the grave of the drowned Atlanteans.
"However this be," continues F. Pezron, "the empire of the Titans,
according to the ancients, was very extensive; they possessed Phrygia,
Thrace, a part of Greece, the island of Crete, and several other
provinces to the inmost recesses of Spain. To these Sanchoniathon seems
to join Syria; and Diodorus adds a part of Africa, and the kingdoms of
Mauritania." The kingdoms of Mauritania embraced all that north-western
region of Africa nearest to Atlantis in which are the Atlas Mountains,
and in which, in the days of Herodotus, dwelt the Atlantes.
Neptune, or Poseidon, says, in answer to a message from Jupiter,
No vassal god, nor of his train am I.
Three brothers, deities, from Saturn came,
And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame;
Assigned by lot our triple rule we know;
Infernal Pluto sways the shades below:
O'er the wide clouds, and o'er the starry plain
Ethereal Jove extends his high domain;
My court beneath the hoary waves I keep,
And hush the roaring of the sacred deep.
Iliad, book xviii.
Homer alludes to Poseidon as
"The god whose liquid arms are hurled
Around the globe, whose earthquakes rock the world."
Mythology tells us that when the Titans were defeated by Saturn they
retreated into the interior of Spain; Jupiter followed them up, and beat
them for the last time near Tartessus, and thus terminated a ten-years'
war. Here we have a real battle on an actual battle-field.
If we needed any further proof that the empire of the Titans was the
empire of Atlantis, we would find it in the names of the Titans: among
these were Oceanus, Saturn or Chronos, and Atlas; they were all the sons
of Uranos. Oceanus was at the base of the Greek mythology. Plato says
("Dialogues," Timæus, vol. ii., p. 533): "Oceanus and Tethys were the
children of Earth and Heaven, and from these sprung Phorcys, and
Chronos, and Rhea, and many more with them; and from Chronos and Rhea
sprung Zeus and Hera, and all those whom we know as their brethren, and
others who were their children." In other words, all their gods came out
of the ocean; they were rulers over some ocean realm; Chronos was the
son of Oceanus, and Chronos was an Atlantean god, and from him the
Atlantic Ocean was called by the ancients "the Chronian Sea." The elder
Minos was called "the Son of the Ocean:" he first gave civilization to
the Cretans; he engraved his laws on brass, precisely as Plato tells us
the laws of Atlantis were engraved on pillars of brass.
The wanderings of Ulysses, as detailed in the "Odyssey" of Homer, are
strangely connected with the Atlantic Ocean. The islands of the
Phoenicians were apparently in mid-ocean:
We dwell apart, afar
Within the unmeasured deep, amid its waves
The most remote of men; no other race
Hath commerce with us.--Odyssey, book vi.
The description of the Phæacian walls, harbors, cities, palaces, ships,
etc., seems like a recollection of Atlantis. The island of Calypso
appears also to have been in the Atlantic Ocean, twenty days' sail from
the Phæacian isles; and when Ulysses goes to the land of Pluto, "the
under-world," the home of the dead, he
"Reached the far confines of Oceanus,"
beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It would be curious to inquire how far
the poems of Homer are Atlantean in their relations and inspiration.
Ulysses's wanderings were a prolonged struggle with Poseidon, the
founder and god of Atlantis.
"The Hekatoncheires, or Cetimæni, beings each with a hundred hands, were
three in number--Kottos, Gyges or Gyes, and Briareus--and represented
the frightful crashing of waves, and its resemblance to the convulsions
of earthquakes." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 26.) Are not these hundred
arms the oars of the galleys, and the frightful crashing of the waves
their movements in the water?
"The Kyklopes also were three in number--Brontes, with his thunder;
Steropes, with his lightning; and Arges, with his stream of light. They
were represented as having only one eye, which was placed at the
juncture between the nose and brow. It was, however, a large, flashing
eye, as became beings who were personifications of the storm-cloud, with
its flashes of destructive lightning and peals of thunder."
We shall show hereafter that the invention of gunpowder dates back to
the days of the Phoenicians, and may have been derived by them from
Atlantis. It is not impossible that in this picture of the Kyklopes we
see a tradition of sea-going ships, with a light burning at the prow,
and armed with some explosive preparation, which, with a roar like
thunder, and a flash like lightning, destroyed those against whom it was
employed? It at least requires less strain upon our credulity to suppose
these monsters were a barbarian's memory of great ships than to believe
that human beings ever existed with a hundred arms, and with one eye in
the middle of the forehead, and giving out thunder and lightning.
The natives of the West India Islands regarded the ships of Columbus as
living creatures, and that their sails were wings.
Berosus tells us, speaking of the ancient days of Chaldea, "In the first
year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan Sea which borders
upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, by name Oannes, whose
whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish;
that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below,
similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too
and language was articulate and human, and a representation of him is
preserved even unto this day. This being was accustomed to pass the day
among men, but took no food at that season, and he gave them an insight
into letters and arts of all kinds. He taught them to construct cities,
to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles
of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the
earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he
instructed them in everything which could tend to soften manners and
humanize their laws. From that time nothing material has been added by
way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun set, this
being, Oannes, retired again into the sea, and passed the night in the
deep, for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals
like Oannes."
This is clearly the tradition preserved by a barbarous people of the
great ships of a civilized nation, who colonized their coast and
introduced the arts and sciences among them. And here we see the same
tendency to represent the ship as a living thing, which converted the
war-vessels of the Atlanteans (the Kyklopes) into men with one blazing
eye in the middle of the forehead.
Uranos was deposed from the throne, and succeeded by his son Chronos. He
was called "the ripener, the harvest-god," and was probably identified
with the beginning of the Agricultural Period. He married his sister
Rhea, who bore him Pluto, Poseidon, Zeus, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. He
anticipated that his sons would dethrone him, as he had dethroned his
father, Uranos, and he swallowed his first five children, and would have
swallowed the sixth child, Zeus, but that his wife Rhea deceived him
with a stone image of the child; and Zeus was conveyed to the island of
Crete, and there concealed in a cave and raised to manhood. Subsequently
Chronos "yielded back to the light the children he had swallowed." This
myth probably means that Chronos had his children raised in some secret
place, where they could not be used by his enemies as the instruments of
a rebellion against his throne; and the stone image of Zeus, palmed off
upon him by Rhea, was probably some other child substituted for his own.
His precautions seem to have been wise; for as soon as the children
returned to the light they commenced a rebellion, and drove the old
gentleman from his throne. A rebellion of the Titans followed. The
struggle was a tremendous one, and seems to have been decided at last by
the use of gunpowder, as I shall show farther on.
We have seen Chronos identified with the Atlantic, called by the Romans
the "Chronian Sea." He was known to the Romans under the name of Saturn,
and ruled over "a great Saturnian continent" in the Western Ocean.
Saturn, or Chronos, came to Italy: he presented himself to the king,
Janus, "and proceeded to instruct the subjects of the latter in
agriculture, gardening, and many other arts then quite unknown to them;
as, for example, how to tend and cultivate the vine. By such means he at
length raised the people from a rude and comparatively barbarous
condition to one of order and peaceful occupations, in consequence of
which he was everywhere held in high esteem, and, in course of time, was
selected by Janus to share with him the government of the country, which
thereupon assumed the name of Saturnia--'a land of seed and fruit.' The
period of Saturn's government was sung in later days by poets as a happy
time, when sorrows were unknown, when innocence, freedom, and gladness
reigned throughout the land in such a degree as to deserve the title of
the Golden Age." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 32.)
All this accords with Plato's story. He tells us that the rule of the
Atlanteans extended to Italy; that they were a civilized, agricultural,
and commercial people. The civilization of Rome was therefore an
outgrowth directly from the civilization of Atlantis.
The Roman Saturnalia was a remembrance of the Atlantean colonization. It
was a period of joy and festivity; master and slave met as equals; the
distinctions of poverty and wealth were forgotten; no punishments for
crime were inflicted; servants and slaves went about dressed in the
clothes of their masters; and children received presents from their
parents or relatives. It was a time of jollity and mirth, a recollection
of the Golden Age. We find a reminiscence of it in the Roman "Carnival."
The third and last on the throne of the highest god was Zeus. We shall
see him, a little farther on, by the aid of some mysterious engine
overthrowing the rebels, the Titans, who rose against his power, amid
the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder. He was called "the
thunderer," and "the mighty thunderer." He was represented with
thunder-bolts in his hand and an eagle at his feet.
During the time of Zeus Atlantis seems to have reached its greatest
height of power. He was recognized as the father of the whole world; he
everywhere rewarded uprightness, truth, faithfulness, and kindness; he
was merciful to the poor, and punished the cruel. To illustrate his rule
on earth the following story is told:
"Philemon and Baukis, an aged couple of the poorer class, were living
peacefully and full of piety toward the gods in their cottage in
Phrygia, when Zeus, who often visited the earth, disguised, to inquire
into the behavior of men, paid a visit, in passing through Phrygia on
such a journey, to these poor old people, and was received by them very
kindly as a weary traveller, which he pretended to be. Bidding him
welcome to the house, they set about preparing for their guest, who was
accompanied by Hermes, as excellent a meal as they could afford, and for
this purpose were about to kill the only goose they had left, when Zeus
interfered; for he was touched by their kindliness and genuine piety,
and that all the more because he had observed among the other
inhabitants of the district nothing but cruelty of disposition and a
habit of reproaching and despising the gods. To punish this conduct he
determined to visit the country with a flood, but to save from it
Philemon and Baukis, the good aged couple, and to reward them in a
striking manner. To this end he revealed himself to them before opening
the gates of the great flood, transformed their poor cottage on the hill
into a splendid temple, installed the aged pair as his priest and
priestess, and granted their prayer that they might both die together.
When, after many years, death overtook them, they were changed into two
trees, that grew side by side in the neighborhood--an oak and a linden."
(Murray's "Mythology," p. 38.)
Here we have another reference to the Flood, and another identification
with Atlantis.
Zeus was a kind of Henry VIII., and took to himself a number of wives.
By Demeter (Ceres) he had Persephone (Proserpine); by Leto, Apollo and
Artemis (Diana); by Dione, Aphrodite (Venus); by Semele, Dionysos
(Bacchus); by Maia, Hermes (Mercury); by Alkmene, Hercules, etc., etc.
We have thus the whole family of gods and goddesses traced back to
Atlantis.
Hera, or Juno, was the first and principal wife of Zeus. There were
numerous conjugal rows between the royal pair, in which, say the poets,
Juno was generally to blame. She was naturally jealous of the other
wives of Zeus. Zeus on one occasion beat her, and threw her son
Hephæstos out of Olympus; on another occasion he hung her out of Olympus
with her arms tied and two great weights attached to her feet--a very
brutal and ungentlemanly trick--but the Greeks transposed this into a
beautiful symbol: the two weights, they say, represent the earth and
sea, "an illustration of how all the phenomena of the visible sky were
supposed to hang dependent on the highest god of heaven!" (Ibid., p.
47.) Juno probably regarded the transaction in an altogether different
light; and she therefore united with Poseidon, the king's brother, and
his daughter Athena, in a rebellion to put the old fellow in a
strait-jacket, "and would have succeeded had not Thetis brought to his
aid the sea-giant Ægæon," probably a war-ship. She seems in the main,
however, to have been a good wife, and was the type of all the womanly
virtues.
Poseidon, the first king of Atlantis, according to Plato, was, according
to Greek mythology, a brother of Zeus, and a son of Chronos. In the
division of the kingdom he fell heir to the ocean and its islands, and
to the navigable rivers; in other words, he was king of a maritime and
commercial people. His symbol was the horse. "He was the first to train
and employ horses;" that is to say, his people first domesticated the
horse. This agrees with what Plato tells us of the importance attached
to the horse in Atlantis, and of the baths and race-courses provided for
him. He was worshipped in the island of Tenos "in the character of a
physician," showing that he represented an advanced civilization. He was
also master of an agricultural people; "the ram with the golden fleece
for which the Argonauts sailed was the offspring of Poseidon." He
carried in his hand a three-pronged symbol, the trident, doubtless an
emblem of the three continents that were embraced in the empire of
Atlantis. He founded many colonies along the shores of the
Mediterranean; "he helped to build the walls of Troy;" the tradition
thus tracing the Trojan civilization to an Atlantean source. He settled
Attica and founded Athens, named after his niece Athena, daughter of
Zeus, who had no mother, but had sprung from the head of Zeus, which
probably signified that her mother's name was not known--she was a
foundling. Athena caused the first olive-tree to grow on the Acropolis
of Athens, parent of all the olive-trees of Greece. Poseidon seems to
have had settlements at Corinth, Ægina, Naxos, and Delphi. Temples were
erected to his honor in nearly all the seaport towns of Greece. He sent
a sea-monster, to wit, a slip, to ravage part of the Trojan territory.
In the "Iliad" Poseidon appears "as ruler of the sea, inhabiting a
brilliant palace in its depths, traversing its surface in a chariot, or
stirring the powerful billows until the earth shakes as they crash upon
the shores.... He is also associated with well-watered plains and
valleys." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 51.) The palace in the depths of the
sea was the palace upon Olympus in Atlantis; the traversing of the sea
referred to the movements of a mercantile race; the shaking of
POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE.
the earth was an association with earthquakes; the "well-watered plains
and valleys" remind us of the great plain of Atlantis described by Plato.
All the traditions of the coming of civilization into Europe point to
Atlantis.
For instance, Keleos, who lived at Eleusis, near Athens, hospitably
received Demeter, the Greek Ceres, the daughter of Poseidon, when she
landed; and in return she taught him the use of the plough, and
presented his son with the seed of barley, and sent him out to teach
mankind how to sow and utilize that grain. Dionysos, grandson of
Poseidon, travelled "through all the known world, even into the remotest
parts of India, instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend the
vine, and how to practise many other arts of peace, besides teaching
them the value of just and honorable dealings." (Murray's "Mythology,"
p. 119.) The Greeks celebrated great festivals in his honor down to the
coming of Christianity.
"The Nymphs of Grecian mythology were a kind of middle beings between
the gods and men, communicating with both, loved and respected by both;
... living like the gods on ambrosia. In extraordinary cases they were
summoned, it was believed, to the councils of the Olympian gods; but
they usually remained in their particular spheres, in secluded grottoes
and peaceful valleys, occupied in spinning, weaving, bathing, singing
sweet songs, dancing, sporting, or accompanying deities who passed
through their territories--hunting with Artemis (Diana), rushing about
with Dionysos (Bacchus), making merry with Apollo or Hermes (Mercury),
but always in a hostile attitude toward the wanton and excited Satyrs."
The Nymphs were plainly the female inhabitants of Atlantis dwelling on
the plains, while the aristocracy lived on the higher lands. And this is
confirmed by the fact that part of them were called Atlantids, offspring
of Atlantis. The Hesperides were also "daughters of Atlas;" their mother
was Hesperis, a personification of "the region of the West." Their home
was "an island in the ocean," Off the north or west coast of Africa.
And here we find a tradition which not only points to Atlantis, but also
shows some kinship to the legend in Genesis of the tree and the serpent.
Titæa, "a goddess of the earth," gave Zeus a tree bearing golden apples
on it. This tree was put in the care of the Hesperides, but they could
not resist the temptation to pluck and eat its fruit; thereupon a
serpent named Ladon was put to watch the tree. Hercules slew the
serpent, and gave the apples to the Hesperides.
Heracles (Hercules), we have seen, was a son of Zeus, king of Atlantis.
One of his twelve labors (the tenth) was the carrying off the cattle of
Geryon. The meaning of Geryon is "the red glow of the sunset." He dwelt
on the island of "Erythea, in the remote west, beyond the Pillars of
Hercules." Hercules took a ship, and after encountering a storm, reached
the island and placed himself on Mount Abas. Hercules killed Geryon,
stole the cattle, put them on the ship, and landed them safely, driving
them "through Iberia, Gaul, and over the Alps down into Italy."
(Murray's "Mythology," p. 257.) This was simply the memory of a cattle
raid made by an uncivilized race upon the civilized, cattle-raising
people of Atlantis.
It is not necessary to pursue the study of the gods of Greece any
farther. They were simply barbarian recollections of the rulers of a
great civilized people who in early days visited their shores, and
brought with them the arts of peace.
Here then, in conclusion, are the proofs of our proposition that the
gods of Greece had been the kings of Atlantis:
1. They were not the makers, but the rulers of the world.
2. They were human in their attributes; they loved, sinned, and fought
battles, the very sites of which are given; they founded cities, and
civilized the people of the shores of the Mediterranean.
3. They dwelt upon an island in the Atlantic," in the remote west....
where the sun shines after it has ceased to shine on Greece."
4. Their land was destroyed in a deluge.
5. They were ruled over by Poseidon and Atlas.
6. Their empire extended to Egypt and Italy and the shores of Africa,
precisely as stated by Plato.
7. They existed during the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron
Age.
The entire Greek mythology is the recollection, by a degenerate race, of
a vast, mighty, and highly civilized empire, which in a remote past
covered large parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.
CHAPTER III.
THE GODS OF THE PHOENICIANS ALSO KINGS OF ATLANTIS.
Not alone were the gods of the Greeks the deified kings of Atlantis, but
we find that the mythology of the Phoenicians was drawn from the same
source.
For instance, we find in the Phoenician cosmogony that the Titans
(Rephaim) derive their origin from the Phoenician gods Agrus and Agrotus.
This connects the Phoenicians with that island in the remote west, in the
midst of ocean, where, according to the Greeks, the Titans dwelt.
According to Sanchoniathon, Ouranos was the son of Autochthon, and,
according to Plato, Autochthon was one of the ten kings of Atlantis. He
married his sister Ge. He is the Uranos of the Greeks, who was the son
of Gæa (the earth), whom he married. The Phoenicians tell us, "Ouranos
had by Ge four sons: Ilus (El), who is called Chronos, and Betylus
(Beth-El), and Dagon, which signifies bread-corn, and Atlas (Tammuz?)."
Here, again, we have the names of two other kings of Atlantis. These
four sons probably represented four races, the offspring of the earth.
The Greek Uranos was the father of Chronos, and the ancestor of Atlas.
The Phoenician god Ouranos had a great many other wives: his wife Ge was
jealous; they quarrelled, and he attempted to kill the children he had
by her. This is the legend which the Greeks told of Zeus and Juno. In
the Phoenician mythology Chronos raised a rebellion against Ouranos, and,
after a great battle, dethroned him. In the Greek legends it is Zeus who
attacks and overthrows his father, Chronos. Ouranos had a daughter
called Astarte (Ashtoreth), another called Rhea. "And Dagon, after he
had found out bread-corn and the plough, was called Zeus-Arotrius."
We find also, in the Phoenician legends, mention made of Poseidon,
founder and king of Atlantis.
Chronos gave Attica to his daughter Athena, as in the Greek legends. In
a time of plague he sacrificed his son to Ouranos, and "circumcised
himself, and compelled his allies to do the same thing." It would thus
appear that this singular rite, practised as we have seen by the
Atlantidæ of the Old and New Worlds, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the
Hebrews, the Ethiopians, the Mexicans, and the red men of America, dates
back, as we might have expected, to Atlantis.
"Chronos visits the different regions of the habitable world."
He gave Egypt as a kingdom to the god Taaut, who had invented the
alphabet. The Egyptians called him Thoth, and he was represented among
them as "the god of letters, the clerk of the under-world," bearing a
tablet, pen, and palm-branch.
This not only connects the Phoenicians with Atlantis, but shows the
relations of Egyptian civilization to both Atlantis and the Phoenicians.
There can be no doubt that the royal personages who formed the gods of
Greece were also the gods of the Phoenicians. We have seen the Autochthon
of Plato reappearing in the Autochthon of the Phoenicians; the Atlas of
Plato in the Atlas of the Phoenicians; the Poseidon of Plato in the
Poseidon of the Phoenicians; while the kings Mestor and Mneseus of Plato
are probably the gods Misor and Amynus of the Phoenicians.
Sanchoniathon tells us, after narrating all the discoveries by which the
people advanced to civilization, that the Cabiri set down their records
of the past by the command of the god Taaut, "and they delivered them to
their successors and to foreigners, of whom one was Isiris (Osiris), the
inventor of the three letters, the brother of Chua, who is called the
first Phoenician." (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Ancient History of the
East," vol. ii., p. 228.)
This would show that the first Phoenician came long after this line of
the kings or gods, and that he was a foreigner, as compared with them;
and, therefore, that it could not have been the Phoenicians proper who
made the several inventions narrated by Sanchoniathon, but some other
race, from whom the Phoenicians might have been descended.
And in the delivery of their records to the foreigner Osiris, the god of
Egypt, we have another evidence that Egypt derived her civilization from
Atlantis.
Max Müller says:
"The Semitic languages also are all varieties of one form of speech.
Though we do not know that primitive language from which the Semitic
dialects diverged, yet we know that at one time such language must have
existed.... We cannot derive Hebrew from Sanscrit, or Sanscrit from
Hebrew; but we can well understand how both may have proceeded from one
common source. They are both channels supplied from one river, and they
carry, though not always on the surface, floating materials of language
which challenge comparison, and have already yielded satisfactory
results to careful analyzers." ("Outlines of Philosophy of History,"
vol. i., p. 475.)
There was an ancient tradition among the Persians that the Phoenicians
migrated from the shores of the Erythræan Sea, and this has been
supposed to mean the Persian Gulf; but there was a very old city of
Erythia, in utter ruin in the time of Strabo, which was built in some
ancient age, long before the founding of Gades, near the site of that
town, on the Atlantic coast of Spain. May not this town of Erythia have
given its name to the adjacent sea? And this may have been the
starting-point of the Phoenicians in their European migrations. It would
even appear that there was an island of Erythea. In the Greek mythology
the tenth labor of Hercules consisted in driving away the cattle of
Geryon, who lived in the island of Erythea, "an island somewhere in the
remote west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules." (Murray's "Mythology," p.
257.) Hercules stole the cattle from this remote oceanic island, and,
returning drove them "through Iberia, Gaul, over the Alps, and through
Italy." (Ibid.) It is probable that a people emigrating from the
Erythræan Sea, that is, from the Atlantic, first gave their name to a
town on the coast of Spain, and at a later date to the Persian Gulf--as
we have seen the name of York carried from England to the banks of the
Hudson, and then to the Arctic Circle.
The builders of the Central American cities are reported to have been a
bearded race. The Phoenicians, in common with the Indians, practised
human sacrifices to a great extent; they worshipped fire and water,
adopted the names of the animals whose skins they wore--that is to say,
they had the totemic system--telegraphed by means of fires, poisoned
their arrows, offered peace before beginning battle, and used drums.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 77.)
The extent of country covered by the commerce of the Phoenicians
represents to some degree the area of the old Atlantean Empire. Their
colonies and trading-posts extended east and west from the shores of the
Black Sea, through the Mediterranean to the west coast of Africa and of
Spain, and around to Ireland and England; while from north to south they
ranged from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf. They touched every point
where civilization in later ages made its appearance. Strabo estimated
that they had three hundred cities along the west coast of Africa. When
Columbus sailed to discover a new world, or re-discover an old one, he
took his departure from a Phoenician seaport, founded by that great race
two thousand five hundred years previously. This Atlantean sailor, with
his Phoenician features, sailing from an Atlantean port, simply re-opened
the path of commerce and colonization which had been closed when Plato's
island sunk in the sea. And it is a curious fact that Columbus had the
antediluvian world in his mind's eye even then, for when he reached the
mouth of the Orinoco he thought it was the river Gihon, that flowed out
of Paradise, and he wrote home to Spain, "There are here great
indications suggesting the proximity of the earthly Paradise, for not
only does it correspond in mathematical position with the opinions of
the holy and learned theologians, but all other signs concur to make it
probable."
Sanchoniathon claims that the learning of Egypt, Greece, and Judæa was
derived from the Phoenicians. It would appear probable that, while other
races represent the conquests or colonizations of Atlantis, the
Phoenicians succeeded to their arts, sciences, and especially their
commercial supremacy; and hence the close resemblances which we have
found to exist between the Hebrews, a branch of the Phoenician stock, and
the people of America.
Upon the Syrian sea the people live
Who style themselves Phoenicians....
These were the first great founders of the world--
Founders of cities and of mighty states--
Who showed a path through seas before unknown.
In the first ages, when the sons of men
Knew not which way to turn them, they assigned
To each his first department; they bestowed
Of land a portion and of sea a lot,
And sent each wandering tribe far off to share
A different soil and climate. Hence arose
The great diversity, so plainly seen,
'Mid nations widely severed.
Dyonysius of Susiana, A.D. 3.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GOD ODIN, WODEN, OR WOTAN.
In the Scandinavian mythology the chief god was Odin, the Woden, Wotan,
or Wuotan of the Germans. He is represented with many of the attributes
of the Greek god Zeus, and is supposed by some to be identical with him.
He dwelt with the twelve Æsir, or gods, upon Asgard, the Norse Olympus,
which arose out of Midgard, a land half-way between the regions of frost
and fire (to wit, in a temperate climate). The Scandinavian Olympus was
probably Atlantis. Odin is represented as a grave-looking elderly man
with a long beard, carrying in his hand a spear, and accompanied by two
dogs and two ravens. He was the father of poetry, and the inventor of
Runic writing.
The Chiapenese of Central America (the people whose language we have
seen furnishing such remarkable resemblances to Hebrew) claim to have
been the first people of the New World. Clavigero tells us ("Hist.
Antiq. del Messico," Eng. trans., 1807, vol. i.) that according to the
traditions of the Chiapenese there was a Votan who was the grandson of
the man who built the ark to save himself and family from the Deluge; he
was one of those who undertook to build the tower that should reach to
heaven. The Lord ordered him to people America. "He came from the
East." He brought seven families with him. He had been preceded in
America by two others, Igh and Imox. He built a great city in America
called "Nachan," City of the Serpents (the serpent that tempted Eve was
Nahash), from his own race, which was named Chan, a serpent. This Nachan
is supposed to have been Palenque. The date of his journey is placed in
the legends in the year 3000 of the world, and in the tenth century B.C.
He also founded three tributary monarchies, whose capitals were Tulan,
Mayapan, and Chiquimala. He wrote a book containing a history of his
deeds, and proofs that he belonged to the tribe of Chanes (serpents). He
states that "he is the third of the Votans; that he conducted seven
families from Valum-Votan to this continent, and assigned lands to them;
that he determined to travel until he came to the root of heaven and
found his relations, the Culebres, and made himself known to them; that
he accordingly made four voyages to Chivim; that he arrived in Spain;
that he went to Rome; that he saw the house of God building; that he
went by the road which his brethren, the Culebres, had bored; that he
marked it, and that he passed by the houses of the thirteen Culebres. He
relates that, in returning from one of his voyages, he found seven other
families of the Tzequil nation who had joined the first inhabitants, and
recognized in them the same origin as his own, that is, of the Culebres;
he speaks of the place where they built the first town, which from its
founders received the name of Tzequil; he affirms that, having taught
them the refinement of manners in the use of the table, table-cloths,
dishes, basins, cups, and napkins, they taught him the knowledge of God
and his worship; his first ideas of a king, and obedience to him; that
he was chosen captain of all these united families."
It is probable that Spain and Rome are interpolations. Cabrera claims
that the Votanites were Carthaginians. He thinks the Chivim of Votan
were the Hivim, or Givim, who were descended of Heth, son of Canaan,
Phoenicians; they were the builders of Accaron, Azotus, Ascalon, and
Gaza. The Scriptures refer to them as Hivites (Givim) in Deuteronomy
(chap. ii., verse 32), and Joshua (chap. xiii., verse 4). He claims that
Cadmus and his wife Hermione were of this stock; and according to Ovid
they were metamorphosed into snakes (Culebres). The name Hivites in
Phoenician signifies a snake.
Votan may not, possibly, have passed into Europe; he may have travelled
altogether in Africa. His singular allusion to "a way which the Culebres
had bored" seems at first inexplicable; but Dr. Livingstone's last
letters, published 8th November, 1869, in the "Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society," mention that "tribes live in underground houses
in Rua. Some excavations are said to be thirty miles long, and have
running rills in them; a whole district can stand a siege in them. The
'writings' therein, I have been told by some of the people, are drawings
of animals, and not letters; otherwise I should have gone to see them.
People very dark, well made, and outer angle of eyes slanting inward."
And Captain Grant, who accompanied Captain Speke in his famous
exploration of the sources of the Nile, tells of a tunnel or subway
under the river Kaoma, on the highway between Loowemba and Marunga, near
Lake Tanganyika. His guide Manna describes it to him:
"I asked Manna if he had ever seen any country resembling it. His reply
was, 'This country reminds me of what I saw in the country to the south
of the Lake Tanganyika, when travelling with an Arab's caravan from
Unjanyembeh. There is a river there called the Kaoma, running into the
lake, the sides of which are similar in precipitousness to the rocks
before us.' I then asked, 'Do the people cross this river in boats?'
'No; they have no boats; and even if they had, the people could not
land, as the sides are too steep: they pass underneath the river by a
natural tunnel, or subway.' He and all his party went through it on
their way from Loowemba to Ooroongoo, and returned by it. He described
its length as having taken them from sunrise till noon to pass through
it, and so high that, if mounted upon camels, they could not touch the
top. Tall reeds, the thickness of a walking-stick, grew inside, the road
was strewed with white pebbles, and so wide--four hundred yards--that
they could see their way tolerably well while passing through it. The
rocks looked as if they had been planed by artificial means. Water never
came through from the river overhead; it was procured by digging wells.
Manna added that the people of Wambweh take shelter in this tunnel, and
live there with their families and cattle, when molested by the Watuta,
a warlike race, descended from the Zooloo Kafirs."
But it is interesting to find in this book of Votan, however little
reliance we may place in its dates or details, evidence that there was
actual intercourse between the Old World and the New in remote ages.
Humboldt remarks:
"We have fixed the special attention of our readers upon this Votan, or
Wodan, an American who appears of the same family with the Wods or Odins
of the Goths and of the people of Celtic origin. Since, according to the
learned researches of Sir William Jones, Odin and Buddha are probably
the same person, it is curious to see the names of Bondvar, Wodansday,
and Votan designating in India, Scandinavia, and in Mexico the day of a
brief period." ("Vues des Cordilleras," p. 148, ed. 1810.)
There are many things to connect the mythology of the Gothic nations
with Atlantis; they had, as we have seen, flood legends; their gods
Krodo and Satar were the Chronos and Saturn of Atlantis; their Baal was
the Bel of the Phoenicians, who were closely connected with Poseidon and
Atlas; and, as we shall see hereafter, their language has a distinct
relationship with the tongues of the Arabians, Cushites, Chaldeans, and
Phoenicians.
CHAPTER V.
THE PYRAMID, THE CROSS, AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
No fact is better established than the reverence shown to the sign of
the Cross in all the ages prior to Christianity. We cannot do better
than quote from an able article in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1870,
upon this question:
"From the dawn of organized Paganism in the Eastern world to the final
establishment of Christianity in the Western, the Cross was undoubtedly
one of the commonest and most sacred of symbolical monuments; and, to a
remarkable extent, it is so still in almost every land where that of
Calvary is unrecognized or unknown. Apart from any distinctions of
social or intellectual superiority, of caste, color, nationality, or
location in either hemisphere, it appears to have been the aboriginal
possession of every people in antiquity--the elastic girdle, so to say,
which embraced the most widely separated heathen communities--the most
significant token of a universal brotherhood, to which all the families
of mankind were severally and irresistibly drawn, and by which their
common descent was emphatically expressed, or by means of which each and
all preserved, amid every vicissitude of fortune, a knowledge of the
primeval happiness and dignity of their species. Where authentic history
is silent on the subject, the material relics of past and long since
forgotten races are not wanting to confirm and strengthen this
supposition. Diversified forms of the symbol are delineated more or less
artistically, according to the progress achieved in civilization at the
period, on the ruined walls of temples and palaces, on natural rocks and
sepulchral galleries, on the hoariest monoliths and the rudest statuary;
on coins, medals, and vases of every description; and, in not a few
instances, are preserved in the architectural proportions of
subterranean as well as superterranean structures, of tumuli as well as
fanes. The extraordinary sanctity attaching to the symbol, in every age
and under every variety of circumstance, justified any expenditure
incurred in its fabrication or embellishment; hence the most persistent
labor, the most consummate ingenuity, were lavished upon it. Populations
of essentially different culture, tastes, and pursuits--the
highly-civilized and the demi-civilized, the settled and nomadic--vied
with each other in their efforts to extend the knowledge of its
exceptional import and virtue among their latest posterities. The
marvellous rock-hewn caves of Elephanta and Ellora, and the stately
temples of Mathura and Terputty, in the East, may be cited as
characteristic examples of one laborious method of exhibiting it; and
the megalithic structures of Callernish and Newgrange, in the West, of
another; while a third may be instanced in the great temple at Mitzla,
'the City of the Moon,' in Ojaaca, Central America, also excavated in
the living rock, and manifesting the same stupendous labor and ingenuity
as are observable in the cognate caverns of Salsette--of endeavors, we
repeat, made by peoples as intellectually as geographically distinct,
and followers withal of independent and unassociated deities, to magnify
and perpetuate some grand primeval symbol....
"Of the several varieties of the Cross still in vogue, as national or
ecclesiastical emblems, in this and other European states, and
distinguished by the familiar appellations of St. George, St. Andrew,
the Maltese, the Greek, the Latin, etc., etc., there is not one among
them the existence of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity.
They were the common property of the Eastern nations. No revolution or
other casualty has wrought any perceptible difference in their several
forms or delineations; they have passed from one hemisphere to the other
intact; have survived dynasties, empires, and races; have been borne on
the crest of each successive wave of Aryan population in its course
toward the West; and, having been reconsecrated in later times by their
lineal descendants, are still recognized as military and national badges
of distinction....
"Among the earliest known types is the crux ansata, vulgarly called 'the
key of the Nile,' because of its being found sculptured or otherwise
represented so frequently upon Egyptian and Coptic monuments. It has,
however, a very much older and more sacred signification than this. It
was the symbol of symbols, the mystical Tau, 'the hidden wisdom,' not
only of the ancient Egyptians but also of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians,
Mexicans, Peruvians, and of every other ancient people commemorated in
history, in either hemisphere, and is formed very similarly to our
letter T, with a roundlet, or oval, placed immediately above it. Thus it
was figured on the gigantic emerald or glass statue of Serapis, which
was transported (293 B.C.) by order of Ptolemy Soter from Sinope, on the
southern shores of the Black Sea, re-erected within that famous
labyrinth which encompassed the banks of Lake Moeris, and destroyed by
the victorious army of Theodosius (A.D. 389), despite the earnest
entreaties of the Egyptian priesthood to spare it, because it was the
emblem of their god and of 'the life to come.' Sometimes, as may be seen
on the breast of an Egyptian mummy in the museum of the London
University, the simple T only is planted on the frustum of a cone; and
sometimes it is represented as springing from a heart; in the first
instance signifying goodness; in the second, hope or expectation of
reward. As in the oldest temples and catacombs of Egypt, so this type
likewise abounds in the ruined cities of Mexico and Central America,
graven as well upon the most ancient cyclopean and polygonal walls as
upon the more modern and perfect examples of masonry; and is displayed
in an equally conspicuous manner upon the breasts of innumerable bronze
statuettes which have been recently disinterred from the cemetery of
Juigalpa (of unknown antiquity) in Nicaragua."
When the Spanish missionaries first set foot upon the soil of America,
in the fifteenth century, they were amazed to find the Cross was as
devoutly worshipped by the red Indians as by themselves, and were in
doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St. Thomas or
to the cunning device of the Evil One. The hallowed symbol challenged
their attention on every hand and in almost every variety of form. It
appeared on the bass-reliefs of ruined and deserted as well as on those
of inhabited palaces, and was the most conspicuous ornament in the great
temple of Gozumel, off the coast of Yucatan. According to the particular
locality, and the purpose which it served, it was formed of various
materials--of marble and gypsum in the open spaces of cities and by the
way-side; of wood in the teocallis or chapels on pyramidal summits and
in subterranean sanctuaries; and of emerald or jasper in the palaces of
kings and nobles.
When we ask the question how it comes that the sign of the Cross has
thus been reverenced from the highest antiquity by the races of the Old
and New Worlds, we learn that it is a reminiscence of the Garden of
Eden, in other words, of Atlantis.
Professor Hardwicke says:
"All these and similar traditions are but mocking satires of the old
Hebrew story--jarred and broken notes of the same strain; but with all
their exaggerations they intimate how in the background of man's vision
lay a paradise of holy joy--a paradise secured from every kind of
profanation, and made inaccessible to the guilty; a paradise full of
objects that were calculated to delight the senses and to elevate the
mind, a paradise that granted to its tenant rich and rare immunities, and
that fed with its perennial streams the tree of life and immortality."
To quote again from the writer in the Edinburgh Review, already cited;
"Its undoubted antiquity, no less than its extraordinary diffusion,
evidences that it must have been, as it may be said to be still in
unchristianized lands, emblematical of some fundamental doctrine or
mystery. The reader will not have failed to observe that it is most
usually associated with water; it was 'the key of the Nile,' that
mystical instrument by means of which, in the popular judgment of his
Egyptian devotees, Osiris produced the annual revivifying inundations of
the sacred stream; it is discernible in that mysterious pitcher or vase
portrayed on the brazen table of Bembus, before-mentioned, with its four
lips discharging as many streams of water in opposite directions; it was
the emblem of the water-deities of the Babylonians in the East and of
the Gothic nations in the West, as well as that of the rain-deities
respectively of the mixed population in America. We have seen with what
peculiar rites the symbol was honored by those widely separated races in
the western hemisphere; and the monumental slabs of Nineveh, now in the
museums of London and Paris, show us how it was similarly honored by the
successors of the Chaldees in the eastern....
ANCIENT IRISH CROSS--PRE-CHRISTIAN--KILNABOY.
"In Egypt, Assyria, and Britain it was emblematical of creative power
and eternity; in India, China, and Scandinavia, of heaven and
immortality; in the two Americas, of rejuvenescence and freedom from
physical suffering; while in both hemispheres it was the common symbol
of the resurrection, or 'the sign of the life to come;' and, finally, in
all heathen communities, without exception, it was the emphatic type,
the sole enduring evidence, of the Divine Unity. This circumstance alone
determines its extreme antiquity--an antiquity, in all likelihood, long
antecedent to the foundation of either of the three great systems of
religion in the East. And, lastly, we have seen how, as a rule, it is
found in conjunction with a stream or streams of water, with exuberant
vegetation, and with a hill or a mountainous region--in a word, with a
land of beauty, fertility, and joy. Thus it was expressed upon those
circular and sacred cakes of the Egyptians, composed of the richest
materials--of flour, of honey, of milk--and with which the serpent and
bull, as well as other reptiles and beasts consecrated to the service of
Isis and their higher divinities, were daily fed; and upon certain
festivals were eaten with extraordinary ceremony by the people and their
priests. 'The cross-cake,' says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, 'was their
hieroglyph for civilized land;' obviously a land superior to their own,
as it was, indeed, to all other mundane territories; for it was that
distant, traditional country of sempiternal contentment and repose, of
exquisite delight and serenity, where Nature, unassisted by man,
produces all that is necessary for his sustentation."
And this land was the Garden of Eden of our race. This was the Olympus
of the Greeks, where
"This same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden and the fruits to grow."
In the midst of it was a sacred and glorious eminence--the umbilicus
orbis terrarum--"toward which the heathen in all parts of the world, and
in all ages, turned a wistful gaze in every act of devotion, and to
which they hoped to be admitted, or, rather, to be restored, at the
close of this transitory scene."
In this "glorious eminence" do we not see Plato's mountain in the middle
of Atlantis, as he describes it:
"Near the plain and in the centre of the island 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. Poseidon married her. He enclosed the hill in which she dwelt
all around, making alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller,
encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water ...
so that no man could get to the island.... He brought streams of
water under the earth to this mountain-island, and made all manner of
food to grow upon it. This island became the seat of Atlas, the
over-king of the whole island; upon it they built the great temple of
their nation; they continued to ornament it 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
beauty.... And they had such an amount of wealth as was never before
possessed by kings and potentates--as is not likely ever to be again."
The gardens of Alcinous and Laertes, of which we read in Homeric song,
and those of Babylon, were probably transcripts of Atlantis. "The sacred
eminence in the midst of a superabundant, happy region figures more or
less distinctly in almost every mythology, ancient or modern. It was the
Mesomphalos of the earlier Greeks, and the Omphalium of the Cretans,
dominating the Elysian fields, upon whose tops, bathed in pure,
brilliant, incomparable light, the gods passed their days in ceaseless
joys."
"The Buddhists and Brahmans, who together constitute nearly half the
population of the world, tell us that the decussated figure (the cross),
whether in a simple or a complex form, symbolizes the traditional happy
abode of their primeval ancestors--that 'Paradise of Eden toward the
East,' as we find expressed in the Hebrew. And, let us ask, what better
picture, or more significant characters, in the complicated alphabet of
symbolism, could have been selected for the purpose than a circle and a
cross: the one to denote a region of absolute purity and perpetual
felicity; the other, those four perennial streams that divided and
watered the several quarters of it?" (Edinburgh Review, January, 1870.)
And when we turn to the mythology of the Greeks, we find that the origin
of the world was ascribed to Okeanos, the ocean. The world was at first
an island surrounded by the ocean, as by a great stream:
"It was a region of wonders of all kinds; Okeanos lived there with his
wife Tethys: these were the Islands of the Blessed, the gardens of the
gods, the sources of nectar and ambrosia, on which the gods lived.
Within this circle of water the earth lay spread out like a disk, with
mountains rising from it, and the vault of heaven appearing to rest upon
its outer edge all around." (Murray's "Mannal of Mythology," pp. 23, 24,
et seq.)
On the mountains dwelt the gods; they had palaces on these mountains,
with store-rooms, stabling, etc.
"The Gardens of the Hesperides, with their golden apples, were believed
to exist in some island of the ocean, or, as it was sometimes thought,
in the islands off the north or west coast of Africa. They were far
famed in antiquity; for it was there that springs of nectar flowed by
the couch of Zeus, and there that the earth displayed the rarest
blessings of the gods; it was another Eden." (Ibid., p. 156.)
Homer described it in these words:
"Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime,
The fields are florid with unfading prime,
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow.
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the blessed inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale."
"It was the sacred Asgard of the Scandinavians, springing from the
centre of a fruitful land, which was watered by four primeval rivers of
milk, severally flowing in the direction of the cardinal points, 'the
abode of happiness, and the height of bliss.' It is the Tien-Chan, 'the
celestial mountain-land, ... the enchanted gardens' of the Chinese and
Tartars, watered by the four perennial fountains of Tychin, or
Immortality; it is the hill-encompassed Ilá of the Singhalese and
Thibetians, 'the everlasting dwelling-place of the wise and just.' It is
the Sineru of the Buddhist, on the summit of which is Tawrutisa, the
habitation of Sekrá, the supreme god, from which proceed the four sacred
streams, running in as many contrary directions.
It is the Slávratta, 'the celestial earth,' of the Hindoo, the summit of
his golden mountain Meru, the city of Brahma, in the centre of
Jambadwípa, and from the four sides of which gush forth the four
primeval rivers, reflecting in their passage the colorific glories of
their source, and severally flowing northward, southward, eastward, and
westward."
It is the Garden of Eden of the Hebrews:
"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put
the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the
tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the
first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah,
where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is
bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon:
the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name
of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east
of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the Lord God took the
man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."
(Gen. ii., 8-1-5.)
As the four rivers named in Genesis are not branches of any one stream,
and head in very different regions, it is evident that there was an
attempt, on the part of the writer of the Book, to adapt an ancient
tradition concerning another country to the known features of the region
in which he dwelt.
Josephus tells us (chap. i., p. 41), "Now the garden (of Eden) was
watered by one river, which ran round about the whole earth, and was
parted into four parts." Here in the four parts we see the origin of the
Cross, while in the river running around the whole earth we have the
wonderful canal of Atlantis, described by Plato, which was "carried
around the whole of the plain," and received the streams which came down
from the mountains. The streams named by Josephus would seem to
represent the migrations of people from Atlantis to its colonies.
"Phison," he tells us, "denotes a multitude; it ran into India; the
Euphrates and Tigris go down into the Red Sea while the Geon runs
through Egypt."
We are further told (chap. ii., p. 42) that when Cain, after the murder
of Abel, left the land of Adam, "he travelled over many countries"
before he reached the land of Nod; and the land of Nod was to the
eastward of Adam's home. In other words, the original seat of mankind
was in the West, that is to say, in the direction of Atlantis. Wilson
tells us that the Aryans of India believed that they originally came
"from the West." Thus the nations on the west of the Atlantic look to
the east for their place of origin; while on the east of the Atlantic
they look to the west: thus all the lines of tradition converge upon
Atlantis.
But here is the same testimony that in the Garden of Eden there were
four rivers radiating from one parent stream. And these four rivers, as
we have seen, we find in the Scandinavian traditions, and in the legends
of the Chinese, the Tartars, the Singhalese, the Thibetians, the
Buddhists, the Hebrews, and the Brahmans.
And not only do we find this tradition of the Garden of Eden in the Old
World, but it meets us also among the civilized races of America. The
elder Montezuma said to Cortez, "Our fathers dwelt in that happy and
prosperous place which they called Aztlan, which means whiteness....
In this place there is a great mountain in the middle of the water which
is called Culhuacan, because it has the point somewhat turned over
toward the bottom; and for this cause it is called Culhuacan, which
means 'crooked mountain.'" He then proceeds to describe the charms of
this favored land, abounding in birds, game, fish, trees, "fountains
enclosed with elders and junipers, and alder-trees both large and
beautiful." The people planted "maize, red peppers, tomatoes, beans, and
all kinds of plants, in furrows."
Here we have the same mountain in the midst of the water which Plato
describes--the same mountain to which all the legends of the most
ancient races of Europe refer.
The inhabitants of Aztlan were boatmen. (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol.
v., p. 325.) E. G. Squier, in his "Notes on Central America," p. 349,
says, "It is a significant fact that in the map of their migrations,
presented by Gemelli, the place of the origin of the Aztecs is
designated by the sign of water, Atl standing for Atzlan, a pyramidal
temple with grades, and near these a palm-tree." This circumstance did
not escape the attention of Humboldt, who says, "I am astonished at
finding a palm-tree near this teocalli. This tree certainly does not
indicate a northern origin.... The possibility that an unskilful
artist should unintentionally represent a tree of which he had no
knowledge is so great, that any argument dependent on it hangs upon a
slender thread." ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 266.)
The Miztecs, a tribe dwelling on the outskirts of Mexico, had a
tradition that the gods, "in the day of obscurity and darkness," built
"a sumptuous palace, a masterpiece of skill, in which they made their
abode upon a mountain. The rock was called 'The Place of Heaven;' there
the gods first abode on earth, living many years in great rest and
content, as in a happy and delicious land, though the world still lay in
obscurity and darkness. The children of these gods made to themselves a
garden, in which they put many trees, and fruit-trees, and flowers, and
roses, and odorous herbs. Subsequently there came a great deluge, in
which many of the sons and daughters of the gods perished." (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. iii., p. 71.) Here we have a distinct reference to
Olympus, the Garden of Plato, and the destruction of Atlantis.
And in Plato's account of Atlantis we have another description of the
Garden of Eden and the Golden Age of the world:
"Also, whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots,
or herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers and fruits, grew
and thrived in that land; and again the cultivated fruits of the earth,
both the edible fruits and other species of food which we call by the
name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and
meats and ointments ... all these that sacred island, lying beneath
the sun, brought forth in abundance.... 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, and thinking lightly of 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
were 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."
All this cannot be a mere coincidence; it points to a common tradition
of a veritable land, where four rivers flowed down in opposite
directions from a central mountain-peak. And these four rivers, flowing
to the north, south, east, and west, constitute the origin of that sign
of the Cross which we have seen meeting us at every point among the
races who were either descended from the people of Atlantis, or who, by
commerce and colonization, received their opinions and civilization from
them.
Let us look at the question of the identity of the Garden of Eden with
Atlantis from another point of view:
If the alphabet of the Phoenicians is kindred with the Maya alphabet, as
I think is clear, then the Phoenicians were of the same race, or of some
race with which the Mayas were connected; in other words, they were from
Atlantis.
Now we know that the Phoenicians and Hebrews were of the same stock, used
the same alphabet, and spoke almost precisely the same language.
The Phoenicians preserved traditions, which have come down to us in the
writings, of Sanchoniathon, of all the great essential inventions or
discoveries which underlie civilization. The first two human beings,
they tell us, were Protogonos and Aion (Adam and 'Havath), who produce
Genos and Genea (Qên and Qênath), from whom again are descended three
brothers, named Phos, Phur, and Phlox (Light, Fire, and Flame), because
they "have discovered how to produce fire by the friction of two pieces
of wood, and have taught the use of this element." In another fragment,
at the origin of the human race we see in succession the fraternal
couples of Autochthon and Technites (Adam and Quen--Cain?), inventors of
the manufacture of bricks; Agros and Agrotes (Sade and Cêd), fathers of
the agriculturists and hunters; then Amynos and Magos, "who taught to
dwell in villages and rear flocks."
The connection between these Atlantean traditions and the Bible record
is shown in many things. For instance, "the Greek text, in expressing
the invention of Amynos, uses the words kw'mas kai` poi'mnas, which are
precisely the same as the terms ôhel umiqneh, which the Bible uses in
speaking of the dwellings of the descendants of Jabal (Gen., chap. iv.,
v. 20). In like manner Lamech, both in the signification of his name and
also in the savage character attributed to him by the legend attached to
his memory, is a true synonyme of Agrotes."
"And the title of A?lh~tai, given to Agros and Agrotes in the Greek of
the Phoenician history, fits in wonderfully with the physiognomy of the
race of the Cainites in the Bible narrative, whether we take a?lh~tai
simply as a Hellenized transcription of the Semitic Elim, 'the strong,
the mighty,' or whether we take it in its Greek acceptation, 'the
wanderers;' for such is the destiny of Cain and his race according to
the very terms of the condemnation which was inflicted upon him after
his crime (Gen. iv., 14), and this is what is signified by the name of
his grandson 'Yirad. Only, in Sanchoniathon the genealogy does not end
with Amynos and Magos, as that of the Cainites in the Bible does with
the three sons of Lamech. These two personages are succeeded by Misôr
and Sydyk, 'the released and the just,' as Sanchoniathon translates
them, but rather the 'upright and the just' (Mishôr and Çüdüq), 'who
invent the use of salt.' To Misôr is born Taautos (Taût), to whom we owe
letters; and to Sydyk the Cabiri or Corybantes, the institutors of
navigation." (Lenormant, "Genealogies between Adam and the Deluge."
Contemporary Review, April, 1880.)
We have, also, the fact that the Phoenician name for their goddess
Astynome (Ashtar No'emâ), whom the Greeks called Nemaun, was the same as
the name of the sister of the three sons of Lamech, as given in
Genesis--Na'emah, or Na'amah.
If, then, the original seat of the Hebrews and Phoenicians was the Garden
of Eden, to the west of Europe, and if the Phoenicians are shown to be
connected, through their alphabets, with the Central Americans, who
looked to an island in the sea, to the eastward, as their
starting-point, the conclusion becomes irresistible that Atlantis and
the Garden of Eden were one and the same.
The Pyramid.--Not only are the Cross and the Garden of Eden identified
with Atlantis, but in Atlantis, the habitation of the gods, we find the
original model of all those pyramids which extend from India to Peru.
This singular architectural construction dates back far beyond the birth
of history. In the Purânas of the Hindoos we read of pyramids long
anterior in time to any which have survived to our day. Cheops was
preceded by a countless host of similar erections which have long since
mouldered into ruins.
If the reader will turn to page 104 of this work he will see, in the
midst of the picture of Aztlan, the starting-point of the Aztecs,
according to the Botturini pictured writing, a pyramid with worshippers
kneeling before it.
Fifty years ago Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," placed
artificial tumuli, pyramids, and pagodas in the same category,
conceiving that all were transcripts of the holy mountain which was
generally supposed to have stood in the centre of Eden; or, rather, as
intimated in more than one place by the Psalmist, the garden itself was
situated on an eminence. (Psalms, chap. iii., v. 4, and chap. lxviii.,
vs. 15, 16, 18.)
The pyramid is one of the marvellous features of that problem which
confronts us everywhere, and which is insoluble without Atlantis.
The Arabian traditions linked the pyramid with the Flood. In a
manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library, and translated by Dr.
Sprenger, Abou Balkhi says:
"The wise men, previous to the Flood, foreseeing an impending Judgment
from heaven, either by submersion or fire, which would destroy every
created thing, built upon the tops of the mountains in Upper Egypt many
pyramids of stone, in order to have some refuge against the approaching
calamity. Two of these buildings exceeded the rest in height, being four
hundred cubits high and as many broad and as many long. They were built
with large blocks of marble, and they were so well put together that the
joints were scarcely perceptible. Upon the exterior of the building
every charm and wonder of physic was inscribed."
This tradition locates these monster structures upon the mountains of
Upper Egypt, but there are no buildings of such dimensions to be found
anywhere in Egypt. Is it not probable that we have here another
reference to the great record preserved in the land of the Deluge? Were
not the pyramids of Egypt and America imitations of similar structures
in Atlantis? Might not the building of such a gigantic edifice have
given rise to the legends existing on both continents in regard to a
Tower of Babel?
How did the human mind hit upon this singular edifice--the pyramid? By
what process of development did it reach it? Why should these
extraordinary structures crop out on the banks of the Nile, and amid the
forests and plains of America? And why, in both countries, should they
stand with their sides square to the four cardinal points of the
compass? Are they in this, too, a reminiscence of the Cross, and of the
four rivers of Atlantis that ran to the north, south, east, and west?
"There is yet a third combination that demands a specific notice. The
decussated symbol is not unfrequently planted upon what Christian
archæologists designate 'a calvary,' that is, upon a mount or a cone.
Thus it is represented in both hemispheres. The megalithic structure of
Callernish, in the island of Lewis before mentioned, is the most perfect
example of the practice extant in Europe. The mount is preserved to this
day. This, to be brief, was the recognized conventional mode of
expressing a particular primitive truth or mystery from the days of the
Chaldeans to those of the Gnostics, or from one extremity of the
civilized world to the other. It is seen in the treatment of the ash
Yggdrasill of the Scandinavians, as well as in that of the Bo-tree of
the Buddhists. The prototype was not the Egyptian, but the Babylonian
crux ansata, the lower member of which constitutes a conical support for
the oval or sphere above it. With the Gnostics, who occupied the
debatable ground between primitive Christianity and philosophic
paganism, and who inscribed it upon their tombs, the cone symbolized
death as well as life. In every heathen mythology it was the universal
emblem of the goddess or mother of heaven, by whatsoever name she was
addressed--whether as Mylitta, Astarte, Aphrodite, Isis, Mata, or Venus;
and the several eminences consecrated to her worship were, like those
upon which Jupiter was originally adored, of a conical or pyramidal
shape. This, too, is the ordinary form of the altars dedicated to the
Assyrian god of fertility. In exceptional instances the cone is
introduced upon one or the other of the sides, or is distinguishable in
the always accompanying mystical tree." (Edinburgh Review, July, 1870.)
If the reader will again turn to page 104 of this work he will see that
the tree appears on the top of the pyramid or mountain in both the Aztec
representations of Aztlan, the original island-home of the Central
American races.
The writer just quoted believes that Mr. Faber is correct in his opinion
that the pyramid is a transcript of the sacred mountain which stood in
the midst of Eden, the Olympus of Atlantis. He adds:
"Thomas Maurice, who is no mean authority, held the same view. He
conceived the use to which pyramids in particular were anciently applied
to have been threefold--namely, as tombs, temples, and observatories; and
this view he labors to establish in the third volume of his 'Indian
Antiquities.' Now, whatever may be their actual date, or with whatsoever
people they may have originated, whether in Africa or Asia, in the lower
valley of the Nile or in the plains of Chaldea, the pyramids of Egypt
were unquestionably destined to very opposite purposes. According to
Herodotus, they were introduced by the Hyksos; and Proclus, the Platonic
philosopher, connects them with the science of astronomy--a science
which, he adds, the Egyptians derived from the Chaldeans. Hence we may
reasonably infer that they served as well for temples for planetary
worship as for observatories. Subsequently to the descent of the
shepherds, their hallowed precincts were invaded by royalty, from
motives of pride and superstition; and the principal chamber in each was
used as tombs."
The pyramidal imitations, dear to the hearts of colonists of the sacred
mountain upon which their gods dwelt, was devoted, as perhaps the
mountain itself was, to sun and fire worship. The same writer says:
"That Sabian worship once extensively prevailed in the New World is a
well-authenticated fact; it is yet practised to some extent by the
wandering tribes on the Northern continent, and was the national
religion of the Peruvians at the time of the Conquest. That it was also
the religion of their more highly civilized predecessors on the soil,
south of the equator more especially, is evidenced by the remains of
fire-altars, both round and square, scattered about the shores of lakes
Umayu and Titicaca, and which are the counterparts of the Gueber dokh
mehs overhanging the Caspian Sea. Accordingly, we find, among these and
other vestiges of antiquity that indissolubly connected those long-since
extinct populations in the New with the races of the Old World, the
well-defined symbol of the Maltese Cross. On the Mexican feroher before
alluded to, and which is most elaborately carved in bass-relief on a
massive piece of polygonous granite, constituting a portion of a
cyclopean wall, the cross is enclosed within the ring, and accompanying
it are four tassel-like ornaments, graved equally well. Those
accompaniments, however, are disposed without any particular regard to
order, but the four arms of the cross, nevertheless, severally and
accurately point to the cardinal quarters. The same regularity is
observable on a much smaller but not less curious monument, which was
discovered some time since in an ancient Peruvian huaca or
catacomb--namely, a syrinx or pandean pipe, cut out of a solid mass of
lapis ollaris, the sides of which are profusely ornamented, not only
with Maltese crosses, but also with other symbols very similar in style
to those inscribed on the obelisks of Egypt and on the monoliths of this
country. The like figure occurs on the equally ancient Otrusco black
pottery. But by far the most remarkable example of this form of the
Cross in the New World is that which appears on a second type of the
Mexican feroher, engraved on a tablet of gypsum, and which is described
at length by its discoverer, Captain du Paix, and depicted by his
friend, M. Baradère. Here the accompaniments--a shield, a hamlet, and a
couple of bead-annulets or rosaries--are, with a single exception,
identical in even the minutest particular with an Assyrian monument
emblematical of the Deity....
"No country in the world can compare with India for the exposition of
the pyramidal cross. There the stupendous labors of Egypt are rivalled,
and sometimes surpassed. Indeed, but for the fact of such monuments of
patient industry and unexampled skill being still in existence, the
accounts of some others which have long since disappeared, having
succumbed to the ravages of time and the fury of the bigoted Mussulman,
would sound in our ears as incredible as the story of Porsenna's tomb,
which 'o'ertopped old Pelion,' and made 'Ossa like a wart.' Yet
something not very dissimilar in character to it was formerly the boast
of the ancient city of Benares, on the banks of the Ganges. We allude to
the great temple of Bindh Madhu, which was demolished in the seventeenth
century by the Emperor Aurungzebe. Tavernier, the French baron, who
travelled thither about the year 1680, has preserved a brief description
of it. The body of the temple was constructed in the figure of a
colossal cross (i. e., a St. Andrew's Cross), with a lofty dome at the
centre, above which rose a massive structure of a pyramidal form. At the
four extremities of the cross there were four other pyramids of
proportionate dimensions, and which were ascended from the outside by
steps, with balconies at stated distances for places of rest, reminding
us of the temple of Belus, as described in the pages of Herodotus. The
remains of a similar building are found at Mhuttra, on the banks of the
Jumna. This and many others, including the subterranean temple at
Elephanta and the caverns of Ellora and Salsette, are described at
length in the well-known work by Maurice; who adds that, besides these,
there was yet another device in which the Hindoo displayed the
all-pervading sign; this was by pyramidal towers placed crosswise. At
the famous temple of Chillambrum, on the Coromandel coast, there were
seven lofty walls, one within the other, round the central quadrangle,
and as many pyramidal gate-ways in the midst of each side which forms
the limbs of a vast cross."
In Mexico pyramids were found everywhere. Cortez, in a letter to Charles
V., states that he counted four hundred of them at Cholula. Their
temples were on those "high-places." The most ancient pyramids in Mexico
are at Teotihuacan, eight leagues from the city of Mexico; the two
largest were dedicated to the sun and moon respectively, each built of
cut stone, with a level area at the summit, and four stages leading up
to it. The larger one is 680 feet square at the base, about 200 feet
high, and covers an area of eleven acres. The Pyramid of Cholula,
measured by Humboldt, is 160 feet high, 1400 feet square at the base,
and covers forty five acres! The great pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, is 746
feet square, 450 feet high, and covers between twelve and thirteen
acres. So that it appears that the base of the Teotihuacan structure is
nearly as large as that of Cheops, while that of Cholula covers nearly
four times as much space. The Cheops pyramid, however, exceeds very much
in height both the American structures.
Señor Garcia y Cubas thinks the pyramids of Teotihuacan (Mexico) were
built for the same purpose as those of Egypt. He considers the analogy
established in eleven particulars, as follows: 1, the site chosen is the
same; 2, the structures are orientated with slight variation; 3, the
line through the centres of the structures is in the astronomical
meridian; 4, the construction in grades and steps is the same; 5, in
both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; 6, the Nile has
"a valley of the dead," as in Teotihuacan there is "a street of the
dead;" 7, some monuments in each class have the nature of
fortifications; 8, the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the
same purpose; 9, both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their
faces; 10, the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also
found in some Egyptian pyramids; 11, the interior arrangements of the
pyramids are analogous. ("Ensayo de un Estudio.")
It is objected that the American edifices are different in form from the
Egyptian, in that they are truncated, or flattened at the top; but this
is not an universal rule.
"In many of the ruined cities of Yucatan one or more pyramids have been
found upon the summit of which no traces of any building could be
discovered, although upon surrounding pyramids such structures could be
found. There is also some reason to believe that perfect pyramids have
been found in America. Waldeck found near Palenque two pyramids in a
state of perfect preservation, square at the base, pointed at the top,
and thirty-one feet high, their sides forming equilateral triangles."
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 58.)
Bradford thinks that "some of the Egyptian pyramids, and those which
with some reason it has been supposed are the most ancient, are
precisely similar to the Mexican teocalli." ("North Americans of
Antiquity" p. 423.)
And there is in Egypt another form of pyramid called the mastaba, which,
like the Mexican, was flattened on the top; while in Assyria structures
flattened like the Mexican are found. "In fact," says one writer, "this
form of temple (the flat-topped) has been found from Mesopotamia to the
Pacific Ocean." The Phoenicians also built pyramids. In the thirteenth
century the Dominican Brocard visited the ruins of the Phoenician city of
Mrith or Marathos, and speaks in the strongest terms of admiration of
those pyramids of surprising grandeur, constructed of blocks of stone
from twenty-six to twenty eight feet long, whose thickness exceeded the
stature of a tall man. ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 144.)
"If," says Ferguson, "we still hesitate to pronounce that there was any
connection between the builders of the pyramids of Suku and Oajaca, or
the temples of Xochialco and Boro Buddor, we must at least allow that
the likeness is startling, and difficult to account for on the theory of
mere accidental coincidence."
PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.
The Egyptian pyramids all stand with their sides to the cardinal points,
while many of the Mexican pyramids do likewise. The Egyptian pyramids
were penetrated by small passage-ways; so were the Mexican. The Pyramid
of Teotihuacan, according to Almarez, has, at a point sixty-nine feet
from the base, a gallery large enough to admit a man crawling on hands
and knees, which extends, inward, on an incline, a distance of twenty
feet, and terminates in two square wells or chambers, each five feet
square and one of them fifteen feet deep. Mr. Löwenstern states,
PYRAMIDS OF TEOTIHUACAN.
according to Mr. Bancroft ("Native Races," vol. iv., p. 533), that "the
gallery is one hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height
to over six feet and a half as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well
is over six feet square, extending (apparently) down to the base and up
to the summit; and that other cross-galleries are blocked up by débris."
In the Pyramid of Cheops there is a similar opening or passage-way
forty-nine feet above the base; it is three feet eleven inches high, and
three feet five and a half inches wide; it leads down a slope to a
sepulchral chamber or well, and connects with other passage-ways leading
up into the body of the pyramid.
THE GREAT MOUND, NEAR MIAMISBURG, OHIO.
In both the Egyptian the American pyramids the outside of the structures
was covered with a thick coating of smooth, shining cement.
Humboldt considered the Pyramid of Cholula of the same type as the
Temple of Jupiter Belus, the pyramids of Meidoun Dachhour, and the group
of Sakkarah, in Egypt.
GREAT PYRAMID OF XCOCH.
In both America and Egypt the pyramids were used as places of sepulture;
and it is a remarkable fact that the system of earthworks and mounds,
kindred to the pyramids, is found even in England. Silsbury Hill, at
Avebury, is an artificial mound one hundred and seventy feet high. It is
connected with ramparts, avenues (fourteen hundred and eighty yards
long), circular ditches, and stone circles, almost identical with those
found in the valley of the Mississippi. In Ireland the dead were buried
in vaults of stone, and the earth raised over them in pyramids flattened
on the top. They were called "moats" by the people. We have found the
stone vaults at the base of similar truncated pyramids in Ohio. There
can be no doubt that the pyramid was a developed and perfected mound,
and that the parent form of these curious structures is to be found in
Silsbury Hill, and in the mounds of earth of Central America and the
Mississippi Valley.
We find the emblem of the Cross in pre-Christian times venerated as a
holy symbol on both sides of the Atlantic; and we find it explained as a
type of the four rivers of the happy island where the civilization of
the race originated.
We find everywhere among the European and American nations the memory of
an Eden of the race, where the first men dwelt in primeval peace and
happiness, and which was afterward destroyed by water.
We find the pyramid on both sides of the Atlantic, with its four sides
pointing, like the arms of the Cross, to the four cardinal points--a
reminiscence of Olympus; and in the Aztec representation of Olympos
(Aztlan) we find the pyramid as the central and typical figure.
Is it possible to suppose all these extraordinary coincidences to be the
result of accident? We might just as well say that the similarities
between the American and English forms of government were not the result
of relationship or descent, but that men placed in similar circumstances
had spontaneously and necessarily reached the same results.
CHAPTER VI.
GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS.
Money is the instrumentality by which man is lifted above the
limitations of barter. Baron Storch terms it "the marvellous instrument
to which we are indebted for our wealth and civilization."
It is interesting to inquire into the various articles which have been
used in different countries and ages as money. The following is a table
of some of them:
Articles of Utility.
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| India | Cakes of tea. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| China | Pieces of silk. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Abyssinia | Salt. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Iceland and Newfoundland | Codfish. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Illinois (in early days) | Coon-skins. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Bornoo (Africa) | Cotton shirts. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Russia | Skins of wild animals. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| West India Islands (1500) | Cocoa-nuts. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Massachusetts Indians | Wampum and musket-balls. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Virginia (1700) | Tobacco. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| British West India Islands | Pins, snuff, and whiskey. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Central South America | Soap, chocolate, and eggs. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Romans | Cattle. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Greece | Nails of copper and iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| The Lacedemonians | Iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| The Burman Empire | Lead. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Russia (1828 to 1845) | Platinum. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Rome (under Numa Pompilius) | Wood and leather. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Rome (under the Cæsars) | Land. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Carthaginians | Leather. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Britons Cattle, | slaves, brass, and iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| England (under James II.) | Tin, gun-metal, and pewter. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| South Sea Islands | Axes and hammers. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
Articles of Ornament.
+-------------------------------+----------------+
| Ancient Jews | Jewels. |
+-------------------------------+----------------+
| The Indian Islands and Africa | Cowrie shells, |
+-------------------------------+----------------+
Conventional Signs.
+----------------+----------------------------+
| Holland (1574) | Pieces of pasteboard. |
+----------------+----------------------------+
| China (1200) | Bark of the mulberry-tree. |
+----------------+----------------------------+
It is evident that every primitive people uses as money those articles
upon which they set the highest value--as cattle, jewels, slaves, salt,
musket-balls, pins, snuff, whiskey, cotton shirts, leather, axes, and
hammers; or those articles for which there was a foreign demand, and
which they could trade off to the merchants for articles of
necessity--as tea, silk, codfish, coonskins, cocoa-nuts, and tobacco.
Then there is a later stage, when the stamp of the government is
impressed upon paper, wood, pasteboard, or the bark of trees, and these
articles are given a legal-tender character.
When a civilized nation comes in contact with a barbarous people they
seek to trade with them for those things which they need; a
metal-working people, manufacturing weapons of iron or copper, will seek
for the useful metals, and hence we find iron, copper, tin, and lead
coming into use as a standard of values--as money; for they can always
be converted into articles of use and weapons of war. But when we ask
how it chanced that gold and silver came to be used as money, and why it
is that gold is regarded as so much more valuable than silver, no answer
presents itself. It was impossible to make either of them into pots or
pans, swords or spears; they were not necessarily more beautiful than
glass or the combinations of tin and copper. Nothing astonished the
American races more than the extraordinary value set upon gold and
silver by the Spaniards; they could not understand it. A West Indian
savage traded a handful of gold-dust with one of the sailors
accompanying Columbus for some tool, and then ran for his life to the
woods lest the sailor should repent his bargain and call him back. The
Mexicans had coins of tin shaped like a letter T. We can understand
this, for tin was necessary to them in hardening their bronze
implements, and it may have been the highest type of metallic value
among them. A round copper coin with a serpent stamped on it was found
at Palenque, and T-shaped copper coins are very abundant in the ruins of
Central America. This too we can understand, for copper was necessary in
every work of art or utility.
All these nations were familiar with gold and silver, but they used them
as sacred metals for the adornment of the temples of the sun and moon.
The color of gold was something of the color of the sun's rays, while
the color of silver resembled the pale light of the moon, and hence they
were respectively sacred to the gods of the sun and moon. And this is
probably the origin of the comparative value of these metals: they
became the precious metals because they were the sacred metals, and gold
was more valuable than silver--just as the sun-god was the great god of
the nations, while the mild moon was simply an attendant upon the sun.
The Peruvians called gold "the tears wept by the sun." It was not used
among the people for ornament or money. The great temple of the sun at
Cuzco was called the "Place of Gold." It was, as I have shown, literally
a mine of gold. Walls, cornices, statuary, plate, ornaments, all were of
gold; the very ewers, pipes, and aqueducts--even the agricultural
implements used in the garden of the temple--were of gold and silver.
The value of the jewels which adorned the temple was equal to one
hundred and eighty millions of dollars! The riches of the kingdom can be
conceived when we remember that from a pyramid in Chimu a Spanish
explorer named Toledo took, in 1577, $4,450,284 in gold and silver.
("New American Cyclopædia," art. American Antiquities.) The gold and
silver of Peru largely contributed to form the metallic currency upon
which Europe has carried on her commerce during the last three hundred
years.
Gold and silver were not valued in Peru for any intrinsic usefulness;
they were regarded as sacred because reserved for the two great gods of
the nation. As we find gold and silver mined and worked on both sides of
the Atlantic at the earliest periods of recorded history, we may fairly
conclude that they were known to the Atlanteans; and this view is
confirmed by the statements of Plato, who represents a condition of
things in Atlantis exactly like that which Pizarro found in Peru.
Doubtless the vast accumulations of gold and silver in both countries
were due to the fact that these metals were not permitted to be used by
the people. In Peru the annual taxes of the people were paid to the Inca
in part in gold and silver from the mines, and they were used to
ornament the temples; and thus the work of accumulating the sacred
metals went on from generation to generation. The same process doubtless
led to the vast accumulations in the temples of Atlantis, as described
by Plato.
Now, as the Atlanteans carried on an immense commerce with all the
countries of Europe and Western Asia, they doubtless inquired and traded
for gold and silver for the adornment of their temples, and they thus
produced a demand for and gave a value to the two metals otherwise
comparatively useless to man--a value higher than any other commodity
which the people could offer their civilized customers; and as the
reverence for the great burning orb of the sun, master of all the
manifestations of nature, was tenfold as great as the veneration for the
smaller, weaker, and variable goddess of the night, so was the demand
for the metal sacred to the sun ten times as great as for the metal
sacred to the moon. This view is confirmed by the fact that the root of
the word by which the Celts, the Greeks, and the Romans designated gold
was the Sanscrit word karat, which means, "the color of the sun." Among
the Assyrians gold and silver were respectively consecrated to the sun and
moon precisely as they were in Peru. A pyramid belonging to the palace
of Nineveh is referred to repeatedly in the inscriptions. It was
composed of seven stages, equal in height, and each one smaller in area
than the one beneath it; each stage was covered with stucco of different
colors, "a different color representing each of the heavenly bodies, the
least important being at the base: white (Venus); black (Saturn); purple
(Jupiter); blue (Mercury); vermillion (Mars); silver (the Moon); and
gold (the Sun)." (Lenormant's "Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p.
463.) "In England, to this day the new moon is saluted with a bow or a
courtesy, as well as the curious practice of 'turning one's silver,'
which seems a relic of the offering of the moon's proper metal."
(Tylor's "Anthropology", p. 361.) The custom of wishing, when one first
sees the new moon, is probably a survival of moon-worship; the wish
taking the place of the prayer.
And thus has it come to pass that, precisely as the physicians of
Europe, fifty years ago, practised bleeding, because for thousands of
years their savage ancestors had used it to draw away the evil spirits
out of the man, so the business of our modern civilization is dependent
upon the superstition of a past civilization, and the bankers of the
world are to-day perpetuating the adoration of "the tears wept by the
sun" which was commenced ages since on the island of Atlantis.
And it becomes a grave question--when we remember that the rapidly
increasing business of the world, consequent upon an increasing
population, and a civilization advancing with giant steps, is measured
by the standard of a currency limited by natural laws, decreasing
annually in production, and incapable of expanding proportionately to
the growth of the world--whether this Atlantean superstition may not yet
inflict more incalculable injuries on mankind than those which resulted
from the practice of phlebotomy.
PART V.
THE COLONIES OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE CENTRAL AMERICAN AND MEXICAN COLONIES.
The western shores of Atlantis were not far distant from the West India
Islands; a people possessed of ships could readily pass from island to
island until they reached the continent. Columbus found the natives
making such voyages in open canoes. If, then, we will suppose that there
was no original connection between the inhabitants of the main-land and
of Atlantis, the commercial activity of the Atlanteans would soon reveal
to them the shores of the Gulf. Commerce implies the plantation of
colonies; the trading-post is always the nucleus of a settlement; we
have seen this illustrated in modern times in the case of the English
East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. We can therefore readily
believe that commercial intercourse between Atlantis and Yucatan,
Honduras and Mexico, created colonies along the shores of the Gulf which
gradually spread into the interior, and to the high table-lands of
Mexico. And, accordingly, we find, as I have already shown, that all the
traditions of Central America and Mexico point to some country in the
East, and beyond the sea, as the source of their first civilized people;
and this region, known among them as "Aztlan," lived in the memory of
the people as a beautiful and happy land, where their ancestors had
dwelt in peace for many generations.
Dr. Le Plongeon, who spent four years exploring Yucatan, says:
"One-third of this tongue (the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the
dialect of Homer to America? or who took to Greece that of the Mayas?
Greek is the offspring of the Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval?...
The Maya is not devoid of words from the Assyrian."
That the population of Central America (and in this term I include
Mexico) was at one time very dense, and had attained to a high degree of
civilization, higher even than that of Europe in the time of Columbus,
there can be no question; and it is also probable, as I have shown, that
they originally belonged to the white race. Dêsirè Charnay, who is now
exploring the ruins of Central America, says (North American Review,
January, 1881, p. 48), "The Toltecs were fair, robust, and bearded. I
have often seen Indians of pure blood with blue eyes." Quetzalcoatl was
represented as large, "with a big head and a heavy beard." The same
author speaks (page 44) of "the ocean of ruins all around, not inferior
in size to those of Egypt." At Teotihuacan he measured one building two
thousand feet wide on each side, and fifteen pyramids, each nearly as
large in the base as Cheops. "The city is indeed of vast extent ...
the whole ground, over a space of five or six miles in diameter, is
covered with heaps of ruins--ruins which at first make no impression, so
complete is their dilapidation." He asserts the great antiquity of these
ruins, because he found the very highways of the ancient city to be
composed of broken bricks and pottery, the débris left by earlier
populations. "This continent," he says (page 43), "is the land of
mysteries; we here enter an infinity whose limits we cannot estimate....
I shall soon have to quit work in this place. The long avenue on
which it stands is lined with ruins of public buildings and palaces,
forming continuous lines, as in the streets of modern cities. Still, all
these edifices and halls were as nothing compared with the vast
substructures which strengthened their foundations."
We find the strongest resemblances to the works of the ancient European
races: the masonry is similar; the cement is the same; the sculptures
are alike; both peoples used the arch; in both continents we find
bricks, glassware, and even porcelain (North American Review, December,
1880, pp. 524, 525), "with blue figures on a white ground;" also bronze
composed of the same elements of copper and tin in like proportions;
coins made of copper, round and T-shaped, and even metallic candlesticks.
Dêsirè Charnay believes that he has found in the ruins of Tula the bones
of swine, sheep, oxen, and horses, in a fossil state, indicating an
immense antiquity. The Toltecs possessed a pure and simple religion,
like that of Atlantis, as described by Plato, with the same sacrifices
of fruits and flowers; they were farmers; they raised and wove cotton;
they cultivated fruits; they used the sign of the Cross extensively;
they cut and engraved precious stones; among their carvings have been
found representations of the elephant and the lion, both animals not
known in America. The forms of sepulture were the same as among the
ancient races of the Old World; they burnt the bodies of their great
men, and enclosed the dust in funeral urns; some of their dead were
buried in a sitting position, others reclined at full length, and many
were embalmed like the Egyptian mummies.
When we turn to Mexico, the same resemblances present themselves.
The government was an elective monarchy, like that of Poland, the king
being selected from the royal family by the votes of the nobles of the
kingdom. There was a royal family, an aristocracy, a privileged
priesthood, a judiciary, and a common people. Here we have all the
several estates into which society in Europe is divided.
There were thirty grand nobles in the kingdom, and the vastness of the
realm may be judged by the fact that each of these could muster one
hundred thousand vassals from their own estates, or a total of three
millions. And we have only to read of the vast hordes brought into the
field against Cortez to know that this was not an exaggeration.
They even possessed that which has been considered the crowning feature
of European society, the feudal system. The nobles held their lands upon
the tenure of military service.
But the most striking feature was the organization of the judiciary. The
judges were independent even of the king, and held their offices for
life. There were supreme judges for the larger divisions of the kingdom,
district judges in each of the provinces, and magistrates chosen by the
people throughout the country.
There was also a general legislative assembly, congress, or parliament,
held every eighty days, presided over by the king, consisting of all the
judges of the realm, to which the last appeal lay
"The rites of marriage," says Prescott, "were celebrated with as much
formality as in any Christian country; and the institution was held in
such reverence that a tribunal was instituted for the sole purpose of
determining questions relating to it. Divorces could not be obtained
until authorized by a sentence of the court, after a patient hearing of
the parties."
Slavery was tolerated, but the labors of the slave were light, his
rights carefully guarded, and his children were free. The slave could
own property, and even other slaves.
Their religion possessed so many features similar to those of the Old
World, that the Spanish priests declared the devil had given them a
bogus imitation of Christianity to destroy their souls. "The devil,"
said they, "stole all he could."
They had confessions, absolution of sins, and baptism. When their
children were named, they sprinkled their lips and bosoms with water,
and "the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin
that was given it before the foundation of the world."
The priests were numerous and powerful. They practised fasts, vigils,
flagellations, and many of them lived in monastic seclusion.
The Aztecs, like the Egyptians, had progressed through all the three
different modes of writing--the picture-writing, the symbolical, and the
phonetic. They recorded all their laws, their tribute-rolls specifying
the various imposts, their mythology, astronomical calendars, and
rituals, their political annals and their chronology. They wrote on
cotton-cloth, on skins prepared like parchment, on a composition of silk
and gum, and on a species of paper, soft and beautiful, made from the
aloe. Their books were about the size and shape of our own, but the
leaves were long strips folded together in many folds.
They wrote poetry and cultivated oratory, and paid much attention to
rhetoric. They also had a species of theatrical performances.
Their proficiency in astronomy is thus spoken of by Prescott:
"That they should be capable of accurately adjusting their festivals by
the movements of the heavenly bodies, and should fix the true length of
the tropical year with a precision unknown to the great philosophers of
antiquity, could be the result only of a long series of nice and patient
observations, evincing no slight progress in civilization."
"Their women," says the same author, "are described by the Spaniards as
pretty, though with a serious and rather melancholy cast of countenance.
Their long, black hair might generally be seen wreathed with flowers,
or, among the richer people, with strings of precious stones and pearls
from the Gulf of California. They appear to have been treated with much
consideration by their husbands; and passed their time in indolent
tranquillity, or in such feminine occupations as spinning, embroidery,
and the like; while their maidens beguiled the hours by the rehearsal of
traditionary tales and ballads.
"Numerous attendants of both sexes waited at the banquets. The balls
were scented with perfumes, and the courts strewed with odoriferous
herbs and flowers, which were distributed in profusion among the guests
as they arrived. Cotton napkins and ewers of water were placed before
them as they took their seats at the board. Tobacco was then offered, in
pipes, mixed with aromatic substances, or in the form of cigars inserted
in tubes of tortoise-shell or silver. It is a curious fact that the
Aztecs also took the dried tobacco leaf in the pulverized form of snuff.
"The table was well supplied with substantial meats, especially game,
among which the most conspicuous was the turkey. Also, there were found
very delicious vegetables and fruits of every variety native to the
continent. Their palate was still further regaled by confections and
pastry, for which their maize-flower and sugar furnished them ample
materials. The meats were kept warm with chafing-dishes. The table was
ornamented with vases of silver and sometimes gold of delicate
workmanship. The favorite beverage was chocolatl, flavored with vanilla
and different spices. The fermented juice of the maguey, with a mixture
of sweets and acids, supplied various agreeable drinks of different
degrees of strength."
It is not necessary to describe their great public works, their floating
gardens, their aqueducts, bridges, forts, temples,
COMMON FORM OF ARCH, CENTRAL AMERICA.
palaces, and gigantic pyramids, all ornamented with wonderful statuary.
SECTION OF THE TREASURE-HOUSE OF ATREUS AT MYCENAE
We find a strong resemblance between the form of arch used in the
architecture of Central America and that of the oldest buildings of
Greece. The Palenque arch is made by the gradual overlapping of the
strata of the building, as shown in the accompanying cut from Baldwin's
"Ancient America," page 100. It was the custom of these ancient
architects to fill in the arch itself with masonry, as shown in the
picture
ARCH OF LAS MONJAS, PALENQUE, CENTRAL AMERICA
on page 355 of the Arch of Las Monjas, Palenque. If now we look at the
representation of the "Treasure-house of Atreus" at Mycenæ, on page
354--one of the oldest structures in Greece--we find precisely the same
form of arch, filled in in the same way.
Rosengarten ("Architectural Styles," p. 59) says:
"The base of these treasure-houses is circular, and the covering of a
dome shape; it does not, however, form an arch, but courses of stone are
laid horizontally over one another in such a way that each course
projects beyond the one below it, till the space at the highest course
becomes so narrow that a single stone covers it. Of all those that have
survived to the present day the treasure-house at Atreus is the most
venerable."
The same form of arch is found among the ruins of that interesting
people, the Etruscans.
"Etruscan vaults are of two kinds. The more curious and probably the
most ancient are false arches, formed of horizontal courses of stone,
each a little overlapping the other, and carried on until the aperture
at the top could be closed by a single superincumbent slab. Such is the
construction of the Regulini-Galassi vault, at Cervetere, the ancient
Cære." (Rawlinson's "Origin of Nations," p. 117.)
It is sufficient to say, in conclusion, that Mexico, under European
rule, or under her own leaders, has never again risen to her former
standard of refinement, wealth, prosperity, or civilization.
CHAPTER II.
THE EGYPTIAN COLONY.
What proofs have we that the Egyptians were a colony from Atlantis?
1. They claimed descent from "the twelve great gods," which must have
meant the twelve gods of Atlantis, to wit, Poseidon and Cleito and their
ten sons.
2. According to the traditions of the Phoenicians, the Egyptians derived
their civilization from them; and as the Egyptians far antedated the
rise of the Phoenician nations proper, this must have meant that Egypt
derived its civilization from the same country to which the Phoenicians
owed their own origin. The Phoenician legends show that Misor, from whom
the Egyptians were descended, was the child of the Phoenician gods Amynus
and Magus. Misor gave birth to Taaut, the god of letters, the inventor
of the alphabet, and Taaut became Thoth, the god of history of the
Egyptians. Sanchoniathon tells us that "Chronos (king of Atlantis)
visited the South, and gave all Egypt to the god Taaut, that it might be
his kingdom." "Misor" is probably the king "Mestor" named by Plato.
3. According to the Bible, the Egyptians were descendants of Ham, who
was one of the three sons of Noah who escaped from the Deluge, to wit,
the destruction of Atlantis.
4. The great similarity between the Egyptian civilization and that of
the American nations.
5. The fact that the Egyptians claimed to be red men.
6. The religion of Egypt was pre-eminently sun-worship, and Ra was the
sun-god of Egypt, Rama, the sun of the Hindoos, Rana, a god of the
Toltecs, Raymi, the great festival of the sun of the Peruvians, and
Rayam, a god of Yemen.
7. The presence of pyramids in Egypt and America.
8. The Egyptians were the only people of antiquity who were
well-informed as to the history of Atlantis. The Egyptians were never a
maritime people, and the Atlanteans must have brought that knowledge to
them. They were not likely to send ships to Atlantis.
9. We find another proof of the descent of the Egyptians from Atlantis
in their belief as to the "under-world." This land of the dead was
situated in the West--hence the tombs were all placed, whenever
possible, on the west bank of the Nile. The constant cry of the mourners
as the funeral procession moved forward was, "To the west; to the west."
This under-world was beyond the water, hence the funeral procession
always crossed a body of water. "Where the tombs were, as in most cases,
on the west bank of the Nile, the Nile was crossed; where they were on
the eastern shore the procession passed over a sacred lake." (R. S.
Poole, Contemporary Review, August, 1881, p. 17.) In the procession was
"a sacred ark of the sun."
All this is very plain: the under-world in the West, the land of the
dead, was Atlantis, the drowned world, the world beneath the horizon,
beneath the sea, to which the peasants of Brittany looked from Cape Raz,
the most western cape projecting into the Atlantic. It was only to be
reached from Egypt by crossing the water, and it was associated with the
ark, the emblem of Atlantis in all lands.
The soul of the dead man was supposed to journey to the under-world by
"a water progress" (Ibid., p. 18), his destination was the Elysian
Fields, where mighty corn grew, and where he was expected to cultivate
the earth; "this task was of supreme importance." (Ibid., p. 19.) The
Elysian Fields were the "Elysion" of the Greeks, the abode of the
blessed, which we have seen was an island in the remote west. The
Egyptian belief referred to a real country; they described its cities,
mountains, and rivers; one of the latter was called Uranes, a name which
reminds us of the Atlantean god Uranos. In connection with all this we
must not forget that Plato described Atlantis as "that sacred island
lying beneath the sun." Everywhere in the ancient world we find the
minds of men looking to the west for the land of the dead. Poole says,
"How then can we account for this strong conviction? Surely it must be a
survival of an ancient belief which flowed in the very veins of the
race." (Contemporary Review, 1881, p. 19.) It was based on an universal
tradition that under "an immense ocean," in "the far west," there was an
"under-world," a world comprising millions of the dead, a mighty race,
that had been suddenly swallowed up in the greatest catastrophe known to
man since he had inhabited the globe.
10. There is no evidence that the civilization of Egypt was developed in
Egypt itself; it must have been transported there from some other
country. To use the words of a recent writer in Blackwood,
"Till lately it was believed that the use of the papyrus for writing was
introduced about the time of Alexander the Great; then Lepsius found the
hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus-roll on monuments of the twelfth
dynasty; afterward he found the same sign on monuments of the fourth
dynasty, which is getting back pretty close to Menes, the protomonarch;
and, indeed, little doubt is entertained that the art of writing on
papyrus was understood as early as the days of Menes himself. The fruits
of investigation in this, as in many other subjects, are truly most
marvellous. Instead of exhibiting the rise and progress of any branches
of knowledge, they tend to prove that nothing had any rise or progress,
but that everything is referable to the very earliest dates. The
experience of the Egyptologist must teach him to reverse the observation
of Topsy, and to '`spect that nothing growed,' but that as soon as men
were planted on the banks of the Nile they were already the cleverest
men that ever lived, endowed with more knowledge and more power than
their successors for centuries and centuries could attain to. Their
system of writing, also, is found to have been complete from the very
first....
"But what are we to think when the antiquary, grubbing in the dust and
silt of five thousand years ago to discover some traces of infant
effort--some rude specimens of the ages of Magog and Mizraim, in which
we may admire the germ that has since developed into a wonderful
art--breaks his shins against an article so perfect that it equals if it
does not excel the supreme stretch of modern ability? How shall we
support the theory if it come to our knowledge that, before Noah was
cold in his grave, his descendants were adepts in construction and in
the fine arts, and that their achievements were for magnitude such as,
if we possess the requisite skill, we never attempt to emulate?...
"As we have not yet discovered any trace of the rude, savage Egypt, but
have seen her in her very earliest manifestations already skilful,
erudite, and strong, it is impossible to determine the order of her
inventions. Light may yet be thrown upon her rise and progress, but our
deepest researches have hitherto shown her to us as only the mother of a
most accomplished race. How they came by their knowledge is matter for
speculation; that they possessed it is matter of fact. We never find
them without the ability to organize labor, or shrinking from the very
boldest efforts in digging canals and irrigating, in quarrying rock, in
building, and in sculpture."
The explanation is simple: the waters of the Atlantic now flow over the
country where all this magnificence and power were developed by slow
stages from the rude beginnings of barbarism.
And how mighty must have been the parent nation of which this Egypt was
a colony!
Egypt was the magnificent, the golden bridge, ten thousand years long,
glorious with temples and pyramids, illuminated and illustrated by the
most complete and continuous records of human history, along which the
civilization of Atlantis, in a great procession of kings and priests,
philosophers and astronomers, artists and artisans, streamed forward to
Greece, to Rome, to Europe, to America. As far back in the ages as the
eye can penetrate, even where the perspective dwindles almost to a
point, we can still see the swarming multitudes, possessed of all the
arts of the highest civilization, pressing forward from out that other
and greater empire of which even this wonderworking Nile-land is but a
faint and imperfect copy.
Look at the record of Egyptian greatness as preserved in her works: The
pyramids, still in their ruins, are the marvel of mankind. The river
Nile was diverted from its course by monstrous embankments to make a
place for the city of Memphis. The artificial lake of Moeris was created
as a reservoir for the waters of the Nile: it was four hundred and fifty
miles in circumference and three hundred and fifty feet deep, with
subterranean channels, flood-gates, locks, and dams, by which the
wilderness was redeemed from sterility. Look at the magnificent
mason-work of this ancient people! Mr. Kenrick, speaking of the casing
of the Great Pyramid, says, "The joints are scarcely perceptible, and
not wider than the thickness of silver-paper, and the cement so
tenacious that fragments of the casing-stones still remain in their
original position, notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries, and
the violence by which they were detached." Look at the ruins of the
Labyrinth, which aroused the astonishment of Herodotus; it had three
thousand chambers, half of them above ground and half below--a
combination of courts, chambers, colonnades, statues, and pyramids. Look
at the Temple of Karnac, covering a square each side of which is
eighteen hundred feet. Says a recent writer, "Travellers one and all
appear to have been unable to find words to express the feelings with
which these sublime remains inspired them. They have been astounded and
overcome by the magnificence and the prodigality of workmanship here to
be admired. Courts, halls, gate-ways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic
figures, sculptures, rows of sphinxes, are massed in such profusion that
the sight is too much for modern comprehension." Denon says, "It is
hardly possible to believe, after having seen it, in the reality of the
existence of so many buildings collected on a single point--in their
dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction
required, and in the incalculable expense of so much magnificence." And
again, "It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him
to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally
yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake." There were lakes and
mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. "The cathedral of Notre
Dame at Paris could be set inside one of the halls of Karnac, and not
touch the walls!... The whole valley and delta of the Nile, from the
Catacombs to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs,
pyramids, and pillars." Every stone was covered with inscriptions.
The state of society in the early days of Egypt approximated very
closely to our modern civilization. Religion consisted in the worship of
one God and the practice of virtue; forty-two commandments prescribed
the duties of men to themselves, their neighbors, their country, and the
Deity; a heaven awaited the good and a hell the vicious; there was a
judgment-day when the hearts of men were weighed:
"He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before his judgment-seat."
Monogamy was the strict rule; not even the kings, in the early days,
were allowed to have more than one wife. The wife's rights of separate
property and her dower were protected by law; she was "the lady of the
house;" she could "buy, sell, and trade on her own account;" in case of
divorce her dowry was to be repaid to her, with interest at a high rate.
The marriage-ceremony embraced an oath not to contract any other
matrimonial alliance. The wife's status was as high in the earliest days
of Egypt as it is now in the most civilized nations of Europe or America.
Slavery was permitted, but the slaves were treated with the greatest
humanity. In the confessions, buried with the dead, the soul is made to
declare that "I have not incriminated the slave to his master," There
was also a clause in the commandments "which protected the laboring man
against the exaction of more than his day's labor." They were merciful
to the captives made in war; no picture represents torture inflicted
upon them; while the representation of a sea-fight shows them saving
their drowning enemies. Reginald Stuart Poole says (Contemporary Review,
August, 1881, p. 43):
"When we consider the high ideal of the Egyptians, as proved by their
portrayals of a just life, the principles they laid down as the basis of
ethics, the elevation of women among them, their humanity in war, we
must admit that their moral place ranks very high among the nations of
antiquity.
"The true comparison of Egyptian life is with that of modern nations.
This is far too difficult a task to be here undertaken. Enough has been
said, however, to show that we need not think that in all respects they
were far behind us."
Then look at the proficiency in art of this ancient people.
They were the first mathematicians of the Old World. Those Greeks whom
we regard as the fathers of mathematics were simply pupils of Egypt.
They were the first land-surveyors. They were the first astronomers,
calculating eclipses, and watching the periods of planets and
constellations. They knew the rotundity of the earth, which it was
supposed Columbus had discovered!
"The signs of the zodiac were certainly in use among the Egyptians 1722
years before Christ. One of the learned men of our day, who for fifty
years labored to decipher the hieroglyphics of the ancients, found upon
a mummy-case in the British Museum a delineation of the signs of the
zodiac, and the position of the planets; the date to which they pointed
was the autumnal equinox of the year 1722 B.C. Professor Mitchell, to
whom the fact was communicated, employed his assistants to ascertain the
exact position of the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on
the equinox of that year. This was done, and a diagram furnished by
parties ignorant of his object, which showed that on the 7th of October,
1722 B.C. the moon and planets occupied the exact point in the heavens
marked upon the coffin in the British Museum." (Goodrich's "Columbus,"
p. 22.)
They had clocks and dials for measuring time. They possessed gold and
silver money. They were the first agriculturists of the Old World,
raising all the cereals, cattle, horses, sheep, etc. They manufactured
linen of so fine a quality that in the days of King Amasis (600 years
B.C.) a single thread of a garment was composed of three hundred and
sixty-five minor threads. They worked in gold, silver, copper, bronze,
and iron; they tempered iron to the hardness of steel. They were the
first chemists. The word "chemistry" comes from chemi, and chemi means
Egypt. They manufactured glass and all kinds of pottery; they made boats
out of earthenware; and, precisely as we are now making railroad
car-wheels of paper, they manufactured vessels of paper. Their dentists
filled teeth with gold; their farmers hatched poultry by artificial
heat. They were the first musicians; they possessed guitars, single and
double pipes, cymbals, drums, lyres, harps, flutes, the sambric, ashur,
etc.; they had even castanets, such as are now used in Spain. In
medicine and surgery they had reached such a degree of perfection that
several hundred years B.C. the operation for the removal of cataract
from the eye was performed among them; one of the most delicate and
difficult feats of surgery, only attempted by us in the most recent
times. "The papyrus of Berlin" states that it was discovered, rolled up
in a case, under the feet of an Anubis in the town of Sekhem, in the
days of Tet (or Thoth), after whose death it was transmitted to King
Sent, and was then restored to the feet of the statue. King Sent
belonged to the second dynasty, which flourished 4751 B.C., and the
papyrus was old in his day. This papyrus is a medical treatise; there
are in it no incantations or charms; but it deals in reasonable
remedies, draughts, unguents and injections. The later medical papyri
contain a great deal of magic and incantations.
"Great and splendid as are the things which we know about oldest Egypt,
she is made a thousand times more sublime by our uncertainty as to the
limits of her accomplishments. She presents not a great, definite idea,
which, though hard to receive, is, when once acquired, comprehensible
and clear. Under the soil of the modern country are hid away thousands
and thousands of relics which may astonish the world for ages to come,
and change continually its conception of what Egypt was. The effect of
research seems to be to prove the objects of it to be much older than we
thought them to be--some things thought to be wholly modern having been
proved to be repetitions of things Egyptian, and other things known to
have been Egyptian being by every advance in knowledge carried back more
and more toward the very beginning of things. She shakes our most rooted
ideas concerning the world's history; she has not ceased to be a puzzle
and a lure: there is a spell over her still."
Renan says, "It has no archaic epoch." Osborn says, "It bursts upon us
at once in the flower of its highest perfection." Seiss says ("A,
Miracle in Stone," p. 40), "It suddenly takes its place in the world in
all its matchless magnificence, without father, without mother, and as
clean apart from all evolution as if it had dropped from the unknown
heavens." It had dropped from Atlantis.
Rawlinson says ("Origin of Nations," p. 13):
"Now, in Egypt, it is notorious that there is no indication of any early
period of savagery or barbarism. All the authorities agree that, however
far back we go, we find in Egypt no rude or uncivilized time out of
which civilization is developed. Menes, the first king, changes the
course of the Nile, makes a great reservoir, and builds the temple of
Phthah at Memphis.... We see no barbarous customs, not even the
habit, so slowly abandoned by all people, of wearing arms when not on
military service."
Tylor says ("Anthropology," p. 192):
"Among the ancient cultured nations of Egypt and Assyria handicrafts had
already come to a stage which could only have been reached by thousands
of years of progress. In museums still may be examined the work of their
joiners, stone-cutters, goldsmiths, wonderful in skill and finish, and
in putting to shame the modern artificer.... To see gold jewellery of
the highest order, the student should examine that of the ancients, such
as the Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan."
The carpenters' and masons' tools of the ancient Egyptians were almost
identical with those used among us to-day.
There is a plate showing an Aztec priestess in Delafield's "Antiquities
of America," p. 61, which presents a head-dress strikingly Egyptian. In
the celebrated "tablet of the cross," at Palenque, we see a cross with a
bird perched upon it, to which (or to the cross) two priests are
offering sacrifice. In Mr. Stephens's representation from the Vocal
Memnon we find almost the same thing, the difference being that, instead
of an ornamented Latin cross, we have a crux commissa, and instead of
one bird there are two, not on the cross, but immediately above it. In
both cases the hieroglyphics, though the characters are of course
different, are disposed upon the stone in much the same manner.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 61.)
Even the obelisks of Egypt have their counterpart in America.
Quoting from Molina ("History of Chili," tom. i., p. 169), McCullough
writes, "Between the hills of Mendoza and La Punta is a pillar of stone
one hundred and fifty feet high, and twelve feet in diameter."
("Researches," pp. 171, 172.) The columns of Copan stand detached and
solitary, so do the obelisks of Egypt; both are square or four-sided,
and covered with sculpture. (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 60.)
In a letter by Jomard, quoted by Delafield, we read,
"I have recognized in your memoir on the division of time among the
Mexican nations, compared with those of Asia, some very striking
analogies between the Toltec characters and institutions observed on the
banks of the Nile. Among these analogies there is one which is worthy of
attention--it is the use of the vague year of three hundred and
sixty-five days, composed of equal months, and of five complementary
days, equally employed at Thebes and Mexico--a distance of three
thousand leagues.... In reality, the intercalation of the Mexicans
being thirteen days on each cycle of fifty-two years, comes to the same
thing as that of the Julian calendar, which is one day in four years;
and consequently supposes the duration of the year to be three hundred
and sixty-five days six hours. Now such was the length of the year among
the Egyptians--they intercalated an entire year of three hundred and
seventy-five days every one thousand four hundred and sixty years....
The fact of the intercalation (by the Mexicans) of thirteen days every
cycle that is, the use of a year of three hundred and sixty-five days
and a quarter--is a proof that it was borrowed from the Egyptians, or
that they had a common origin." ("Antiquities of America," pp. 52, 53.)
The Mexican century began on the 26th of February, and the 26th of
February was celebrated from the time of Nabonassor, 747 B.C., because
the Egyptian priests, conformably to their astronomical observations,
had fixed the beginning of the month Toth, and the commencement of their
year, at noon on that day. The five intercalated days to make up the
three hundred and sixty-five days were called by the Mexicans Nemontemi,
or useless, and on them they transacted no business; while the
Egyptians, during that epoch, celebrated the festival of the birth of
their gods, as attested by Plutarch and others.
It will be conceded that a considerable degree of astronomical knowledge
must have been necessary to reach the conclusion that the true year
consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours (modern
science has demonstrated that it consists of three hundred and
sixty-five days and five hours, less ten seconds); and a high degree of
civilization was requisite to insist that the year must be brought
around, by the intercalation of a certain number of days in a certain
period of time, to its true relation to the seasons. Both were the
outgrowth of a vast, ancient civilization of the highest order, which
transmitted some part of its astronomical knowledge to its colonies
through their respective priesthoods.
Can we, in the presence of such facts, doubt the statements of the
Egyptian priests to Solon, as to the glory and greatness of Atlantis,
its monuments, its sculpture, its laws, its religion, its civilization?
In Egypt we have the oldest of the Old World children of Atlantis; in
her magnificence we have a testimony to the development attained by the
parent country; by that country whose kings were the gods of succeeding
nations, and whose kingdom extended to the uttermost ends of the earth.
The Egyptian historian, Manetho, referred to a period of thirteen
thousand nine hundred years as "the reign of the gods," and placed this
period at the very beginning of Egyptian history. These thirteen
thousand nine hundred years were probably a recollection of Atlantis.
Such a lapse of time, vast as it may appear, is but as a day compared
with some of our recognized geological epochs.
CHAPTER III.
THE COLONIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
If we will suppose a civilized, maritime people to have planted
colonies, in the remote past, along the headlands and shores of the Gulf
of Mexico, spreading thence, in time, to the tablelands of Mexico and to
the plains and mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, what would be more
natural than that these adventurous navigators, passing around the
shores of the Gulf, should, sooner or later, discover the mouth of the
Mississippi River; and what more certain than that they would enter it,
explore it, and plant colonies along its shores, wherever they found a
fertile soil and a salubrious climate. Their outlying provinces would
penetrate even into regions where the severity of the climate would
prevent great density of population or development of civilization.
The results we have presupposed are precisely those which we find to
have existed at one time in the Mississippi Valley.
The Mound Builders of the United States were pre-eminently a river
people. Their densest settlements and greatest works were near the
Mississippi and its tributaries. Says Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p.
110), "The navigable streams were the great highways of the Mound
Builders."
Mr. Fontaine claims ("How the World was Peopled") that this ancient
people constructed "levees" to control and utilize the bayous of the
Mississippi for the purpose of agriculture and commerce. The Yazoo River
is called Yazoo-okhinnah--the River of Ancient Ruins. "There is no
evidence that they had reached the Atlantic coast; no authentic remains
of the Mound Builders are found in the New England States, nor even in
the State of New York." ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 28.) This
would indicate that the civilization of this people advanced up the
Mississippi River and spread out over its tributaries, but did not cross
the Alleghany {sic} Mountains. They reached, however, far up the
Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, and thence into Oregon. The head-waters
of the Missouri became one of their great centres of population; but
their chief sites were upon the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In
Wisconsin we find the northern central limit of their work; they seem to
have occupied the southern counties of the State, and the western shores
of Lake Michigan. Their circular mounds are found in Minnesota and Iowa,
and some very large ones in Dakota. Illinois and Indiana were densely
populated by them: it is believed that the vital centre of their
colonies was near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The chief characteristic of the Mound Builders was that from which they
derived their name--the creation of great structures of earth or stone,
not unlike the pyramids of Mexico and Egypt. Between Alton and East St.
Louis is the great mound of Cahokia, which may be selected as a type of
their works: it rises ninety-seven feet high, while its square sides are
700 and 500 feet respectively. There was a terrace on the south side 160
by 300 feet, reached by a graded way; the summit of the pyramid is
flattened, affording a platform 200 by 450 feet. It will thus be seen
that the area covered by the mound of Cahokia is about as large as that
of the greatest pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, although its height is much
less.
The number of monuments left by the Mound Builders is extraordinarily
great. In Ohio alone there are more than ten thousand tumuli, and from
one thousand to fifteen hundred enclosures. Their mounds were not cones
but four-sided pyramids--their sides, like those of the Egyptian
pyramids, corresponding with the cardinal points. (Foster's "Prehistoric
Races," p. 112.)
The Mound Builders had attained a considerable degree of civilization;
they were able to form, in the construction of their works, perfect
circles and perfect squares of great accuracy, carried over the varying
surface of the country. One large enclosure comprises exactly forty
acres. At Hopetown, Ohio, are two walled figures--one a square, the
other a circle--each containing precisely twenty acres. They must have
possessed regular scales of measurement, and the means of determining
angles and of computing the area to be enclosed by the square and the
circle, so that the space enclosed by each might exactly correspond.
"The most skilful engineer of this day would find it difficult," says
Mr. Squier, "without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate
square of the great dimensions above represented, measuring, as they do,
more than four-fifths of a mile in circumference.... But we not only
find accurate squares and perfect circles, but also, as we have seen,
octagons of great dimensions."
They also possessed an accurate system of weights; bracelets of copper
on the arms of a skeleton have been found to be of uniform size,
measuring each two and nine-tenth inches, and each weighing precisely
four ounces.
They built great military works surrounded by walls and ditches, with
artificial lakes in the centre to supply water. One work, Fort Ancient,
on the Little Miami River, Ohio, has a circuit of between four and five
miles; the embankment was twenty feet high; the fort could have held a
garrison of sixty thousand men with their families and provisions.
Not only do we find pyramidal structures of earth in the Mississippi
Valley very much like the pyramids of Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, but a
very singular structure is repeated in Ohio and Peru: I refer to the
double walls or prolonged pyramids, if I may coin an expression, shown
in the cut page 375.
GRAND WAY NEAR PIKETON, OHIO.
The Mound Builders possessed chains of fortifications reaching from the
southern line of New York diagonally across the country, through Central
and Northern Ohio to the Wabash. It would appear probable, therefore,
that while they
WALLS AT GRAN-CHIMU, PERU.
advanced from the south it was from the north-east the savage races came
who drove them south or exterminated them.
At Marietta, Ohio, we find a combination of the cross and pyramid. (See
p. 334, ante.) At Newark, Ohio, are extensive
CROSS AND PYRAMID MOUND, OHIO.
and intricate works: they occupy an area two miles square, embraced
within embankments twelve miles long. One of the mounds is a threefold
symbol, like a bird's foot; the central mound is 155 feet long, and the
other two each 110 feet it length. Is this curious design a reminiscence
of Atlantis and the three-pronged trident of Poseidon? (See 4th fig., p.
242, ante.)
The Mound Builders made sun-dried brick mixed with rushes, as the
Egyptians made sun-dried bricks mixed with straw; they worked in copper,
silver, lead, and there are evidences, as we shall see, that they
wrought even in iron.
Copper implements are very numerous in the mounds. Copper axes,
spear-heads, hollow buttons, bosses for ornaments, bracelets, rings,
etc., are found in very many of them strikingly similar to those of the
Bronze Age in Europe. In one in Butler County, Ohio, was found a copper
fillet around the head of a skeleton, with strange devices marked upon
it.
Silver ornaments have also been found, but not in such great numbers.
They seem to have attached a high value to silver, and it is often found
in thin sheets, no thicker than paper, wrapped over copper or stone
ornaments so neatly as almost to escape detection. The great esteem in
which they held a metal so intrinsically valueless as silver, is another
evidence that they must have drawn their superstitions from the same
source as the European nations.
Copper is also often found in this manner plated over stone pipes,
presenting an unbroken metallic lustre, the overlapping edges so well
polished as to be scarcely discoverable. Beads and stars made of shells
have sometimes been found doubly plated, first with copper then with
silver.
The Mound Builders also understood the art of casting metals, or they
held intercourse with some race who did; a copper axe it "cast" has been
found in the State of New York. (See Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p.
254, note.) Professor Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p. 259) also proves
that the ancient people of the Mississippi Valley possessed this art,
and he gives us representations of various articles plainly showing the
marks of the mould upon them.
A rude article in the shape of an axe, composed of pure lead, weighing
about half a pound, was found in sinking a well within the trench of the
ancient works at Circleville. There can be no doubt it was the
production of the Mound Builders, as galena has often been found on the
altars in the mounds.
It has been generally thought, by Mr. Squier and others, that there were
no evidences that the Mound Builders were acquainted with the use of
iron, or that their plating was more than a simple overlaying of one
metal on another, or on some foreign substance.
Some years since, however, a mound was opened at Marietta, Ohio, which
seems to have refuted these opinions. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, in a letter to
the American Antiquarian Society, thus speaks of it:
"Lying immediately over or on the forehead of the body were found three
large circular bosses, or ornaments for a sword-belt or buckler; they
are composed of copper overlaid with a thick plate of silver. The fronts
are slightly convex, with a depression like a cup in the centre, and
they measure two inches and a quarter across the face of each. On the
back side, opposite the depressed portion, is a copper rivet or nail,
around which are two separate plates by which they were fastened to the
leather. Two small pieces of leather were found lying between the plates
of one of the bosses; they resemble the skin of a mummy, and seem to
have been preserved by the salts of copper. Near the side of the body
was found a plate of silver, which appears to have been the upper part
of a sword scabbard; it is six inches in length, two in breadth, and
weighs one ounce. It seems to have been fastened to the scabbard by
three or four rivets, the holes of which remain in the silver.
"Two or three pieces of copper tube were also found, filled with iron
rust. These pieces, from their appearance, composed the lower end of the
scabbard, near the point of the sword. No signs of the sword itself were
discovered, except the rust above mentioned.
"The mound had every appearance of being as old as any in the
neighborhood, and was at the first settlement of Marietta covered with
large trees. It seems to have been made for this single personage, as
this skeleton alone was discovered. The bones were very much decayed,
and many of them crumbled to dust upon exposure to the air."
Mr. Squier says, "These articles have been critically examined, and it
is beyond doubt that the copper bosses were absolutely plated, not
simply overlaid, with silver. Between the copper and the silver exists a
connection such as, it seems to me, could only be produced by heat; and
if it is admitted that these are genuine relics of the Mound Builders,
it must, at the same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult
art of plating one metal upon another. There is but one alternative,
viz., that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people
advanced in the arts, from whom these articles were obtained. Again, if
Dr. Hildreth is not mistaken, oxydized iron or steel was also discovered
in connection with the above remains, from which also follows the
extraordinary conclusion that the Mound Builders were acquainted with
the use of iron, the conclusion being, of course, subject to the
improbable alternative already mentioned."
In connection with this subject, we would refer to the interesting
evidences that the copper mines of the shore of Lake Superior had been
at some very remote period worked by the Mound Builders. There were
found deep excavations, with rude ladders, huge masses of rock broken
off, also numerous stone tools, and all the evidences of extensive and
long-continued labor. It is even said that the great Ontonagon mass of
pure copper which is now in Washington was excavated by these ancient
miners, and that when first found its surface showed numerous marks of
their tools.
There seems to be no doubt, then, that the Mound Builders were familiar
with the use of copper, silver, and lead, and in all probability of
iron. They possessed various mechanical contrivances. They were very
probably acquainted with the lathe. Beads of shell have been found
looking very much like ivory, and showing the circular striæ, identical
with those produced by turning in a lathe.
In a mound on the Scioto River was found around the neck of a skeleton
triple rows of beads, made of marine shells and the tusks of some
animal. "Several of these," says Squier, "still retain their polish, and
bear marks which seem to indicate that they were turned in some machine,
instead of being carved or rubbed into shape by hand."
"Not among the least interesting and remarkable relics," continues the
same author, "obtained from the mounds are the stone tubes. They are all
carved from fine-grained materials, capable of receiving a polish, and
being made ornamental as well as useful. The finest specimen yet
discovered, and which can scarcely be surpassed in the delicacy of its
workmanship, was found in a mound in the immediate vicinity of
Chillicothe. It is composed of a compact variety of slate. This stone
cuts with great clearness, and receives a fine though not glaring
polish. The tube under notice is thirteen inches long by one and
one-tenth in diameter; one end swells slightly, and the other terminates
in a broad, flattened, triangular mouth-piece of fine proportions, which
is carved with mathematical precision. It is drilled throughout; the
bore is seven-tenths of an inch in diameter at the cylindrical end of
the tube, and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the
cylinder subsides into the mouth-piece, when it contracts gradually to
one-tenth of an inch. The inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth
till within a short distance of the point of contraction. For the
remaining distance the circular striæ, formed by the drill in boring,
are distinctly marked. The carving upon it is very fine."
That they possessed saws is proved by the fact that on some fossil teeth
found in one of the mounds the striæ of the teeth of the saw could be
distinctly perceived.
When we consider that some of their porphyry carvings will turn the edge
of the best-tempered knife, we are forced to conclude that they
possessed that singular process, known to the Mexicans and Peruvians of
tempering copper to the hardness of steel.
We find in the mounds adzes similar in shape to our own, with the edges
bevelled from the inside.
Drills and gravers of copper have also been found, with chisel-shaped
edges or sharp points.
"It is not impossible," says Squier, "but, on the contrary, very
probable, from a close inspection of the mound pottery, that the ancient
people possessed the simple approximation toward the potter's wheel; and
the polish which some of the finer vessels possess is due to other
causes than vitrification."
Their sculptures show a considerable degree of progress. They consist of
figures of birds, animals, reptiles, and the faces of men, carved from
various kinds of stones, upon the bowls of pipes, upon toys, upon rings,
and in distinct and separate figures. We give the opinions of those who
have examined them.
Mr. Squier observes: "Various though not abundant specimens of their
skill have been recovered, which in elegance of model, delicacy, and
finish, as also in fineness of material, come fully up to the best
Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in many respects, a close
resemblance. The bowls of most of the stone pipes are carved in
miniature figures of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. All of them are
executed with strict fidelity to nature, and with exquisite skill. Not
only are the features of the objects faithfully represented, but their
peculiarities and habits are in some degree exhibited.... The two
heads here presented, intended to represent the eagle, are far superior
in point of finish, spirit, and truthfulness, to any miniature carvings,
ancient or modern, which have fallen under the notice of the authors.
The peculiar defiant expression of the king of birds is admirably
preserved in the carving, which in this respect, more than any other,
displays the skill of the artist."
FROM THE MOUNDS OF THE OHIO VALLEY
Traces of cloth with "doubled and twisted fibre" have been found in the
mounds; also matting; also shuttle-like tablets, used in weaving. There
have also been found numerous musical pipes, with mouth-pieces and
stops; lovers' pipes, curiously and delicately carved, reminding us of
Bryant's lines--
"Till twilight came, and lovers walked and wooed
In a forgotten language; and old tunes,
From instruments of unremembered forms,
Gave the soft winds a voice."
There is evidence which goes to prove that the Mound Builders had
relations with the people of a semi-tropical region in the direction of
Atlantis. Among their sculptures, in Ohio, we find accurate
representations of the lamantine, manatee, or sea-cow--found to-day on
the shores of Florida, Brazil, and Central America--and of the toucan, a
tropical and almost exclusively South American bird. Sea-shells from the
Gulf, pearls from the Atlantic, and obsidian from Mexico, have also been
found side by side in their mounds.
The antiquity of their works is now generally conceded. "From the ruins
of Nineveh and Babylon," says Mr. Gliddon, "we have bones of at least
two thousand five hundred years old; from the pyramids and the catacombs
of Egypt both mummied and unmummied crania have been taken, of still
higher antiquity, in perfect preservation; nevertheless, the skeletons
deposited in our Indian mounds, from the Lakes to the Gulf, are
crumbling into dust through age alone."
All the evidence points to the conclusion that civilized or
semi-civilized man has dwelt on the western continent from a vast
antiquity. Maize, tobacco, quinoa, and the mandico plants have been
cultivated so long that their wild originals have quite disappeared.
"The only species of palm cultivated by the South American Indians, that
known as the Gulielma speciosa, has lost through that culture its
original nut-like seed, and is dependent on the hands of its cultivators
for its life. Alluding to the above-named plants Dr. Brinton ("Myths of
the New World," p. 37) remarks, 'Several are sure to perish unless
fostered by human care. What numberless ages does this suggest? How many
centuries elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many
more ere it had spread over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and
lost all resemblance to its original form?' In the animal kingdom
certain animals were domesticated by the aborigines from so remote a
period that scarcely any of their species, as in the case of the lama of
Peru, were to be found in a state of unrestrained freedom at the advent
of the Spaniards." (Short's "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 11.)
The most ancient remains of man found in Europe are distinguished by a
flattening of the tibia; and this peculiarity is found to be present in
an exaggerated form in some of the American mounds. This also points to
a high antiquity.
"None of the works, mounds, or enclosures are found on the lowest formed
of the river terraces which mark the subsidence of the streams, and as
there is no good reason why their builders should have avoided erecting
them on that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all the
others, it follows, not unreasonably, that this terrace has been formed
since the works were erected." (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p. 47.)
We have given some illustrations showing the similarity between the
works of the Mound Builders and those of the Stone and Bronze Age in
Europe. (See pp. 251, 260, 261, 262, 265, 266, ante.)
The Mound Builders retreated southward toward Mexico, and probably
arrived there some time between A.D. 29 and A.D. 231, under the name of
Nahuas. They called the region they left in the Mississippi Valley "Hue
Hue Tlapalan"--the old, old red land--in allusion, probably, to the
red-clay soil of part of the country.
In the mounds we find many works of copper but none of bronze. This may
indicate one of two things: either the colonies which settled the
Mississippi Valley may have left Atlantis prior to the discovery of the
art of manufacturing bronze, by mixing one part of tin with nine parts
of copper, or, which is more probable, the manufactures of the Mound
Builders may have been made on the spot; and as they had no tin within
their territory they used copper alone, except, it may be, for such
tools as were needed to carve stone, and these, perhaps, were hardened
with tin. It is known that the Mexicans possessed the art of
manufacturing true bronze; and the intercourse which evidently existed
between Mexico and the Mississippi Valley, as proved by the presence of
implements of obsidian in the mounds of Ohio, renders it probable that
the same commerce which brought them obsidian brought them also small
quantities of tin, or tin-hardened copper implements necessary for their
sculptures.
The proofs, then, of the connection of the Mound Builders with Atlantis
are:
1. Their race identity with the nations of Central America who possessed
Flood legends, and whose traditions all point to an eastern, over-sea
origin; while the many evidences of their race identity with the ancient
Peruvians indicate that they were part of one great movement of the
human race, extending from the Andes to Lake Superior, and, as I
believe, from Atlantis to India.
2. The similarity of their civilization, and their works of stone and
bronze, with the civilization of the Bronze Age in Europe.
3. The presence of great truncated mounds, kindred to the pyramids of
Central America, Mexico, Egypt, and India.
4. The representation of tropical animals, which point to an intercourse
with the regions around the Gulf of Mexico, where the Atlanteans were
colonized.
5. The fact that the settlements of the Mound Builders were confined to
the valley of the Mississippi, and were apparently densest at those
points where a population advancing up that, stream would first reach
high, healthy, and fertile lands.
6. The hostile nations which attacked them came from the north; and when
the Mound Builders could no longer hold the country, or when Atlantis
sank in the sea, they retreated in the direction whence they came, and
fell back upon their kindred races in Central America, as the Roman
troops in Gaul and Britain drew southward upon the destruction of Rome.
7. The Natchez Indians, who are supposed to have descended from the
Mound Builders, kept a perpetual fire burning before an altar, watched
by old men who were a sort of priesthood, as in Europe.
8. If the tablet said to have been found in a mound near Davenport,
Iowa, is genuine, which appears probable, the Mound Builders must either
have possessed an alphabet, or have held intercourse with some people
who did. (See "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 38.) This singular
relic exhibits what appears to be a sacrificial mound with a fire upon
it; over it are the sun, moon, and stars, and above these a mass of
hieroglyphics which bear some resemblance to the letters of European
alphabets, and especially to that unknown alphabet which appears upon
the inscribed bronze celt found near Rome. (See p. 258 of this work.)
For instance, one of the letters on the celt is this, ###; on the
Davenport tablet we find this sign, ###; on the celt we have ###; on the
tablet, ###; on the celt we have ###; on the tablet, ###.
CHAPTER IV.
THE IBERIAN COLONIES OF ATLANTIS
At the farthest point in the past to which human knowledge extends a
race called Iberian inhabited the entire peninsula of Spain, from the
Mediterranean to the Pyrenees. They also extended over the southern part
of Gaul as far as the Rhone.
"It is thought that the Iberians from Atlantis and the north-west part
of Africa," says Winchell, "settled in the south-west of Europe at a
period earlier than the settlement of the Egyptians in the north-east of
Africa. The Iberians spread themselves over Spain, Gaul, and the British
Islands as early as 4000 or 5000 B.C.... The fourth dynasty (of the
Egyptians), according to Brugsch, dates from about 3500 B.C. At this
time the Iberians had become sufficiently powerful to attempt the
conquest of the known world." ("Preadamites," p. 443.)
"The Libyan-Amazons of Diodorus--that is to say, the Libyans of the
Iberian race--must be identified with the Libyans with brown and grizzly
skin, of whom Brugsch has already pointed out the representations
figured on the Egyptian monuments of the fourth dynasty." (Ibid.)
The Iberians, known as Sicanes, colonized Sicily in the ancient days.
They were the original settlers in Italy and Sardinia. They are probably
the source of the dark-haired stock in Norway and Sweden. Bodichon
claims that the Iberians embraced the Ligurians, Cantabrians, Asturians,
and Aquitanians. Strabo says, speaking of the Turduli and Turdetani,
"they are the most cultivated of all the Iberians; they employ the art
of writing, and have written books containing memorials of ancient
times, and also poems and laws set in verse, for which they claim an
antiquity of six thousand years." (Strabo, lib. iii., p. 139.)
The Iberians are represented to-day by the Basques.
The Basque are "of middle size, compactly built, robust and agile, of a
darker complexion than the Spaniards, with gray eyes and black hair.
They are simple but proud, impetuous, merry, and hospitable. The women
are beautiful, skilful in performing men's work, and remarkable for
their vivacity and grace. The Basques are much attached to dancing, and
are very fond of the music of the bagpipe." ("New American Cyclopædia,"
art. Basques.)
"According to Paul Broca their language stands quite alone, or has mere
analogies with the American type. Of all Europeans, we must
provisionally hold the Basques to be the oldest inhabitants of our
quarter of the world." (Peschel, "Races of Men," p. 501.)
The Basque language--the Euscara--"has some common traits with the
Magyar, Osmanli, and other dialects of the Altai family, as, for
instance, with the Finnic on the old continent, as well as the
Algonquin-Lenape language and some others in America." ("New American
Cyclopædia," art. Basques.)
Duponceau says of the Basque tongue:
"This language, preserved in a corner of Europe by a few thousand
mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of, perhaps, a hundred
dialects constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were
universally spoken at a remote period in that quarter of the world. Like
the bones of the mammoth, it remains a monument of the destruction
produced by a succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its
kind, surrounded by idioms that have no affinity with it."
We have seen them settling, in the earliest ages, in Ireland. They also
formed the base of the dark-haired population of England and Scotland.
They seem to have race affinities with the Berbers, on the Mediterranean
coast of Africa.
Dr. Bodichon, for fifteen years a surgeon in Algiers, says:
"Persons who have inhabited Brittany, and then go to Algeria, are struck
with the resemblance between the ancient Armoricans (the Brètons) and
the Cabyles (of Algiers). In fact, the moral and physical character is
identical. The Breton of pure blood has a long head, light yellow
complexion of bistre tinge, eyes black or brown, stature short, and the
black hair of the Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively hates strangers; in
both are the same perverseness and obstinacy, same endurance of fatigue,
same love of independence, same inflexion of the voice, same expression
of feelings. Listen to a Cabyle speaking his native tongue, and you will
think you bear a Breton talking Celtic."
The Bretons, he tells us, form a strong contrast to the people around
them, who are "Celts of tall stature, with blue eyes, white skins, and
blond hair: they are communicative, impetuous, versatile; they pass
rapidly from courage to despair. The Bretons are entirely different:
they are taciturn, hold strongly to their ideas and usages, are
persevering and melancholic; in a word, both in morale and physique they
present the type of a southern race--of the Atlanteans."
By Atlanteans Dr. Bodichon refers to the inhabitants of the Barbary
States--that being one of the names by which they were known to the
Greeks and Romans. He adds:
"The Atlanteans, among the ancients, passed for the favorite children of
Neptune; they made known the worship of this god to other nations--to the
Egyptians, for example. In other words, the Atlanteans were the first
known navigators. Like all navigators, they must have planted colonies
at a distance. The Bretons, in our opinion, sprung from one of them."
Neptune was Poseidon, according to Plato, founder of Atlantis.
I could multiply proofs of the close relationship between the people of
the Bronze Age of Europe and the ancient inhabitants of Northern Africa,
which should be read remembering that "connecting ridge" which,
according to the deep-sea soundings, united Africa and Atlantis.
CHAPTER V.
THE PERUVIAN COLONY.
If we look at the map of Atlantis, as revealed by the deep sea
soundings, we will find that it approaches at one point, by its
connecting ridge, quite closely to the shore of South America, above
the mouth of the Amazon, and that probably it was originally connected
with it.
If the population of Atlantis expanded westwardly, it naturally found
its way in its ships up the magnificent valley of the Amazon and its
tributaries; and, passing by the low and fever-stricken lands of Brazil,
it rested not until it had reached the high, fertile, beautiful, and
healthful regions of Bolivia, from which it would eventually cross the
mountains into Peru.
Here it would establish its outlying colonies at the terminus of its
western line of advance, arrested only by the Pacific Ocean, precisely
as we have seen it advancing up the valley of the Mississippi, and
carrying on its mining operations on the shores of Lake Superior;
precisely as we have seen it going eastward up the Mediterranean, past
the Dardanelles, and founding Aryan, Hamitic, and probably Turanian
colonies on the farther shores of the Black Sea and on the Caspian. This
is the universal empire over which, the Hindoo books tell us, Deva
Nahusha was ruler; this was "the great and aggressive empire" to which
Plato alludes; this was the mighty kingdom, embracing the whole of the
then known world, from which the Greeks obtained their conception of the
universal father of all men in King Zeus. And in this universal empire
Señor Lopez must find an explanation of the similarity which, as we
shall show, exists between the speech of the South American Pacific
coast on the one hand, and the speech of Gaul, Ireland, England, Italy,
Greece, Bactria, and Hindostan on the other.
Montesino tells us that at some time near the date of the Deluge, in
other words, in the highest antiquity, America was invaded by a people
with four leaders, named Ayar-manco-topa, Ayar-chaki, Ayar-aucca, and
Ayar-uyssu. "Ayar," says Señor Lopez, "is the Sanscrit Ajar, or aje, and
means primitive chief; and manco, chaki, aucca, and uyssu, mean
believers, wanderers, soldiers, husbandmen. We have here a tradition of
castes like that preserved in the four tribal names of Athens." The
laboring class (naturally enough in a new colony) obtained the
supremacy, and its leader was named Pirhua-manco, revealer of Pir, light
(p[~u]r, Umbrian pir). Do the laws which control the changes of language,
by which a labial succeeds a labial, indicate that the Mero or Merou of
Theopompus, the name of Atlantis, was carried by the colonists of
Atlantis to South America (as the name of old York was transplanted in a
later age to New York), and became in time Pérou or Peru? Was not the
Nubian "Island of Merou," with its pyramids built by "red men," a
similar transplantation? And when the Hindoo priest points to his sacred
emblem with five projecting points upon it, and tells us that they
typify "Mero and the four quarters of the world," does he not refer to
Atlantis and its ancient universal empire?
Manco, in the names of the Peruvian colonists, it has been urged, was
the same as Mannus, Mann, and the Santhal Maniko. It reminds us of
Menes, Minos, etc., who are found at the beginning of so many of the Old
World traditions.
The Quichuas--this invading people--were originally a fair skinned race,
with blue eyes and light and even auburn hair; they had regular
features, large heads, and large bodies. Their descendants are to this
day an olive-skinned people, much lighter in color than the Indian
tribes subjugated by them.
They were a great race. Peru, as it was known to the Spaniards, held
very much the same relation to the ancient Quichua civilization as
England in the sixteenth century held to the civilization of the empire
of the Cæsars. The Incas were simply an offshoot, who, descending from
the mountains, subdued the rude races of the sea-coast, and imposed
their ancient civilization upon them.
The Quichua nation extended at one time over a region of country more
than two thousand miles long. This whole region, when the Spaniards
arrived, "was a populous and prosperous empire, complete in its civil
organization, supported by an efficient system of industry, and
presenting a notable development of some of the more important arts of
civilized life." (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p. 222.)
The companions of Pizarro found everywhere the evidences of a
civilization of vast antiquity. Cieça de Leon mentions "great edifices"
that were in ruins at Tiahuanaca, "an artificial hill raised on a
groundwork of stone," and "two stone idols, apparently made by skilful
artificers," ten or twelve feet high, clothed in long robes. "In this
place, also," says De Leon, "there are stones so large and so overgrown
that our wonder is excited, it being incomprehensible how the power of
man could have placed them where we see them. They are variously
wrought, and some of them, having the form of men, must have been idols.
Near the walls are many caves and excavations under the earth; but in
another place, farther west, are other and greater monuments, such as
large gate-ways with hinges, platforms, and porches, each made of a
single stone. It surprised me to see these enormous gate-ways, made of
great masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long, fifteen
high, and six thick."
The capital of the Chimus of Northern Peru at Gran-Chimu was conquered
by the Incas after a long and bloody struggle, and the capital was given
up to barbaric ravage and spoliation. But its remains exist to-day, the
marvel of the Southern Continent, covering not less than twenty square
miles. Tombs, temples, and palaces arise on every hand, ruined but still
traceable. Immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a mile in
circuit; vast areas shut in by massive walls, each containing its
water-tank, its shops, municipal edifices, and the dwellings of its
inhabitants, and each a branch of a larger organization; prisons,
furnaces for smelting metals, and almost every concomitant of
civilization, existed in the ancient Chimu capital. One of the great
pyramids, called the "Temple of the Sun," is 812 feet long by 470 wide,
and 150 high. These vast structures have been ruined for centuries, but
still the work of excavation is going on.
One of the centres of the ancient Quichua civilization was around Lake
Titicaca. The buildings here, as throughout Peru, were all constructed
of hewn stone, and had doors and windows with posts, sills, and
thresholds of stone.
At Cuelap, in Northern Peru, remarkable ruins were found. "They consist
of a wall of wrought stones 3600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 high,
constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another
600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 high," making an aggregate height of
three hundred feet! In it were rooms and cells which were used as tombs.
Very ancient ruins, showing remains of large and remarkable edifices,
were found near Huamanga, and described by Cieça de Leon. The native
traditions said this city was built "by bearded white men, who came
there long before the time of the Incas, and established a settlement."
"The Peruvians made large use of aqueducts, which they built with
notable skill, using hewn stones and cement, and making them very
substantial." One extended four hundred and fifty miles across sierras
and over rivers. Think of a stone aqueduct reaching from the city of New
York to the State of North Carolina!
The public roads of the Peruvians were most remarkable; they were built
on masonry. One of these roads ran along the mountains through the
whole length of the empire, from Quito to Chili; another, starting from
this at Cuzco, went down to the coast, and extended northward to the
equator. These roads were from twenty to twenty-five feet wide, were
macadamized with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement,
and were walled in by strong walls "more than a fathom in thickness." In
many places these roads were cut for leagues through the rock; great
ravines were filled up with solid masonry; rivers were crossed by
suspension bridges, used here ages before their introduction into
Europe. Says Baldwin, "The builders of our Pacific Railroad, with their
superior engineering skill and mechanical appliances, might reasonably
shrink from the cost and the difficulties of such a work as this.
Extending from one degree north of Quito to Cuzco, and from Cuzco to
Chili, it was quite as long as the two Pacific railroads, and its wild
route among the mountains was far more difficult." Sarmiento, describing
it, said, "It seems to me that if the emperor (Charles V.) should see
fit to order the construction of another road like that which leads from
Quito to Cuzco, or that which from Cuzco goes toward Chili, I certainly
think he would not be able to make it, with all his power." Humboldt
said, "This road was marvellous; none of the Roman roads I had seen in
Italy, in the south of France, or in Spain, appeared to me more imposing
than this work of the ancient Peruvians."
Along these great roads caravansaries were established for the
accommodation of travellers.
These roads were ancient in the time of the Incas. They were the work of
the white, auburn-haired, bearded men from Atlantis, thousands of years
before the time of the Incas. When Huayna Capac marched his army over
the main road to invade Quito, it was so old and decayed "that he found
great difficulties in the passage," and he immediately ordered the
necessary reconstructions.
It is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to give a detailed
description of the arts and civilization of the Peruvians. They were
simply marvellous. Their works in cotton and wool exceeded in fineness
anything known in Europe at that time. They had carried irrigation,
agriculture, and the cutting of gems to a point equal to that of the Old
World. Their accumulations of the precious metals exceeded anything
previously known in the history of the world. In the course of
twenty-five years after the Conquest the Spaniards sent from Peru to
Spain more than eight hundred millions of dollars of gold, nearly all of
it taken from the Peruvians as "booty." In one of their palaces "they
had an artificial garden, the soil of which was made of small pieces of
fine gold, and this was artificially planted with different kinds of
maize, which were of gold, their stems, leaves, and ears. Besides this,
they had more than twenty sheep (llamas) with their lambs, attended by
shepherds, all made of gold." In a description of one lot of golden
articles, sent to Spain in 1534 by Pizarro, there is mention of "four
llamas, ten statues of women of full size, and a cistern of gold, so
curious that it excited the wonder of all."
Can any one read these details and declare Plato's description of
Atlantis to be fabulous, simply because he tells us of the enormous
quantities of gold and silver possessed by the people? Atlantis was the
older country, the parent country, the more civilized country; and,
doubtless, like the Peruvians, its people regarded the precious metals
as sacred to their gods; and they had been accumulating them from all
parts of the world for countless ages. If the story of Plato is true,
there now lies beneath the waters of the Atlantic, covered, doubtless,
by hundreds of feet of volcanic débris, an amount of gold and silver
exceeding many times that brought to Europe from Peru, Mexico, and
Central America since the time of Columbus; a treasure which, if brought
to light, would revolutionize the financial values of the world.
I have already shown, in the chapter upon the similarities between the
civilizations of the Old and New Worlds, some of the remarkable
coincidences which existed between the Peruvians and the ancient
European races; I will again briefly, refer to a few of them:
1. They worshipped the sun, moon, and planets.
2. They believed in the immortality of the soul.
3. They believed in the resurrection of the body, and accordingly
embalmed their dead.
4. The priest examined the entrails of the animals offered in sacrifice,
and, like the Roman augurs, divined the future from their appearance.
5. They had an order of women vowed to celibacy--vestal virgins-nuns; and
a violation of their vow was punished, in both continents, by their
being buried alive.
6. They divided the year into twelve months.
7. Their enumeration was by tens; the people were divided into decades
and hundreds, like the Anglo-Saxons; and the whole nation into bodies of
500, 1000, and 10,000, with a governor over each.
8. They possessed castes; and the trade of the father descended to the
son, as in India.
9. They had bards and minstrels, who sung at the great festivals.
10. Their weapons were the same as those of the Old World, and made
after the same pattern.
11. They drank toasts and invoked blessings.
12. They built triumphal arches for their returning heroes, and strewed
the road before them with leaves and flowers.
13. They used sedan-chairs.
14. They regarded agriculture as the principal interest of the nation,
and held great agricultural fairs and festivals for the interchange of
the productions of the farmers.
15. The king opened the agricultural season by a great celebration, and,
like the kings of Egypt, he put his hand to the plough, and ploughed the
first furrow.
16. They had an order of knighthood, in which the candidate knelt before
the king; his sandals were put on by a nobleman, very much as the spurs
were buckled on the European knight; he was then allowed to use the
girdle or sash around the loins, corresponding to the toga virilis of
the Romans; he was then crowned with flowers. According to Fernandez,
the candidates wore white shirts, like the knights of the Middle Ages,
with a cross embroidered in front.
17. There was a striking resemblance between the architecture of the
Peruvians and that of some of the nations of the Old World. It is enough
for me to quote Mr. Ferguson's words, that the coincidence between the
buildings of the Incas and the Cyclopean remains attributed to the
Pelasgians in Italy and Greece "is the most remarkable in the history
of architecture."
OWL-HEADED VASES, TROY AND PERU
The illustrations on page 397 strikingly confirm Mr. Ferguson's views.
"The sloping jambs, the window cornice, the polygonal masonry, and other
forms so closely resemble what is found in the old Pelasgic cities of
Greece and Italy, that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that
there may be some relation between them."
Even the mode of decorating their palaces and temples finds a parallel
in the Old World. A recent writer says:
"We may end by observing, what seems to have escaped Señor Lopez, that
the interior of an Inca palace, with its walls covered with gold, as
described by Spaniards, with its artificial golden flowers and golden
beasts, must have been exactly like the interior of the house of
Alkinous or Menelaus--
"'The doors were framed of gold,
Where underneath the brazen floor doth glass
Silver pilasters, which with grace uphold
Lintel of silver framed; the ring was burnished gold,
And dogs on each side of the door there stand,
Silver and golden.'"
"I can personally testify" (says Winchell, "Preadamites," p. 387) "that
a study of ancient Peruvian pottery has constantly reminded me of forms
with which we are familiar in Egyptian archæology."
Dr. Schliemann, in his excavations of the ruins of Troy, found a number
of what he calls "owl-headed idols" and vases. I give specimens on page
398 and page 400.
In Peru we find vases with very much the same style of face.
I might pursue those parallels much farther; but it seems to me that
these extraordinary coincidences must have arisen either from identity
of origin or long-continued ancient intercourse. There can be little
doubt that a fair-skinned, light-haired, bearded race, holding the
religion which Plato says prevailed in Atlantis, carried an Atlantean
civilization at an early day up the valley of the Amazon to the heights
of Bolivia and Peru, precisely as a similar emigration of Aryans went
westward to the shores of the Mediterranean and Caspian, and it is very
likely that these diverse migrations habitually spoke the same language.
Señor Vincente Lopez, a Spanish gentleman of Montevideo, in 1872
published a work entitled "Les Races Aryennes in Pérou," in which he
attempts to prove that the great Quichua language, which the Incas
imposed on their subjects over a vast extent of territory, and which is
still a living tongue in Peru and Bolivia, is really a branch of the
great Aryan or Indo-European speech. I quote Andrew Lang's summary of
the proofs on this point:
OWL-HEADED VASE, TROY
"Señor Lopez's view, that the Peruvians were Aryans who left the parent
stock long before the Teutonic or Hellenic races entered Europe, is
supported by arguments drawn from language, from the traces of
institutions, from religious beliefs, from legendary records, and
artistic remains. The evidence from language is treated scientifically,
and not as a kind of ingenious guessing. Señor Lopez first combats the
idea that the living dialect of Peru is barbarous and fluctuating. It is
not one of the casual and shifting forms of speech produced by nomad
races. To which of the stages of language does this belong--the
agglutinative, in which one root is fastened on to another, and a word
is formed in which the constitutive elements are obviously distinct, or
the inflexional, where the auxiliary roots get worn down and are only
distinguishable by the philologist? As all known Aryan tongues are
inflexional, Señor Lopez may appear to contradict himself when he says
that Quichua is an agglutinative Aryan language. But he quotes Mr. Max
Müller's opinion that there must have been a time when the germs of
Aryan tongues had not yet reached the inflexional stage, and shows that
while the form of Quichua is agglutinative, as in Turanian, the roots of
words are Aryan. If this be so, Quichua may be a linguistic missing link.
"When we first look at Quichua, with its multitude of words, beginning
with hu, and its great preponderance of q's, it seems almost as odd as
Mexican. But many of these forms are due to a scanty alphabet, and
really express familiar sounds; and many, again, result from the casual
spelling of the Spaniards. We must now examine some of the forms which
Aryan roots are supposed to take in Quichua. In the first place, Quichua
abhors the shock of two consonants. Thus, a word like ple'w in Greek
would be unpleasant to the Peruvian's ear, and he says pillui, 'I sail.'
The plu, again, in pluma, a feather, is said to be found in pillu, 'to
fly.' Quichua has no v, any more than Greek has, and just as the Greeks
had to spell Roman words beginning with V with Ou, like
Valerius--Ou?ale'rios--so, where Sanscrit has v, Quichua has sometimes
hu. Here is a list of words in hu:
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| QUICHUA. | SANSCRIT. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huakia, to call. | Vacc, to speak. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huasi, a house. | Vas, to inhabit. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huayra, air, au?'ra. | Vâ, to breathe. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huasa, the back. | Vas, to be able (pouvoir). |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
"There is a Sanscrit root, kr, to act, to do: this root is found in more
than three hundred names of peoples and places in Southern America. Thus
there are the Caribs, whose name may have the same origin as that of our
old friends the Carians, and mean the Braves, and their land the home of
the Braves, like Kaleva-la, in Finnish. The same root gives kara, the
hand, the Greek xei'r, and kkalli, brave, which a person of fancy may
connect with kalo's. Again, Quichua has an 'alpha privative'--thus
A-stani means 'I change a thing's place;' for ni or mi is the first
person singular, and, added to the root of a verb, is the sign of the
first person of the present indicative. For instance, can means being,
and Can-mi, or Cani, is 'I am.' In the same way Munanmi, or Munani, is
'I love,' and Apanmi, or Apani, 'I carry.' So Lord Strangford was wrong
when he supposed that the last verb in mi lived with the last patriot in
Lithuania. Peru has stores of a grammatical form which has happily
perished in Europe. It is impossible to do more than refer to the
supposed Aryan roots contained in the glossary, but it may be noticed
that the future of the Quichuan verb is formed in s--I love, Munani; I
shall love, Munasa--and that the affixes denoting cases in the noun are
curiously like the Greek prepositions."
The resemblance between the Quichua and Mandan words for I or
me--mi--will here be observed.
Very recently Dr. Rudolf Falb has announced (Neue Freie Presse, of
Vienna) that he has discovered that the relation of the Quichua and
Aimara languages to the Aryan and Semitic tongues is very close; that,
in fact, they "exhibit the most astounding affinities with the Semitic
tongue, and particularly the Arabic," in which tongue Dr. Falb has been
skilled from his boyhood. Following up the lines of this discovery, Dr.
Falb has found (1) a connecting link with the Aryan roots, and (2) has
ultimately arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that "the
Semitic roots are universally Aryan." The common stems of all the
variants are found in their purest condition in Quichua and Aimara, from
which fact Dr. Falb derives the conclusion that the high plains of Peru
and Bolivia must be regarded as the point of exit of the present human
race.
[Since the above was written I have received a letter from Dr. Falb,
dated Leipsic, April 5th, 1881. Scholars will be glad to learn that Dr.
Falb's great work on the relationship of the Aryan and Semitic languages
to the Quichua and Aimara tongues will be published in a year or two;
the manuscript contains over two thousand pages, and Dr. Falb has
devoted to it ten years of study. A work from such a source, upon so
curious and important a subject, will be looked for with great interest.]
But it is impossible that the Quichuas and Aimaras could have passed
across the wide Atlantic to Europe if there had been no stepping-stone
in the shape of Atlantis with its bridge-like ridges connecting the two
continents.
It is, however, more reasonable to suppose that the Quichuas and Aimaras
were a race of emigrants from Plato's island than to think that Atlantis
was populated from South America. The very traditions to which we have
referred as existing among the Peruvians, that the civilized race were
white and bearded, and that they entered or invaded the country, would
show that civilization did not originate in Peru, but was a
transplantation from abroad, and only in the direction of Atlantis can
we look for a white and bearded race.
In fact, kindred races, with the same arts, and speaking the same tongue
in an early age of the world, separated in Atlantis and went east and
west--the one to repeat the civilization of the mother-country along the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which, like a great river, may be said
to flow out from the Black Sea, with the Nile as one of its tributaries,
and along the shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; while the
other emigration advanced up the Amazon, and created mighty nations upon
its head-waters in the valleys of the Andes and on the shores of the
Pacific.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AFRICAN COLONIES.
Africa, like Europe and America, evidences a commingling of different
stocks: the blacks are not all black, nor all woolly-haired; the
Africans pass through all shades, from that of a light Berber, no darker
than the Spaniard, to the deep black of the Iolofs, between Senegal and
Gambia.
The traces of red men or copper-colored races are found in many parts of
the continent. Prichard divides the true negroes into four classes; his
second class is thus described:
"2. Other tribes have forms and features like the European; their
complexion is black, or a deep olive, or a copper color approaching to
black, while their hair, though often crisp and frizzled, is not in the
least woolly. Such are the Bishari and Danekil and Hazorta, and the
darkest of the Abyssinians.
"The complexion and hair of the Abyssinians vary very much, their
complexion ranging from almost white to dark brown or black, and their
hair from straight to crisp, frizzled, and almost woolly." (Nott and
Gliddon, "Types of Mankind," p. 194.)
"Some of the Nubians are copper-colored or black, with a tinge of red."
(Ibid., p. 198.)
Speaking of the Barbary States, these authors further say (Ibid., p.
204):
"On the northern coast of Africa, between the Mediterranean and the
Great Desert, including Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Benzazi,
there is a continuous system of highlands, which have been included
under the general term Atlas--anciently Atlantis, now the Barbary
States.... Throughout Barbary we encounter a peculiar group of races,
subdivided into many tribes of various shades, now spread over a vast
area, but which formerly had its principal and perhaps aboriginal abode
along the mountain slopes of Atlas.... The real name of the Berbers
is Mazirgh, with the article prefixed or suffixed--T-amazirgh or
Amazirgh-T--meaning free, dominant, or 'noble race.'... We have every
reason to believe the Berbers existed in the remotest times, with all
their essential moral and physical peculiarities.... They existed in
the time of Menes in the same condition in which they were discovered by
Phoenician navigators previously to the foundation of Carthage. They are
an indomitable, nomadic people, who, since the introduction of camels,
have penetrated in considerable numbers into the Desert, and even as far
as Nigritia.... Some of these clans are white, others black, with
woolly hair."
Speaking of the Barbary Moors, Prichard says:
"Their figure and stature are nearly the same as those of the southern
Europeans, and their complexion, if darker, is only so in proportion to
the higher temperature of the country. It displays great varieties."
Jackson says:
"The men of Temsena and Showiah are of a strong, robust make, and of a
copper color; the women are beautiful. The women of Fez are fair as the
Europeans, but hair and eyes always dark. The women of Mequinas are very
beautiful, and have the red-and-white complexion of English women."
Spix and Martins, the German travellers, depict the Moors as follows:
"A high forehead, an oval countenance, large, speaking, black eyes,
shaded by arched and strong eyebrows, a thin, rather long, but not too
pointed nose, rather broad lips, meeting in an acute angle,
brownish-yellow complexion, thick, smooth, and black hair, and a stature
greater than the middle height."
Hodgson states:
"The Tuarycks are a white people, of the Berber race; the Mozabiaks are
a remarkably white people, and mixed with the Bedouin Arabs. The
Wadreagans and Wurgelans are of a dark bronze, with woolly hair."
The Foolahs, Fulbe (sing. Pullo), Fellani, or Fellatah, are a people of
West and Central Africa. It is the opinion of modern travellers that the
Foolahs are destined to become the dominant people of Negro-land. In
language, appearance, and history they present striking differences from
the neighboring tribes, to whom they are superior in intelligence, but
inferior, according to Garth, in physical development. Golbery describes
them as "robust and courageous, of a reddish-black color, with regular
features, hair longer and less woolly than that of the common negroes,
and high mental capacity." Dr. Barth found great local differences in
their physical characteristics, as Bowen describes the Foolahs of Bomba
as being some black, some almost white, and many of a mulatto color,
varying from dark to very bright. Their features and skulls were cast in
the European mould. They have a tradition that their ancestors were
whites, and certain tribes call themselves white men. They came from
Timbuctoo, which lies to the north of their present location.
The Nubians and Foolahs are classed as Mediterraneans. They are not
black, but yellowish-brown, or red-brown. The hair is not woolly but
curly, and sometimes quite straight; it is either dark-brown or black,
with a fuller growth of beard than the negroes. The oval face gives them
a Mediterranean type. Their noses are prominent, their lips not puffy,
and their languages have no connection with the tongues of the negroes
proper. ("American Cyclopædia," art. Ethnology, p. 759.)
"The Cromlechs (dolmens) of Algeria" was the subject of an address made
by General Faidherbe at the Brussels International Congress. He
considers these structures to be simply sepulchral monuments, and, after
examining five or six thousand of them, maintains that the dolmens of
Africa and of Europe were all constructed by the same race, during their
emigration from the shores of the Baltic to the southern coast of the
Mediterranean. The author does not, however, attempt to explain the
existence of these monuments in other countries--Hindostan, for
instance, and America. "In Africa," he says, "cromlechs are called tombs
of the idolaters"--the idolaters being neither Romans, nor Christians,
nor Phoenicians, but some antique race. He regards the Berbers as the
descendants of the primitive dolmen-builders. Certain Egyptian monuments
tell of invasions of Lower Egypt one thousand five hundred years before
our era by blond tribes from the West. The bones found in the cromlechs
are those of a large and dolichocephalous race. General Faidherbe gives
the average stature (including the women) at 1.65 or 1.74 metre, while
the average stature of French carabineers is only 1.65 metre. He did not
find a single brachycephalous skull. The profiles indicated great
intelligence. The Egyptian documents already referred to call the
invaders Tamahu, which must have come from the invaders' own language,
as it is not Egyptian. The Tuaregs of the present day may be regarded as
the best representatives of the Tamahus. They are of lofty stature, have
blue eyes, and cling to the custom of bearing long swords, to be wielded
by both hands. In Soudan, on the banks of the Niger, dwells a negro
tribe ruled by a royal family (Masas), who are of rather fair
complexion, and claim descent from white men. Masas is perhaps the same
as Mashash, which occurs in the Egyptian documents applied to the
Tamahus. The Masas wear the hair in the same fashion as the Tamahus, and
General Faidherbe is inclined to think that they too are the descendants
of the dolmen-builders.
These people, according to my theory, were colonists from
Atlantis--colonists of three different races--white, yellow, and
sunburnt or red.
CHAPTER VII.
THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.
We have seen that beyond question Spain and France owed a great part of
their population to Atlantis. Let us turn now to Ireland.
We would naturally expect, in view of the geographical position of the
country, to find Ireland colonized at an early day by the overflowing
population of Atlantis. And, in fact, the Irish annals tell us that
their island was settled prior to the Flood. In their oldest legends an
account is given of three Spanish fishermen who were driven by contrary
winds on the coast of Ireland before the Deluge. After these came the
Formorians, who were led into the country prior to the Deluge by the
Lady Banbha, or Kesair; her maiden name was h'Erni, or Berba; she was
accompanied by fifty maidens and three men--Bith, Ladhra, and Fintain.
Ladhra was their conductor, who was the first buried in Hibernia. That
ancient book, the "Cin of Drom-Snechta," is quoted in the "Book of
Ballymote" as authority for this legend.
The Irish annals speak of the Formorians as a warlike race, who,
according to the "Annals of Clonmacnois," "were a sept descended from
Cham, the son of Noeh, and lived by pyracie and spoile of other nations,
and were in those days very troublesome to the whole world."
Were not these the inhabitants of Atlantis, who, according to Plato,
carried their arms to Egypt and Athens, and whose subsequent destruction
has been attributed to divine vengeance invoked by their arrogance and
oppressions?
The Formorians were from Atlantis. They were called Fomhoraicc,
F'omoraig Afraic, and Formoragh, which has been rendered into English as
Formorians. They possessed ships, and the uniform representation is that
they came, as the name F'omoraig Afraic indicated, from Africa. But in
that day Africa did not mean the continent of Africa, as we now
understand it. Major Wilford, in the eighth volume of the "Asiatic
Researches," has pointed out that Africa comes from Apar, Aphar, Apara,
or Aparica, terms used to signify "the West," just as we now speak of
the Asiatic world as "the East." When, therefore, the Formorians claimed
to come from Africa, they simply meant that they came from the West--in
other words, from Atlantis--for there was no other country except
America west of them.
They possessed Ireland from so early a period that by some of the
historians they are spoken of as the aborigines of the country.
The first invasion of Ireland, subsequent to the coming of the
Formorians, was led by a chief called Partholan: his people are known in
the Irish annals as "Partholan's people." They were also probably
Atlanteans. They were from Spain. A British prince, Gulguntius, or
Gurmund, encountered off the Hebrides a fleet of thirty ships, filled
with men and women, led by one Partholyan, who told him they were from
Spain, and seeking some place to colonize. The British prince directed
him to Ireland. ("De Antiq. et Orig. Cantab.")
Spain in that day was the land of the Iberians, the Basques; that is to
say, the Atlanteans.
The Formorians defeated Partholan's people, killed Partholan, and drove
the invaders out of the country.
The Formorians were a civilized race; they had "a fleet of sixty ships
and a strong army."
The next invader of their dominions was Neimhidh; he captured one of
their fortifications, but it was retaken by the Formorians under "Morc."
Neimhidh was driven out of the country, and the Atlanteans continued in
undisturbed possession of the island for four hundred years more. Then
came the Fir-Bolgs. They conquered the whole island, and divided it into
five provinces. They held possession of the country for only
thirty-seven years, when they were overthrown by the Tuatha-de-Dananns,
a people more advanced in civilization; so much so that when their king,
Nuadha, lost his hand in battle, "Creidne, the artificer," we are told,
"put a silver hand upon him, the fingers of which were capable of
motion." This great race ruled the country for one hundred and
ninety-seven years: they were overthrown by an immigration from Spain,
probably of Basques, or Iberians, or Atlanteans, "the sons of Milidh,"
or Milesius, who "possessed a large fleet and a strong army." This last
invasion took place about the year 1700 B.C.; so that the invasion of
Neimhidh must have occurred about the year 2334 B.C.; while we will have
to assign a still earlier date for the coming of Partholan's people, and
an earlier still for the occupation of the country by the Formorians
from the West.
In the Irish historic tales called "Catha; or Battles," as given by the
learned O'Curry, a record is preserved of a real battle which was fought
between the Tuatha-de-Dananns and the Fir Bolgs, from which it appears
that these two races spoke the same language, and that they were
intimately connected with the Formorians. As the armies drew near
together the Fir-Bolgs sent out Breas, one of their great chiefs, to
reconnoitre the camp of the strangers; the Tuatha-de-Dananns appointed
one of their champions, named Sreng, to meet the emissary of the enemy;
the two warriors met and talked to one another over the tops of their
shields, and each was delighted to find that the other spoke the same
language. A battle followed, in which Nunda, king of the Fir-Bolgs, was
slain; Breas succeeded him; he encountered the hostility of the bards,
and was compelled to resign the crown. He went to the court of his
father-in-law, Elathe, a Formorian sea-king or pirate; not being well
received, he repaired to the camp of Balor of the Evil Eye, a Formorian
chief. The Formorian head-quarters seem to have been in the Hebrides.
Breas and Balor collected a vast army and navy and invaded Ireland, but
were defeated in a great battle by the Tuatha-de-Dananns.
These particulars would show the race-identity of the Fir-Bolg and
Tuatha-de-Dananns; and also their intimate connection, if not identity
with, the Formorians.
The Tuatha-de-Dananns seem to have been a civilized people; besides
possessing ships and armies and working in the metals, they had an
organized body of surgeons, whose duty it was to attend upon the wounded
in battle; and they had also a bardic or Druid class, to preserve the
history of the country and the deeds of kings and heroes.
According to the ancient books of Ireland the race known as "Partholan's
people," the Nemedians, the Fir-Bolgs, the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and the
Milesians were all descended from two brothers, sons of Magog, son of
Japheth, son of Noah, who escaped from the catastrophe which destroyed
his country. Thus all these races were Atlantean. They were connected
with the African colonies of Atlantis, the Berbers, and with the
Egyptians. The Milesians lived in Egypt: they were expelled thence; they
stopped a while in Crete, then in Scythia, then they settled in Africa
(See MacGeoghegan's "History of Ireland," p. 57), at a place called
Gæthulighe or Getulia, and lived there during eight generations, say two
hundred and fifty years; "then they entered Spain, where they built
Brigantia, or Briganza, named after their king Breogan: they dwelt in
Spain a considerable time. Milesius, a descendant of Breogan, went on an
expedition to Egypt, took part in a war against the Ethiopians, married
the king's daughter, Scota: he died in Spain, but his people soon after
conquered Ireland. On landing on the coast they offered sacrifices to
Neptune or Poseidon"--the god of Atlantis. (Ibid., p. 58.)
The Book of Genesis (chap. x.) gives us the descendants of Noah's three
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We are told that the sons of Japheth were
Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and
Tiras. We are then given the names of the descendants of Gomer and
Javan, but not of Magog. Josephus says the sons of Magog were the
Scythians. The Irish annals take up the genealogy of Magog's family
where the Bible leaves it. The Book of Invasions, the "Cin of
Drom-Snechta," claims that these Scythians were the Phoenicians; and we
are told that a branch of this family were driven out of Egypt in the
time of Moses: "He wandered through Africa for forty-two years, and
passed by the lake of Salivæ to the altars of the Philistines, and
between Rusicada and the mountains Azure, and he came by the river
Monlon, and by the sea to the Pillars of Hercules, and through the
Tuscan sea, and he made for Spain, and dwelt there many years, and he
increased and multiplied, and his people were multiplied."
From all these facts it appears that the population of Ireland came from
the West, and not from Asia--that it was one of the many waves of
population flowing out from the Island of Atlantis--and herein we find
the explanation of that problem which has puzzled the Aryan scholars. As
Ireland is farther from the Punjab than Persia, Greece, Rome, or
Scandinavia, it would follow that the Celtic wave of migration must have
been the earliest sent out from the Sanscrit centre; but it is now
asserted by Professor Schleicher and others that the Celtic tongue shows
that it separated from the Sanscrit original tongue later than the
others, and that it is more closely allied to the Latin than any other
Aryan tongue. This is entirely inexplicable upon any theory of an
Eastern origin of the Indo-European races, but very easily understood if
we recognize the Aryan and Celtic migrations as going out about the same
time from the Atlantean fountain-head.
There are many points confirmatory of this belief. In the first place,
the civilization of the Irish dates back to a vast antiquity. We have
seen their annals laying claim to an immigration from the direction of
Atlantis prior to the Deluge, with no record that the people of Ireland
were subsequently destroyed by the Deluge. From the Formorians, who came
before the Deluge, to the Milesians, who came from Spain in the Historic
Period, the island was continuously inhabited. This demonstrates (1)
that these legends did not come from Christian sources, as the Bible
record was understood in the old time to imply a destruction of all who
lived before the Flood except Noah and his family; (2) it confirms our
view that the Deluge was a local catastrophe, and did not drown the
whole human family; (3) that the coming of the Formorians having been
before the Deluge, that great cataclysm was of comparatively recent
date, to wit, since the settlement of Ireland; and (4) that as the
Deluge was a local catastrophe, it must have occurred somewhere not far
from Ireland to have come to their knowledge. A rude people could
scarcely have heard in that day of a local catastrophe occurring in the
heart of Asia.
There are many evidences that the Old World recognized Ireland as
possessing a very ancient civilization. In the Sanscrit books it is
referred to as Hiranya, the "Island of the Sun," to wit, of sun-worship;
in other words, as pre-eminently the centre of that religion which was
shared by all the ancient races of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. It
is believed that Ireland was the "Garden of Phoebus" of the Western
mythologists.
The Greeks called Ireland the "Sacred Isle" and "Ogygia."
"Nor can any one," says Camden, "conceive why they should call it
Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called
nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient." We have seen that
Ogyges was connected by the Greek legends with a first deluge, and that
Ogyges was "a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages."
It appears, as another confirmation of the theory of the Atlantis origin
of these colonies, that their original religion was sun-worship; this,
as was the case in other countries, became subsequently overlaid with
idol-worship. In the reign of King Tighernmas the worship of idols was
introduced. The priests constituted the Order of Druids. Naturally many
analogies have been found to exist between the beliefs and customs of
the Druids and the other religions which were drawn from Atlantis. We
have seen in the chapter on sun-worship how extensive this form of
religion was in the Atlantean days, both in Europe and America.
It would appear probable that the religion of the Druids passed from
Ireland to England and France. The metempsychosis or transmigration of
souls was one of the articles of their belief long before the time of
Pythagoras; it had probably been drawn from the storehouse of Atlantis,
whence it passed to the Druids, the Greeks, and the Hindoos. The Druids
had a pontifex maximus to whom they yielded entire obedience. Here again
we see a practice which extended to the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hindoos,
Peruvians, and Mexicans.
The Druids of Gaul and Britain offered human sacrifices, while it is
claimed that the Irish Druids did not. This would appear to have been a
corrupt after-growth imposed upon the earlier and purer sacrifice of
fruits and flowers known in Atlantis, and due in part to greater cruelty
and barbarism in their descendants. Hence we find it practised in
degenerate ages on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Irish Druidical rites manifested themselves principally in sun
worship. Their chief god was Bel or Baal--the same worshipped by the
Phoenicians--the god of the sun. The Irish name for the sun, Grian, is,
according to Virgil, one of the names of Apollo--another sun-god,
Gryneus. Sun-worship continued in Ireland down to the time of St.
Patrick, and some of its customs exist among the peasantry of that
country to this day. We have seen that among the Peruvians, Romans, and
other nations, on a certain day all fires were extinguished throughout
the kingdom, and a new fire kindled at the chief temple by the sun's
rays, from which the people obtained their fire for the coming year. In
Ireland the same practice was found to exist. A piece of land was set
apart, where the four provinces met, in the present county of Meath;
here, at a palace called Tlachta, the divine fire was kindled. Upon the
night of what is now All-Saints-day the Druids assembled at this place
to offer sacrifice, and it was established, under heavy penalties, that
no fire should be kindled except from this source. On the first of May a
convocation of Druids was held in the royal palace of the King of
Connaught, and two fires were lit, between which cattle were driven, as
a preventive of murrain and other pestilential disorders. This was
called Beltinne, or the day of Bel's fire. And unto this day the Irish
call the first day of May "Lha-Beul-tinne," which signifies "the day of
Bel's fire." The celebration in Ireland of St. John's-eve by watch-fires
is a relic of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis. The practice of
driving cattle through the fire continued for a longtime, and Kelly
mentions in his "Folk-lore" that in Northamptonshire, in England, a calf
was sacrificed in one of these fires to "stop the murrain" during the
present century. Fires are still lighted in England and Scotland as well
as Ireland for superstitious purposes; so that the people of Great
Britain, it may be said, are still in some sense in the midst of the
ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.
We find among the Irish of to-day many Oriental customs. The game of
"jacks," or throwing up five pebbles and catching them on the back of
the hand, was known in Rome. "The Irish keen (caoine), or the lament
over the dead, may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as
Herodotus heard it chanted by the Libyan women." The same practice
existed among the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans. The Irish wakes are
identical with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.
(Cusack's "History of Ireland," p. 141.) The Irish custom of saying "God
bless you!" when one sneezes, is a very ancient practice; it was known
to the Romans, and referred, it is said, to a plague in the remote past,
whose first symptom was sneezing.
We find many points of resemblance between the customs of the Irish and
those of the Hindoo. The practice of the creditor fasting at the
door-step of his debtor until he is paid, is known to both countries;
the kindly "God save you!" is the same as the Eastern "God be gracious
to you, my son!" The reverence for the wren in Ireland and Scotland
reminds us of the Oriental and Greek respect for that bird. The practice
of pilgrimages, fasting, bodily macerations, and devotion to holy wells
and particular places, extends from Ireland to India.
All these things speak of a common origin; this fact has been generally
recognized, but it has always been interpreted that the Irish came from
the East, and were in fact a migration of Hindoos. There is not the
slightest evidence to sustain this theory. The Hindoos have never within
the knowledge of man sent out colonies or fleets for exploration; but
there is abundant evidence, on the other hand, of migrations from
Atlantis eastward. And how could the Sanscrit writings have preserved
maps of Ireland, England, and Spain, giving the shape and outline of
their coasts, and their very names, and yet have preserved no memory of
the expeditions or colonizations by which they acquired that knowledge?
Another proof of our theory is found in "the round-towers" of Ireland.
Attempts have been made to show, by Dr. Petrie and others, that these
extraordinary structures are of modern origin, and were built by the
Christian priests, in which to keep their church-plate. But it is shown
that the "Annals of Ulster" mention the destruction of fifty-seven of
them by an earthquake in A.D. 448; and Giraldus Cambrensis shows that
Lough Neagh was created by an inundation, or sinking of the land, in
A.D. 65, and that in his day the fishermen could
"See the round-towers of other days
In the waves beneath them shining."
Moreover, we find Diodorus Siculus, in a well-known passage, referring
to Ireland, and describing it as "an island in the ocean over against
Gaul, to the north, and not inferior in size to Sicily, the soil of
which is so fruitful that they mow there twice in the year." He mentions
the skill of their harpers, their sacred groves, and their singular
temples of round form.
THE BURGH OF MOUSSA, IN THE SHETLANDS
We find similar structures in America, Sardinia, and India. The remains
of similar round-towers are very abundant in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
"They have been supposed by some," says Sir John Lubbock, "to be
Scandinavian, but no similar buildings exist in Norway, Sweden, or
Denmark, so that this style of architecture is no doubt anterior to the
arrival of the Northmen." I give above a picture of the Burgh or Broch
of the little island of Moussa, in the Shetlands. It is circular in
form, forty-one feet in height. Open at the top; the central space is
twenty feet in diameter, the walls about fourteen feet thick at the
base, and eight feet at the top. They contain a staircase, which leads
to the top of the building. Similar structures are found in the Island
of Sardinia.
ROUND-TOWER OF THE CANYON OF THE MANCOS, COLORADO, U.S.
In New Mexico and Colorado the remains of round-towers are very
abundant. The illustration below represents one of these in the valley
of the Mancos, in the south-western corner of Colorado. A model of it is
to be found in the Smithsonian collection at Washington. The tower
stands at present, in its ruined condition, twenty feet high. It will be
seen that it resembles the towers of Ireland, not only in its circular
form but also in the fact that its door-way is situated at some distance
from the ground.
It will not do to say that the resemblance between these prehistoric and
singular towers, in countries so far apart as Sardinia, Ireland,
Colorado, and India, is due to an accidental coincidence. It might as
well be argued that the resemblance between the roots of the various
Indo-European languages was also due to accidental coincidence, and did
not establish any similarity of origin. In fact, we might just as well
go back to the theory of the philosophers of one hundred and fifty years
ago, and say that the resemblance between the fossil forms in the rocks
and the living forms upon them did not indicate relationship, or prove
that the fossils were the remains of creatures that had once lived, but
that it was simply a way nature had of working out extraordinary
coincidences in a kind of joke; a sort of "plastic power in nature," as
it was called.
We find another proof that Ireland was settled by the people of Atlantis
in the fact that traditions long existed among the Irish peasantry of a
land in the "Far West," and that this belief was especially found among
the posterity of the Tuatha-de-Dananns, whose connection with the
Formorians we have shown.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in a note to his translation of the
"Popol Vuh," says:
"There is an abundance of legends and traditions concerning the passage
of the Irish into America, and their habitual communication with that
continent many centuries before the time of Columbus. We should bear in
mind that Ireland was colonized by the Phoenicians (or by people of that
race). An Irish Saint named Vigile, who lived in the eighth century, was
accused to Pope Zachary of having taught heresies on the subject of the
antipodes. At first he wrote to the pope in reply to the charge, but
afterward he went to Rome in person to justify himself, and there he
proved to the pope that the Irish had been accustomed to communicate
with a transatlantic world."
"This fact," says Baldwin, "seems to have been preserved in the records
of the Vatican."
The Irish annals preserve the memory of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and his
remarkable voyage to a land in the West, made A.D. 545. His early youth
was passed under the care of St. Ita, a lady of the princely family of
the Desii. When he was five years old he was placed under the care of
Bishop Ercus. Kerry was his native home; the blue waves of the Atlantic
washed its shores; the coast was full of traditions of a wonderful land
in the West. He went to see the venerable St. Enda, the first abbot of
Arran, for counsel. He was probably encouraged in the plan he had formed
of carrying the Gospel to this distant land. "He proceeded along the
coast of Mayo, inquiring as he went for traditions of the Western
continent. On his return to Kerry he decided to set out on the important
expedition. St. Brendan's Hill still bears his name; and from the bay at
the foot of this lofty eminence be sailed for the 'Far West.' Directing
his course toward the southwest, with a few faithful companions, in a
well-provisioned bark, he came, after some rough and dangerous
navigation, to calm seas, where, without aid of oar or sail, he was
borne along for many weeks." He had probably entered upon the same great
current which Columbus travelled nearly one thousand years later, and
which extends from the shores of Africa and Europe to America. He
finally reached land; he proceeded inland until he came to a large river
flowing from east to west, supposed by some to be the Ohio. "After an
absence of seven years he returned to Ireland, and lived not only to
tell of the marvels he had seen, but to found a college of three
thousand monks at Clonfert." There are eleven Latin MSS. in the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris of this legend, the dates of which vary
from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, but all of them anterior to
the time of Columbus.
The fact that St. Brendan sailed in search of a country in the west
cannot be doubted; and the legends which guided him were probably the
traditions of Atlantis among a people whose ancestors had been derived
directly or at second-hand from that country.
This land was associated in the minds of the peasantry with traditions
of Edenic happiness and beauty. Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, of
Philadelphia, has referred to it in her poem, "The Sleeper's Sail,"
where the starving boy dreams of the pleasant and plentiful land:
"'Mother, I've been on the cliffs out yonder,
Straining my eyes o'er the breakers free
To the lovely spot where the sun was setting,
Setting and sinking into the sea.
"'The sky was full of the fairest colors
Pink and purple and paly green,
With great soft masses of gray and amber,
And great bright rifts of gold between.
"'And all the birds that way were flying,
Heron and curlew overhead,
With a mighty eagle westward floating,
Every plume in their pinions red.
"'And then I saw it, the fairy city,
Far away o'er the waters deep;
Towers and castles and chapels glowing
Like blesséd dreams that we see in sleep.
"'What is its name?' 'Be still, acushla
(Thy hair is wet with the mists, my boy);
Thou hast looked perchance on the Tir-na-n'oge,
Land of eternal youth and joy!
"'Out of the sea, when the sun is setting,
It rises, golden and fair to view;
No trace of ruin, or change of sorrow,
No sign of age where all is new.
"'Forever sunny, forever blooming,
Nor cloud nor frost can touch that spot,
Where the happy people are ever roaming,
The bitter pangs of the past forgot.'
This is the Greek story of Elysion; these are the Elysian Fields of the
Egyptians; these are the Gardens of the Hesperides; this is the region
in the West to which the peasant of Brittany looks from the shores of
Cape Raz; this is Atlantis.
The starving child seeks to reach this blessed land in a boat and is
drowned.
"High on the cliffs the light-house keeper
Caught the sound of a piercing scream;
Low in her hut the lonely widow
Moaned in the maze of a troubled dream;
"And saw in her sleep a seaman ghostly,
With sea-weeds clinging in his hair,
Into her room, all wet and dripping,
A drownéd boy on his bosom bear.
"Over Death Sea on a bridge of silver
The child to his Father's arms had passed!
Heaven was nearer than Tir-na-n'oge,
And the golden city was reached at last."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE OLDEST SON OF NOAH.
That eminent authority, Dr. Max Müller, says, in his "Lectures on the
Science of Religion,"
"If we confine ourselves to the Asiatic continent, with its important
peninsula of Europe, we find that in the vast desert of drifting human
speech three, and only three, oases have been formed in which, before
the beginning of all history, language became permanent and
traditional--assumed, in fact, a new character, a character totally
different from the original character of the floating and constantly
varying speech of human beings. These three oases of language are known
by the name of Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic. In these three centres,
more particularly in the Aryan and Semitic, language ceased to be
natural; its growth was arrested, and it became permanent, solid,
petrified, or, if you like, historical speech. I have always maintained
that this centralization and traditional conservation of language could
only have been the result of religious and political influences, and I
now mean to show that we really have clear evidence of three independent
settlements of religion--the Turanian, the Aryan, and the
Semitic--concomitantly with the three great settlements of language."
There can be no doubt that the Aryan and another branch, which Müller
calls Semitic, but which may more properly be called Hamitic, radiated
from Noah; it is a question yet to be decided whether the Turanian or
Mongolian is also a branch of the Noachic or Atlantean stock.
To quote again from Max Müller:
"If it can only be proved that the religions of the Aryan nations are
united by the same bonds of a real relationship which have enabled us to
treat their languages as so many varieties of the same type--and so also
of the Semitic--the field thus opened is vast enough, and its careful
clearing, and cultivation will occupy several generations of scholars.
And this original relationship, I believe, can be proved. Names of the
principal deities, words also expressive of the most essential elements
of religion, such as prayer, sacrifice, altar, spirit, law, and faith,
have been preserved among the Aryan and among the Semitic nations, and
these relics admit of one explanation only. After that, a comparative
study of the Turanian religions may be approached with better hope of
success; for that there was not only a primitive Aryan and a primitive
Semitic religion, but likewise a primitive Turanian religion, before
each of these primeval races was broken up and became separated in
language, worship and national sentiment, admits, I believe, of little
doubt.... There was a period during which the ancestors of the
Semitic family had not yet been divided, whether in language or in
religion. That period transcends the recollection of every one of the
Semitic races, in the same way as neither Hindoos, Greeks, nor Romans
have any recollection of the time when they spoke a common language, and
worshipped their Father in heaven by a name that was as yet neither
Sanscrit, nor Greek, nor Latin. But I do not hesitate to call this
Prehistoric Period historical in the best sense of the word. It was a
real period, because, unless it was real, all the realities of the
Semitic languages and the Semitic religions, such as we find them after
their separation, would be unintelligible. Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic
point to a common source as much as Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin; and
unless we can bring ourselves to doubt that the Hindoos, the Greeks, the
Romans, and the Teutons derived the worship of their principal deity
from their common Aryan sanctuary, we shall not be able to deny that
there was likewise a primitive religion of the whole Semitic race, and
that El, the Strong One in heaven, was invoked by the ancestors of all
the Semitic races before there were Babylonians in Babylon, Phoenicians
in Sidon and Tyrus--before there were Jews in Mesopotamia or Jerusalem.
The evidence of the Semitic is the same as that of the Aryan languages:
the conclusion cannot be different....
"These three classes of religion are not to be mistaken--as little as the
three classes of language, the Turanian, the Semitic, and the Aryan.
They mark three events in the most ancient history of the world, events
which have determined the whole fate of the human race, and of which we
ourselves still feel the consequences in our language, in our thoughts,
and in our religion."
We have seen that all the evidence points to the fact that this original
seat of the Phoenician-Hebrew family was in Atlantis.
The great god of the so-called Semites was El, the Strong One, from
whose name comes the Biblical names Beth-el, the house of God; Ha-el,
the strong one; El-ohim, the gods; El-oah, God; and from the same name
is derived the Arabian name of God, Al-lah.
Another evidence of the connection between the Greeks, Phoenicians,
Hebrews, and Atlanteans is shown in the name of Adonis.
The Greeks tell us that Adonis was the lover of Aphrodite, or Venus, who
was the offspring of Uranus--"she came out of the sea;" Uranus was the
father of Chronos, and the grandfather of Poseidon, king of Atlantis.
Now we find Adonâi in the Old Testament used exclusively as the name of
Jehovah, while among the Phoenicians Adonâi was the supreme deity. In
both cases the root Ad is probably a reminiscence of Ad-lantis.
There seem to exist similar connections between the Egyptian and the
Turanian mythology. The great god of Egypt was Neph or Num; the chief
god of the Samoyedes is Num; and Max Müller established an identity
between the Num of the Samoyedes and the god Yum-ala of the Finns, and
probably with the name of the god Nam of the Thibetians.
That mysterious people, the Etruscans, who inhabited part of Italy, and
whose bronze implements agreed exactly in style and workmanship with
those which we think were derived from Atlantis, were, it is now
claimed, a branch of the Turanian family.
"At a recent meeting of the English Philological Society great interest
was excited by a paper on Etruscan Numerals, by the Rev. Isaac Taylor.
He stated that the long-sought key to the Etruscan language had at last
been discovered. Two dice had been found in a tomb, with their six faces
marked with words instead of pips. He showed that these words were
identical with the first six digits in the Altaic branch of the Turanian
family of speech. Guided by this clew, it was easy to prove that the
grammar and vocabulary of the 3000 Etruscan inscriptions were also
Altaic. The words denoting kindred, the pronouns, the conjugations, and
the declensions, corresponded closely to those of the Tartar tribes of
Siberia. The Etruscan mythology proved to be essentially the same as
that of the Kalevala, the great Finnic epic."
According to Lenormant ("Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p. 62;
vol. ii., p. 23), the early contests between the Aryans and the
Turanians are represented in the Iranian traditions as "contests between
hostile brothers ... the Ugro-Finnish races must, according to all
appearances, be looked upon as a branch, earlier detached than the
others from the Japhetic stem."
If it be true that the first branch originating from Atlantis was the
Turanian, which includes the Chinese and Japanese, then we have derived
from Atlantis all the building and metalworking races of men who have
proved themselves capable of civilization; and we may, therefore, divide
mankind into two great classes: those capable of civilization, derived
from Atlantis, and those essentially and at all times barbarian, who
hold no blood relationship with the people of Atlantis.
Humboldt is sure "that some connection existed between ancient Ethiopia
and the elevated plain of Central Asia." There were invasions which
reached from the shores of Arabia into China. "An Arabian sovereign,
Schamar-Iarasch (Abou Karib), is described by Hamza, Nuwayri, and others
as a powerful ruler and conqueror, who carried his arms successfully far
into Central Asia; he occupied Samarcand and invaded China. He erected
an edifice at Samarcand, bearing an inscription, in Himyarite or Cushite
characters, 'In the name of God, Schamar-Iarasch has erected this
edifice to the sun, his Lord." (Baldwin's "Prehistoric Nations," p.
110.) These invasions must have been prior to 1518 B.C.
Charles Walcott Brooks read a paper before the California Academy of
Sciences, in which he says:
"According to Chinese annals, Tai-Ko-Fokee, the great stranger king,
ruled the kingdom of China. In pictures he is represented with two small
horns, like those associated with the representations of Moses. He and
his successor are said to have introduced into China 'picture-writing,'
like that in use in Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest.
He taught the motions of the heavenly bodies, and divided time into
years and months; he also introduced many other useful arts and sciences.
"Now, there has been found at Copan, in Central America, a figure
strikingly like the Chinese symbol of Fokee, with his two horns; and, in
like manner, there is a close resemblance between the Central American
and the Chinese figures representing earth and heaven. Either one people
learned from the other, or both acquired these forms from a common
source. Many physico-geographical facts favor the hypothesis that they
were derived in very remote ages from America, and that from China they
passed to Egypt. Chinese records say that the progenitors of the Chinese
race came from across the sea."
The two small horns of Tai-Ko-Fokee and Moses are probably a
reminiscence of Baal. We find the horns of Baal represented in the
remains of the Bronze Age of Europe. Bel sometimes wore a tiara with his
bull's horns; the tiara was the crown subsequently worn by the Persian
kings, and it became, in time, the symbol of Papal authority. The
Atlanteans having domesticated cattle, and discovered their vast
importance to humanity, associated the bull and cow with religious
ideas, as revealed in the oldest hymns of the Aryans and the cow-headed
idols of Troy, a representation of one of which is shown on the
preceding page. Upon the head of their great god Baal they placed the
horns of the bull; and these have descended in popular imagination to
the spirit of evil of our day. Burns says:
"O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie."
"Clootie" is derived from the cleft hoof of a cow; while the Scotch name
for a bull is Bill, a corruption, probably, of Bel. Less than two
hundred years ago it was customary to sacrifice a bull on the 25th of
August to the "God Mowrie" and "his devilans" on the island of Inis
Maree, Scotland. ("The Past in the Present," p. 165.) The trident of
Poseidon has degenerated into the pitchfork of Beelzebub!
And when we cross the Atlantic, we find in America the horns of Baal
reappearing in a singular manner. The first cut on page 429 represents
an idol of the Moquis of New Mexico: the head is very bull-like. In the
next figure we have a representation of the war-god of the Dakotas, with
something like a trident in his hand; while the next illustration is
taken from Zarate's "Peru," and depicts "the god of a degrading
worship." He is very much like the traditional conception of the
European devil-horns, pointed ears, wings, and poker. Compare this last
figure, from Peru, with the representation on page 430 of a Greek siren,
one of those cruel monsters who, according to Grecian mythology, sat in
the midst of bones and blood, tempting men to ruin by their sweet music.
Here we have the same bird-like legs and claws as in the Peruvian demon.
Heeren shows that a great overland commerce extended in ancient times
between the Black Sea and "Great Mongolia;" he mentions a "Temple of the
Sun," and a great caravansary in the desert of Gobi. Arminius Vámbéry,
in his "Travels in Central Asia," describes very important ruins near
the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, at a place called Gömüshtepe; and
connected with these are the remains of a great wall which he followed
"ten geographical miles." He found a vast aqueduct one hundred and fifty
miles long, extending to the Persian mountains. He reports abundant
ruins in all that country, extending even to China.
The early history of China indicates contact with a superior race.
"Fuh-hi, who is regarded as a demi-god, founded the Chinese Empire 2852
B.C. He introduced cattle, taught the people how to raise them, and
taught the art of writing." ("American Cyclopædia," art. China.) He
might have invented his alphabet, but he did not invent the cattle; he
must have got them from some nation who, during many centuries of
civilization, had domesticated them; and from what nation was he more
likely to have obtained them than from the Atlanteans, whose colonies we
have seen reached his borders, and whose armies invaded his territory!
"He instituted the ceremony of marriage." (Ibid.) This also was an
importation from a civilized land. "His successor, Shin-nung, during a
reign of one hundred and forty years, introduced agriculture and medical
science. The next emperor, Hwang-ti, is believed to have invented
weapons, wagons, ships, clocks, and musical instruments, and to have
introduced coins, weights, and measures." (Ibid.) As these various
inventions in all other countries have been the result of slow
development, running through many centuries, or are borrowed from some
other more civilized people, it is certain that no emperor of China ever
invented them all during a period of one hundred and sixty-four years.
These, then, were also importations from the West. In fact, the Chinese
themselves claim to have invaded China in the early days from the
north-west; and their first location is placed by Winchell near Lake
Balkat, a short distance east of the Caspian, where we have already seen
Aryan Atlantean colonies planted at an early day. "The third successor
of Fuh-hi, Ti-ku, established schools, and was the first to practise
polygamy. In 2357 his son Yau ascended the throne, and it is from his
reign that the regular historical records begin. A great flood, which
occurred in his reign, has been considered synchronous and identical
with the Noachic Deluge, and to Yau is attributed the merit of having
successfully battled against the waters."
There can be no question that the Chinese themselves, in their early
legends, connected their origin with a people who were destroyed by
water in a tremendous convulsion of the earth. Associated with this
event was a divine personage called Niu-va (Noah?).
Sir William Jones says:
"The Chinese believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water,
which, in works of undisputed authenticity, they describe as flowing
abundantly, then subsiding and separating the higher from the lower ages
of mankind; that this division of time, from which their poetical
history begins, just preceded the appearance of Fo-hi on the mountains
of Chin." ("Discourse on the Chinese; Asiatic Researches," vol. ii., p.
376.)
The following history of this destruction of their ancestors vividly
recalls to us the convulsion depicted in the Chaldean and American
legends:
"The pillars of heaven were broken; the earth shook to its very
foundations; the heavens sunk lower toward the north; the sun, the moon,
and the stars changed their motions; the earth fell to pieces, and the
waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and
overflowed it. Man having rebelled against Heaven, the system of the
universe was totally disordered. The sun was eclipsed, the planets
altered their course, and the grand harmony of nature was disturbed."
A learned Frenchman, M. Terrien de la Couperie, member of the Asiatic
Society of Paris, has just published a work (1880) in which he
demonstrates the astonishing fact that the Chinese language is clearly
related to the Chaldean, and that both the Chinese characters and the
cuneiform alphabet are degenerate descendants of an original
hieroglyphical alphabet. The same signs exist for many words, while
numerous words are very much alike. M. de la Couperie gives a table of
some of these similarities, from which I quote as follows:
+------------+----------+----------+
| English. | Chinese. | Chaldee. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| To shine | Mut | Mul. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| To die | Mut | Mit. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Book | King | Kin. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Cloth | Sik | Sik. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Right hand | Dzek | Zag. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Hero | Tan | Dun. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Earth | Kien-kai | Kiengi. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Cow | Lub | Lu, lup. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Brick | Ku | Ku. |
+------------+----------+----------+
This surprising discovery brings the Chinese civilization still nearer
to the Mediterranean head-quarters of the races, and increases the
probability that the arts of China were of Atlantean origin; and that
the name of Nai Hoang-ti, or Nai Korti, the founder of Chinese
civilization, may be a reminiscence of Nakhunta, the chief of the gods,
as recorded in the Susian texts, and this, in turn, a recollection of
the Deva-Nahusha of the Hindoos, the Dionysos of the Greeks, the king of
Atlantis, whose great empire reached to the "farther parts of India,"
and embraced, according to Plato, "parts of the continent of America."
Linguistic science achieved a great discovery when it established the
fact that there was a continuous belt of languages from Iceland to
Ceylon which were the variant forms of one mother-tongue, the
Indo-European; but it must prepare itself for a still wider
generalization. There is abundant proof--proof with which pages might be
filled--that there was a still older mother-tongue, from which Aryan,
Semitic, and Hamitic were all derived--the language of Noah, the
language of Atlantis, the language of the great "aggressive empire" of
Plato, the language of the empire of the Titans.
The Arabic word bin, within, becomes, when it means interval, space,
binnon; this is the German and Dutch binnen and Saxon binnon, signifying
within. The Ethiopian word aorf, to fall asleep, is the root of the word
Morpheus, the god of sleep. The Hebrew word chanah, to dwell, is the
parent of the Anglo-Saxon inne and Icelandic inni, a house, and of our
word inn, a hotel. The Hebrew word naval or nafal signifies to fall;
from it is derived our word fall and fool (one who falls); the Chaldee
word is nabal, to make foul, and the Arabic word nabala means to die,
that is, to fall. From the last syllable of the Chaldee nasar, to saw,
we can derive the Latin serra, the High German sagen, the Danish sauga,
and our word to saw. The Arabic nafida, to fade, is the same as the
Italian fado, the Latin fatuus (foolish, tasteless), the Dutch vadden,
and our to fade. The Ethiopic word gaber, to make, to do, and the Arabic
word jabara, to make strong, becomes the Welsh word goberu, to work, to
operate, the Latin operor, and the English operate. The Arabic word
abara signifies to prick, to sting; we see this root in the Welsh bar, a
summit, and pâr, a spear, and per, a spit; whence our word spear. In the
Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic zug means to join, to couple; from this the
Greeks obtained zugos, the Romans jugum, and we the word yoke; while the
Germans obtained jok or jog, the Dutch juk, the Swedes ok. The Sanscrit
is juga. The Arabic sanna, to be old, reappears in the Latin senex, the
Welsh hen, and our senile. The Hebrew banah, to build, is the Irish bun,
foundation, and the Latin fundo, fundare, to found. The Arabic baraka,
to bend the knee, to fall on the breast, is probably the Saxon brecau,
the Danish bräkke, the Swedish bräcka, Welsh bregu, and our word to
break. The Arabic baraka also signifies to rain violently; and from this
we get the Saxon roegn, to rain, Dutch regen, to rain, Cimbric roekia,
rain, Welsh rheg, rain. The Chaldee word braic, a branch, is the Irish
braic or raigh, an arm, the Welsh braic, the Latin brachium, and the
English brace, something which supports like an arm. The Chaldee frak,
to rub, to tread out grain, is the same as the Latin frico, frio, and
our word rake. The Arabic word to rub is fraka. The Chaldee rag, ragag,
means to desire, to long for; it is the same as the Greek oregw, the
Latin porrigere, the Saxon roeccan, the Icelandic rakna, the German
reichen, and our to reach, to rage. The Arabic rauka, to strain or
purify, as wine, is precisely our English word rack, to rack wine. The
Hebrew word bara, to create, is our word to bear, as to bear children: a
great number of words in all the European languages contain this root in
its various modifications. The Hebrew word kafar, to cover, is our word
to cover, and coffer, something which covers, and covert, a secret
place; from this root also comes the Latin cooperio and the French
couvrir, to cover. The Arabic word shakala, to bind under the belly, is
our word to shackle. From the Arabic walada and Ethiopian walad, to
beget, to bring forth, we get the Welsh llawd, a shooting out; and hence
our word lad. Our word matter, or pus, is from the Arabic madda; our
word mature is originally from the Chaldee mita. The Arabic word amida
signifies to end, and from this comes the noun, a limit, a termination,
Latin meta, and our words meet and mete.
I might continue this list, but I have given enough to show that all the
Atlantean races once spoke the same language, and that the dispersion on
the plains of Shinar signifies that breaking up of the tongues of one
people under the operation of vast spaces of time. Philology is yet in
its infancy, and the time is not far distant when the identity of the
languages of all the Noachic races will be as clearly established and as
universally acknowledged as is now the identity of the languages of the
Aryan family of nations.
And precisely as recent research has demonstrated the relationship
between Pekin and Babylon, so investigation in Central America has
proved that there is a mysterious bond of union connecting the Chinese
and one of the races of Mexico. The resemblances are so great that Mr.
Short ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 494) says, "There is no doubt
that strong analogies exist between the Otomi and the Chinese." Señor
Najera ("Dissertacion Sobre la lingua Othomi, Mexico," pp. 87, 88) gives
a list of words from which I quote the following:
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Chinese. | Othomi. | English. | Chinese. | Othomi | English. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Cho | To | The, that. | Pa | Da | To give. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Y | N-y | A wound. | Tsun | Nsu | Honor. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ten | Gu, mu | Head. | Hu | Hmu | Sir, Lord. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Siao | Sui | Night | Na | Na | That. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tien | Tsi | Tooth | Hu | He | Cold. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ye | Yo | Shining | Ye | He | And. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ky | Hy (ji) | Happiness. | Hoa | Hia | Word. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ku | Du | Death | Nugo | Nga | I |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Po | Yo | No | Ni | Nuy | Thou. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Na | Ta | Man | Hao | Nho | The good. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Nin | Nsu | Female | Ta | Da | The great. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tseu | Tsi, ti | Son | Li | Ti | Gain. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tso | Tsa | To perfect | Ho | To | Who. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Kuan | Khuani | True | Pa | Pa | To leave. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Siao | Sa | To mock | Mu, mo | Me | Mother. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
Recently Herr Forchhammer, of Leipsic, has published a truly scientific
comparison of the grammatical structure of the Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Muscogee, and Seminole languages with the Ural-Altaic tongues, in which
he has developed many interesting points of resemblance.
It has been the custom to ascribe the recognized similarities between
the Indians of America and the Chinese and Japanese to a migration by
way of Behring's Strait from Asia into America; but when we find that
the Chinese themselves only reached the Pacific coast within the
Historical Period, and that they came to it from the direction of the
Mediterranean and Atlantis, and when we find so many and such distinct
recollections of the destruction of Atlantis in the Flood legends of the
American races, it seems more reasonable to conclude that the
resemblances between the Othomi and the Chinese are to be accounted for
by intercourse through Atlantis.
We find a confirmation in all these facts of the order in which Genesis
names the sons of Noah:
"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and
Japheth, and unto them were sons born after the flood."
Can we not suppose that those three sons represent three great races in
the order of their precedence?
The record of Genesis claims that the Phoenicians were descended from
Ham, while the Hebrews were descended from Shem; yet we find the Hebrews
and Phoenicians united by the ties of a common language, common
traditions, and common race characteristics. The Jews are the great
merchants of the world eighteen centuries after Christ, just as the
Phoenicians were the great merchants of the world fifteen centuries
before Christ.
Moreover, the Arabians, who are popularly classed as Semites, or sons of
Shem, admit in their traditions that they are descended from "Ad, the
son of Ham;" and the tenth chapter of Genesis classes them among the
descendants of Ham, calling them Seba, Havilah, Raamah, etc. If the two
great so-called Semitic stocks--the Phoenicians and Arabians--are
Hamites, surely the third member of the group belongs to the same
"sunburnt" race.
If we concede that the Jews were also a branch of the Hamitic stock,
then we have, firstly, a Semitic stock, the Turanian, embracing the
Etruscans, the Finns, the Tartars, the Mongols, the Chinese, and
Japanese; secondly, a Hamitic family, "the sunburnt" race--a red
race--including the Cushites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Berbers,
etc.; and, thirdly, a Japhetic or whiter stock, embracing the Greeks,
Italians, Celts, Goths, and the men who wrote Sanscrit--in other words,
the entire Aryan family.
If we add to these three races the negro race--which cannot be traced
back to Atlantis, and is not included, according to Genesis, among the
descendants of Noah--we have the four races, the white, red, yellow, and
black, recognized by the Egyptians as embracing all the people known to
them.
There seems to be some confusion in Genesis as to the Semitic stock. It
classes different races as both Semites and Hamites; as, for instance,
Sheba and Havilah; while the race of Mash, or Meshech, is classed among
the sons of Shem and the sons of Japheth. In fact, there seems to be a
confusion of Hamitic and Semitic stocks. "This is shown in the blending
of Hamitic and Semitic in some of the most ancient inscriptions; in the
facility of intercourse between the Semites of Asia and the Hamites of
Egypt; in the peaceful and unobserved absorption of all the Asiatic
Hamites, and the Semitic adoption of the Hamitic gods and religious
system. It is manifest that, at a period not long previous, the two
families had dwelt together and spoken the same language." (Winchell's
"Pre-Adamites," p. 36.) Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the
so-called Semitic races of Genesis were a mere division of the Hamitic
stock, and that we are to look for the third great division of the sons
of Noah among the Turanians?
Francis Lenormant, high authority, is of the opinion that the Turanian
races are descended from Magog, the son of Japheth. He regards the
Turanians as intermediate between the white and yellow races, graduating
insensibly into each. "The Uzbecs, the Osmanli Turks, and the Hungarians
are not to be distinguished in appearance from the most perfect branches
of the white race; on the other hand, the Tchondes almost exactly
resemble the Tongouses, who belong to the yellow race.
The Turanian languages are marked by the same agglutinative character
found in the American races.
The Mongolian and the Indian are alike in the absence of a heavy beard.
The royal color of the Incas was yellow; yellow is the color of the
imperial family in China. The religion of the Peruvians was sun-worship;
"the sun was the peculiar god of the Mongols from the earliest times."
The Peruvians regarded Pachacamac as the sovereign creator. Camac-Hya
was the name of a Hindoo goddess. Haylli was the burden of every verse
of the song composed in praise of the sun and the Incas. Mr. John
Ranking derives the word Allah from the word Haylli, also the word
Halle-lujah. In the city of Cuzco was a portion of land which none were
permitted to cultivate except those of the royal blood. At certain
seasons the Incas turned up the sod here, amid much rejoicing, and many
ceremonies. A similar custom prevails in China: The emperor ploughs a
few furrows, and twelve illustrious persons attend the plough after him.
(Du Halde, "Empire of China," vol. i., p. 275.) The cycle of sixty years
was in use among most of the nations of Eastern Asia, and among the
Muyscas of the elevated plains of Bogota. The "quipu," a knotted
reckoning-cord, was in use in Peru and in China. (Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. v., p. 48.) In Peru and China "both use hieroglyphics,
which are read from above downward." (Ibid.)
"It appears most evident to me," says Humboldt, "that the monuments,
methods of computing time, systems of cosmogony, and many myths of
America, offer striking analogies with the ideas of Eastern
Asia--analogies which indicate an ancient communication, and are not
simply the result of that uniform condition in which all nations are
found in the dawn of civilization." ("Exam. Crit.," tom. ii., p. 68.)
"In the ruined cities of Cambodia, which lies farther to the east of
Burmah, recent research has discovered teocallis like those in Mexico,
and the remains of temples of the same type and pattern as those of
Yucatan. And when we reach the sea we encounter at Suku, in Java, a
teocalli which is absolutely identical with that of Tehuantepec. Mr.
Ferguson said, 'as we advance eastward from the valley of the Euphrates,
at every step we meet with forms of art becoming more and more like
those of Central America.'" ("Builders of Babel," p. 88.)
Prescott says:
"The coincidences are sufficiently strong to authorize a belief that the
civilization of Anahuac was in some degree influenced by that of Eastern
Asia; and, secondly, that the discrepancies are such as to carry back
the communication to a very remote period." ("Mexico," vol. iii., p.
418.)
"All appearances," continues Lenormant ("Ancient History of the East,"
vol. i., p. 64), "would lead us to regard the Turanian race as the first
branch of the family of Japheth which went forth into the world; and by
that premature separation, by an isolated and antagonistic existence,
took, or rather preserved, a completely distinct physiognomy.... It
is a type of the white race imperfectly developed."
We may regard this yellow race as the first and oldest wave from
Atlantis, and, therefore, reaching farthest away from the common source;
then came the Hamitic race; then the Japhetic.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS.
It may seem like a flight of the imagination to suppose that the
mariner's compass was known to the inhabitants of Atlantis. And yet, if
my readers are satisfied that the Atlantean were a highly civilized
maritime people, carrying on commerce with regions as far apart as Peru
and Syria, we must conclude that they possessed some means of tracing
their course in the great seas they traversed; and accordingly, when we
proceed to investigate this subject, we find that as far back as we may
go in the study of the ancient races of the world, we find them
possessed of a knowledge of the virtues of the magnetic stone, and in
the habit of utilizing it. The people of Europe, rising a few centuries
since out of a state of semi-barbarism, have been in the habit of
claiming the invention of many things which they simply borrowed from
the older nations. This was the case with the mariner's compass. It was
believed for many years that it was first invented by an Italian named
Amalfi, A.D. 1302. In that interesting work, Goodrich's "Life of
Columbus," we find a curious history of the magnetic compass prior to
that time, from which we collate the following points:
"In A.D. 868 it was employed by the Northmen." ("The Landnamabok," vol.
i., chap. 2.) An Italian poem of A.D. 1190 refers to it as in use among
the Italian sailors at that date. In the ancient language of the
Hindoos, the Sanscrit--which has been a dead language for twenty-two
hundred years--the magnet was called "the precious stone beloved of
Iron." The Talmud speaks of it as "the stone of attraction;" and it is
alluded to in the early Hebrew prayers as Kalamitah, the same name given
it by the Greeks, from the reed upon which the compass floated. The
Phoenicians were familiar with the use of the magnet. At the prow of
their vessels stood the figure of a woman (Astarte) holding a cross in
one hand and pointing the way with the other; the cross represented the
compass, which was a magnetized needle, floating in water crosswise upon
a piece of reed or wood. The cross became the coat of arms of the
Phoenicians--not only, possibly, as we have shown, as a recollection of
the four rivers of Atlantis, but because it represented the secret of
their great sea-voyages, to which they owed their national greatness.
The hyperborean magician, Abaras, carried "a guiding arrow," which
Pythagoras gave him, "in order that it may be useful to him in all
difficulties in his long journey." ("Herodotus," vol. iv., p. 36.)
The magnet was called the "Stone of Hercules." Hercules was the patron
divinity of the Phoenicians. He was, as we have shown elsewhere, one of
the gods of Atlantis--probably one of its great kings and navigators.
The Atlanteans were, as Plato tells us, a maritime, commercial people,
trading up the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Syria, and across the
Atlantic to "the whole opposite continent that surrounds the sea;" the
Phoenicians, as their successors and descendants, and colonized on the
shores of the Mediterranean, inherited their civilization and their
maritime habits, and with these that invention without which their great
voyages were impossible. From them the magnet passed to the Hindoos, and
from them to the Chinese, who certainly possessed it at an early date.
In the year 2700 B.C. the Emperor Wang-ti placed a magnetic figure with
an extended arm, like the Astarte of the Phoenicians, on the front of
carriages, the arm always turning and pointing to the south, which the
Chinese regarded as the principal pole. (See Goodrich's "Columbus," p.
31, etc.) This illustration represents one of these chariots:
In the seventh century it was used by the navigators of the Baltic Sea
and the German Ocean.
CHINESE MAGNETIC CAR
The ancient Egyptians called the loadstone the bone of Haroeri, and iron
the bone of Typhon. Haroeri was the son of Osiris and grandson of Rhea,
a goddess of the earth, a queen of Atlantis, and mother of Poseidon;
Typhon was a wind-god and an evil genius, but also a son of Rhea, the
earth goddess. Do we find in this curious designation of iron and
loadstone as "bones of the descendants of the earth," an explanation of
that otherwise inexplicable Greek legend about Deucalion "throwing the
bones of the earth behind him, when instantly men rose from the ground,
and the world was repeopled?" Does it mean that by means of the magnet
he sailed, after the Flood, to the European colonies of Atlantis,
already thickly inhabited?
A late writer, speaking upon the subject of the loadstone, tells us:
"Hercules, it was said, being once overpowered by the heat of the sun,
drew his bow against that luminary; whereupon the god Phoebus, admiring
his intrepidity, gave him a golden cup, with which he sailed over the
ocean. This cup was the compass, which old writers have called Lapis
Heracleus. Pisander says Oceanus lent him the cup, and Lucian says it
was a sea-shell. Tradition affirms that the magnet originally was not on
a pivot, but set to float on water in a cup. The old antiquarian is
wildly theoretical on this point, and sees a compass in the Golden
Fleece of Argos, in the oracular needle which Nero worshipped, and in
everything else. Yet undoubtedly there are some curious facts connected
with the matter. Osonius says that Gama and the Portuguese got the
compass from some pirates at the Cape of Good Hope, A.D. 1260. M.
Fauchet, the French antiquarian, finds it plainly alluded to in some old
poem of Brittany belonging to the year A.D. 1180. Paulo Venetus brought
it in the thirteenth century from China, where it was regarded as
oracular. Genebrand says Melvius, a Neapolitan, brought it to Europe in
A.D. 1303. Costa says Gama got it from Mohammedan seamen. But all
nations with whom it was found associate it with regions where Heraclean
myths prevailed. And one of the most curious facts is that the ancient
Britons, as the Welsh do to-day, call a pilot llywydd (lode).
Lodemanage, in Skinner's 'Etymology,' is the word for the price paid to
a pilot. But whether this famous, and afterward deified, mariner
(Hercules) had a compass or not, we can hardly regard the association of
his name with so many Western monuments as accidental."
Hercules was, as we know, a god of Atlantis, and Oceanos, who lent the
magnetic cup to Hercules, was the name by which the Greeks designated
the Atlantic Ocean. And this may be the explanation of the recurrence of
a cup in many antique paintings and statues. Hercules is often
represented with a cup in his hand; we even find the cup upon the handle
of the bronze dagger found in Denmark, and represented in the chapter on
the Bronze Age, in this work. (See p. 254 ante.)
So "oracular" an object as this self-moving needle, always pointing to
the north, would doubtless affect vividly the minds of the people, and
appear in their works of art. When Hercules left the coast of Europe to
sail to the island of Erythea in the Atlantic, in the remote west, we
are told, in Greek mythology (Murray, p. 257), that he borrowed "the
cup" of Helios, in (with) which "he was accustomed to sail every night."
Here we seem to have a reference to the magnetic cup used in night
sailing; and this is another proof that the use of the magnetic needle
in sea-voyages was associated with the Atlantean gods.
ANCIENT COINS OF TYRE
Lucian tells us that a sea-shell often took the place of the cup, as a
vessel in which to hold the water where the needle floated, and hence
upon the ancient coins of Tyre we find a sea-shell represented.
Here, too, we have the Pillars of Hercules, supposed to have been placed
at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and the tree of life or knowledge,
with the serpent twined around it, which appears in Genesis; and in the
combination of the two pillars and the serpent we have, it is said, the
original source of our dollar mark [$].
COIN FROM CENTRAL AMERICA
Compare these Phoenician coins with the following representation of a
copper coin, two inches in diameter and three lines thick, found nearly
a century ago by Ordonez, at the city of Guatemala. "M. Dupaix noticed
an indication of the use of the compass in the centre of one of the
sides, the figures on the same side representing a kneeling, bearded,
turbaned man between two fierce heads, perhaps of crocodiles, which
appear to defend the entrance to a mountainous and wooded country. The
reverse presents a serpent coiled around a fruit-tree, and an eagle on a
hill." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iv., p. 118.) The mountain leans
to one side: it is a "culhuacan," or crooked mountain.
We find in Sanchoniathon's "Legends of the Phoenicians" that Ouranus, the
first god of the people of Atlantis, "devised Bætulia, contriving stones
that moved as having life, which were supposed to fall from heaven."
These stones were probably magnetic loadstones; in other words, Ouranus,
the first god of Atlantis, devised the mariner's compass.
I find in the "Report of United States Explorations for a Route for a
Pacific Railroad" a description of a New Mexican Indian priest, who
foretells the result of a proposed war by placing a piece of wood in a
bowl of water, and causing it to turn to the right or left, or sink or
rise, as he directs it. This is incomprehensible, unless the wood, like
the ancient Chinese compass, contained a piece of magnetic iron hidden
in it, which would be attracted or repulsed, or even drawn downward, by
a piece of iron held in the hand of the priest, on the outside of the
bowl. If so, this trick was a remembrance of the mariner's compass
transmitted from age to age by the medicine men. The reclining statue of
Chac-Mol, of Central America, holds a bowl or dish upon its breast.
Divination was the ars Etrusca. The Etruscans set their temples squarely
with the cardinal points of the compass; so did the Egyptians, the
Mexicans, and the Mound Builders of America. Could they have done this
without the magnetic compass?
The Romans and the Persians called the line of the axis of the globe
cardo, and it was to cardo the needle pointed. Now "Cardo was the name
of the mountain on which the human race took refuge from the Deluge...
the primitive geographic point for the countries which were the cradle
of the human race." (Urquhart's "Pillars of Hercules," vol. i., p. 145.)
From this comes our word "cardinal," as the cardinal points.
Navigation.--Navigation was not by any means in a rude state in the
earliest times:
"In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aristoricus makes
Menelaus circumnavigate Africa more than 500 years before Neco sailed
from Gadeira to India." ("Cosmos," vol. ii., p. 144.)
"In the tomb of Rameses the Great is a representation of a naval combat
between the Egyptians and some other people, supposed to be the
Phoenicians, whose huge ships are propelled by sails." (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 29.)
The proportions of the fastest sailing-vessels of the present day are
about 300 feet long to 50 wide and 30 high; these were precisely the
proportions of Noah's ark--300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high.
"Hiero of Syracuse built, under the superintendence of Archimedes, a
vessel which consumed in its construction the material for fifty
galleys; it contained galleries, gardens, stables, fish-ponds, mills,
baths, a temple of Venus, and an engine to throw stones three hundred
pounds in weight, and arrows thirty-six feet long. The floors of this
monstrous vessel were inlaid with scenes from Homer's 'Iliad.'" (Ibid.,
p. 30.)
The fleet of Sesostris consisted of four hundred ships; and when
Semiramis invaded India she was opposed by four thousand vessels.
It is probable that in the earliest times the vessels were sheeted with
metal. A Roman ship of the time of Trajan has been recovered from Lake
Ricciole after 1300 years. The outside was covered with sheets of lead
fastened with small copper nails. Even the use of iron chains in place
of ropes for the anchors was known at an early period. Julius Cæsar
tells us that the galleys of the Veneti were thus equipped. (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 31.)
Gunpowder.--It is not impossible that even the invention of gunpowder
may date back to Atlantis. It was certainly known in Europe long before
the time of the German monk, Berthold Schwarz, who is commonly credited
with the invention of it. It was employed in 1257 at the siege of
Niebla, in Spain. It was described in an Arab treatise of the thirteenth
century. In A.D. 811 the Emperor Leo employed fire-arms. "Greek-fire" is
supposed to have been gunpowder mixed with resin or petroleum, and
thrown in the form of fuses and explosive shells. It was introduced from
Egypt A.D. 668. In A.D. 690 the Arabs used fire-arms against Mecca,
bringing the knowledge of them from India. In A.D. 80 the Chinese
obtained from India a knowledge of gunpowder. There is reason to believe
that the Carthaginian (Phoenician) general, Hannibal, used gunpowder in
breaking a way for his army over the Alps. The Romans, who were ignorant
of its use, said that Hannibal made his way by making fires against the
rocks, and pouring vinegar and water over the ashes. It is evident that
fire and vinegar would have no effect on masses of the Alps great enough
to arrest the march of an army. Dr. William Maginn has suggested that
the wood was probably burnt by Hannibal to obtain charcoal; and the word
which has been translated "vinegar" probably signified some preparation
of nitre and sulphur, and that Hannibal made gunpowder and blew up the
rocks. The same author suggests that the story of Hannibal breaking
loose from the mountains where he was surrounded on all sides by the
Romans, and in danger of starvation, by fastening firebrands to the
horns of two thousand oxen, and sending them rushing at night among the
terrified Romans, simply refers to the use of rockets. As Maginn well
asks, how could Hannibal be in danger of starvation when he had two
thousand oxen to spare for such an experiment? And why should the
veteran Roman troops have been so terrified and panic-stricken by a lot
of cattle with firebrands on their horns? At the battle of Lake
Trasymene, between Hannibal and Flaminius, we have another curious piece
of information which goes far to confirm the belief that Hannibal was
familiar with the use of gunpowder. In the midst of the battle there
was, say the Roman historians, an "earthquake;" the earth reeled under
the feet of the soldiers, a tremendous crash was heard, a fog or smoke
covered the scene, the earth broke open, and the rocks fell upon the
heads of the Romans. This reads very much as if the Carthaginians had
decoyed the Romans into a pass where they had already planted a mine,
and had exploded it at the proper moment to throw them into a panic.
Earthquakes do not cast rocks up in the air to fall on men's heads!
And that this is not all surmise is shown by the fact that a city of
India, in the time of Alexander the Great, defended itself by the use of
gunpowder: it was said to be a favorite of the gods, because thunder and
lightning came from its walls to resist the attacks of its assailants.
As the Hebrews were a branch of the Phoenician race, it is not surprising
that we find some things in their history which look very much like
legends of gunpowder.
When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram led a rebellion against Moses, Moses
separated the faithful from the unfaithful, and thereupon "the ground
clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained
unto Korah, and all their goods.... And there came out a fire from
the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered
incense.... But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed
the people of the Lord." (Numb. xvi., 31-41.)
This looks very much as if Moses had blown up the rebels with gunpowder.
Roger Bacon, who himself rediscovered gunpowder, was of opinion that the
event described in Judges vii., where Gideon captured the camp of the
Midianites with the roar of trumpets, the crash caused by the breaking
of innumerable pitchers, and the flash of a multitude of lanterns, had
reference to the use of gunpowder; that the noise made by the breaking
of the pitchers represented the detonation of an explosion, the flame of
the lights the blaze, and the noise of the trumpets the thunder of the
gunpowder. We can understand, in this wise, the results that followed;
but we cannot otherwise understand how the breaking of pitchers, the
flashing of lamps, and the clangor of trumpets would throw an army into
panic, until "every man's sword was set against his fellow, and the host
fled to Beth-shittah;" and this, too, without any attack upon the part
of the Israelites, for "they stood every man in his place around the
camp; and all the host ran and cried and fled."
If it was a miraculous interposition in behalf of the Jews, the Lord
could have scared the Midianites out of their wits without the smashed
pitchers and lanterns; and certain it is the pitchers and lanterns
would not have done the work with out a miraculous interposition.
Having traced the knowledge of gunpowder back to the most remote times,
and to the different races which were descended from Atlantis, we are
not surprised to find in the legends of Greek mythology events described
which are only explicable by supposing that the Atlanteans possessed the
secret of this powerful explosive.
A rebellion sprang up in Atlantis (see Murray's "Mannal of Mythology,"
p. 30) against Zeus; it is known in mythology as the "War of the
Titans:"
"The struggle lasted many years, all the might which the Olympians could
bring to bear being useless, until, on the advice of Gæa, Zeus set free
the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires" (that is, brought the ships into
play), "of whom the former fashioned thunder-bolts for him, while the
latter advanced on his side with force equal to the shock of an
earthquake. The earth trembled down to lowest Tartarus as Zeus now
appeared with his terrible weapon and new allies. Old Chaos thought his
hour had come, as from a continuous blaze of thunder-bolts the earth
took fire, and the waters seethed in the sea. The rebels were partly
slain or consumed, and partly hurled into deep chasms, with rocks and
hills reeling after them."
Do not these words picture the explosion of a mine with a "force equal
to the shock of an earthquake?"
We have already shown that the Kyklopes and Hekatoncheires were probably
great war-ships, armed with some explosive material in the nature of
gunpowder.
Zeus, the king of Atlantis, was known as "the thunderer," and was
represented armed with thunder-bolts.
Some ancient nation must, in the most remote ages, have invented
gunpowder; and is it unreasonable to attribute it to that "great
original race" rather than to any one people of their posterity, who
seem to have borrowed all the other arts from them; and who, during many
thousands of years, did not add a single new invention to the list they
received from Atlantis?
Iron.--have seen that the Greek mythological legends asserted that
before the submergence of the great race over whom their gods reigned
there had been not only an Age of Bronze but an Age of Iron. This metal
was known to the Egyptians in the earliest ages; fragments of iron have
been found in the oldest pyramids. The Iron Age in Northern Europe far
antedated intercourse with the Greeks or Romans. In the mounds of the
Mississippi Valley, as I have shown, the remains of iron implements have
been found. In the "Mercurio Peruano" (tom. i., p. 201, 1791) it is
stated that "anciently the Peruvian sovereigns worked magnificent iron
mines at Ancoriames, on the west shore of Lake Titicaca." "It is
remarkable," says Molina, "that iron, which has been thought unknown to
the ancient Americans, had particular names in some of their tongues."
In official Peruvian it was called quillay, and in Chilian panilic. The
Mound Builders fashioned implements out of meteoric iron. (Foster's
"Prehistoric Races," p. 333.)
As we find this metal known to man in the earliest ages on both sides of
the Atlantic, the presumption is very strong that it was borrowed by the
nations, east and west, from Atlantis.
Paper.--The same argument holds good as to paper. The oldest Egyptian
monuments contain pictures of the papyrus roll; while in Mexico, as I
have shown, a beautiful paper was manufactured and formed into books
shaped like our own. In Peru a paper was made of plantain leaves, and
books were common in the earlier ages. Humboldt mentions books of
hieroglyphical writings among the Panoes, which were "bundles of their
paper resembling our volumes in quarto."
Silk Mannfacture.--The manufacture of a woven fabric of great beauty out
of the delicate fibre of the egg-cocoon of a worm could only have
originated among a people who had attained the highest degree of
civilization; it implies the art of weaving by delicate instruments, a
dense population, a patient, skilful, artistic people, a sense of the
beautiful, and a wealthy and luxurious class to purchase such costly
fabrics.
We trace it back to the most remote ages. In the introduction to the
"History of Hindostan," or rather of the Mohammedan Dynasties, by
Mohammed Cassim, it is stated that in the year 3870 B.C. an Indian king
sent various silk stuffs as a present to the King of Persia. The art of
making silk was known in China more than two thousand six hundred years
before the Christian era, at the time when we find them first possessed
of civilization. The Phoenicians dealt in silks in the most remote past;
they imported them from India and sold them along the shores of the
Mediterranean. It is probable that the Egyptians understood and
practised the art of manufacturing silk. It was woven in the island of
Cos in the time of Aristotle. The "Babylonish garment" referred to in
Joshua (chap. vii., 21), and for secreting which Achan lost his life,
was probably a garment of silk; it was rated above silver and gold in
value.
It is not a violent presumption to suppose that an art known to the
Hindoos 3870 B.C., and to the Chinese and Phoenicians at the very
beginning of their history--an art so curious, so extraordinary--may
have dated back to Atlantean times.
Civil Government.--Mr. Baldwin shows ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 114)
that the Cushites, the successors of the Atlanteans, whose very ancient
empire extended from Spain to Syria, were the first to establish
independent municipal republics, with the right of the people to govern
themselves; and that this system was perpetuated in the great Phoenician
communities; in "the fierce democracies" of ancient Greece; in the
"village republics" of the African Berbers and the Hindoos; in the "free
cities" of the Middle Ages in Europe; and in the independent governments
of the Basques, which continued down to our own day. The Cushite state
was an aggregation of municipalities, each possessing the right of
self-government, but subject within prescribed limits to a general
authority; in other words, it was precisely the form of government
possessed to-day by the United States. It is a surprising thought that
the perfection of modern government may be another perpetuation of
Atlantean civilization.
Agriculture.--The Greek traditions of "the golden apples of the
Hesperides" and "the golden fleece" point to Atlantis. The allusions to
the golden apples indicate that tradition regarded the "Islands of the
Blessed" in the Atlantic Ocean as a place of orchards. And when we turn
to Egypt we find that in the remotest times many of our modern garden
and field plants were there cultivated. When the Israelites murmured in
the wilderness against Moses, they cried out (Numb., chap. xi., 4, 5),
"Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat
in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlic." The Egyptians also cultivated wheat, barley,
oats, flax, hemp, etc. In fact, if we were to take away from civilized
man the domestic animals, the cereals, and the field and garden
vegetables possessed by the Egyptians at the very dawn of history, there
would be very little left for the granaries or the tables of the world.
Astronomy.--The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and
accurate. Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon,
sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which
he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and
extending back as far as 2234 B.C. Humboldt says, "The Chaldeans knew
the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek
astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar
theory." The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could
foretell their reappearance. "A lens of considerable power was found in
the ruins of Babylon; it was an inch and a half in diameter and
nine-tenths of an inch thick." (Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon," pp.
16, 17.) Nero used optical glasses when he watched the fights of the
gladiators; they are supposed to have come from Egypt and the East.
Plutarch speaks of optical instruments used by Archimedes "to manifest
to the eye the largeness of the sun." "There are actual astronomical
calculations in existence, with calendars formed upon them, which
eminent astronomers of England and France admit to be genuine and true,
and which carry back the antiquity of the science of astronomy, together
with the constellations, to within a few years of the Deluge, even on
the longer chronology of the Septuagint." ("The Miracle in Stone," p.
142.) Josephus attributes the invention of the constellations to the
family of the antediluvian Seth, the son of Adam, while Origen affirms
that it was asserted in the Book of Enoch that in the time of that
patriarch the constellations were already divided and named. The Greeks
associated the origin of astronomy with Atlas and Hercules, Atlantean
kings or heroes. The Egyptians regarded Taut (At?) or Thoth, or
At-hotes, as the originator of both astronomy and the alphabet;
doubtless he represented a civilized people, by whom their country was
originally colonized. Bailly and others assert that astronomy "must have
been established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of
Virgo, and that the solar and lunar zodiacs were of similar antiquity,
which would be about four thousand years before the Christian era. They
suppose the originators to have lived in about the fortieth degree of
north latitude, and to have been a highly-civilized people." It will be
remembered that the fortieth degree of north latitude passed through
Atlantis. Plato knew ("Dialogues, Phædo," 108) that the earth "is a
body in the centre of the heavens" held in equipoise. He speaks of it as
a "round body," a "globe;" he even understood that it revolved on its
axis, and that these revolutions produced day and night. He
says--"Dialogues, Timæus"--"The earth circling around the pole (which is
extended through the universe) be made to be the artificer of night and
day." All this Greek learning was probably drawn from the Egyptians.
Only among the Atlanteans in Europe and America do we find traditions
preserved as to the origin of all the principal inventions which have
raised man from a savage to a civilized condition. We can give in part
the very names of the inventors.
Starting with the Chippeway legends, and following with the Bible and
Phoenician records, we make a table like the appended:
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The Invention or Discovery. | The Race. | The Inventors. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Fire | Atlantean | Phos, Phur, and Phlox. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The bow and arrow | Chippeway | Manaboshu. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of flint | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of copper | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The manufacture of bricks | Atlantean | Autochthon and Technites. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Agriculture and hunting | " | Argos and Agrotes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Village life, and the | " | Amynos and Magos. |
| rearing of flocks | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of salt | " | Misor and Sydyk. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of letters | " | Taautos, or Taut. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Navigation | " | The Cabiri, or Corybantes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The art of music | Hebrew | Jubal. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Metallurgy, and the use of | " | Tubal-cain. |
| iron | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The syrinx | Greek | Pan. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The lyre | " | Hermes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
We cannot consider all these evidences of the vast antiquity of the
great inventions upon which our civilization mainly rests, including the
art of writing, which, as I have shown, dates back far beyond the
beginning of history; we cannot remember that the origin of all the
great food-plants, such as wheat, oats, barley, rye, and maize, is lost
in the remote past; and that all the domesticated animals, the horse,
the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and the hog had been reduced to
subjection to man in ages long previous to written history, without
having the conclusion forced upon us irresistibly that beyond Egypt and
Greece, beyond Chaldea and China, there existed a mighty civilization,
of which these states were but the broken fragments.
CHAPTER X.
THE ARYAN COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.
We come now to another question: "Did the Aryan or Japhetic race come
from Atlantis?"
If the Aryans are the Japhetic race, and if Japheth was one of the sons
of the patriarch who escaped from the Deluge, then assuredly, if the
tradition of Genesis be true, the Aryans came from the drowned land, to
wit, Atlantis. According to Genesis, the descendants of the Japheth who
escaped out of the Flood with Noah are the Ionians, the inhabitants of
the Morea, the dwellers on the Cilician coast of Asia Minor, the
Cyprians, the Dodoneans of Macedonia, the Iberians, and the Thracians.
These are all now recognized as Aryans, except the Iberians.
"From non-Biblical sources," says Winchell, "we obtain further
information respecting the early dispersion of the Japhethites or
Indo-Europeans--called also Aryans. All determinations confirm the
Biblical account of their primitive residence in the same country with
the Hamites and Semites. Rawlinson informs us that even Aryan roots are
mingled with Presemitic in some of the old inscriptions of Assyria. The
precise region where these three families dwelt in a common home has not
been pointed out." ("Preadamites," p. 43.)
I have shown in the chapter in relation to Peru that all the languages
of the Hamites, Semites, and Japhethites are varieties of one aboriginal
speech.
The centre of the Aryan migrations (according to popular opinion) within
the Historical Period was Armenia. Here too is Mount Ararat, where it is
said the ark rested--another identification with the Flood regions, as
it represents the usual transfer of the Atlantis legend by an Atlantean
people to a high mountain in their new home.
Now turn to a map: Suppose the ships of Atlantis to have reached the
shores of Syria, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where dwelt a
people who, as we have seen, used the Central American Maya alphabet;
the Atlantis ships are then but two hundred miles distant from Armenia.
But these ships need not stop at Syria, they can go by the Dardanelles
and the Black Sea, by uninterrupted water communication, to the shores
of Armenia itself. If we admit, then, that it was from Armenia the
Aryans stocked Europe and India, there is no reason why the original
population of Armenia should not have been themselves colonists from
Atlantis.
But we have seen that in the earliest ages, before the first Armenian
migration of the historical Aryans, a people went from Iberian Spain and
settled in Ireland, and the language of this people, it is now admitted,
is Aryan. And these Iberians were originally, according to tradition,
from the West.
The Mediterranean Aryans are known to have been in Southeastern Europe,
along the shores of the Mediterranean, 2000 B.C. They at that early date
possessed the plough; also wheat, rye, barley, gold, silver, and bronze.
Aryan faces are found depicted upon the monuments of Egypt, painted four
thousand years before the time of Christ. "The conflicts between the
Kelts (an Aryan race) and the Iberians were far anterior in date to the
settlements of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Noachites on
the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea." ("American Cyclopædia," art.
Basques.) There is reason to believe that these Kelts were originally
part of the population and Empire of Atlantis. We are told (Rees's
"British Encyclopædia," art. Titans) that "Mercury, one of the Atlantean
gods, was placed as ruler over the Celtæ, and became their great
divinity." F. Pezron, in his "Antiquity of the Celtæ," makes out that
the Celtæ were the same as the Titans, the giant race who rebelled in
Atlantis, and "that their princes were the same with the giants of
Scripture." He adds that the word Titan "is perfect Celtic, and comes
from tit, the earth, and ten or den, man, and hence the Greeks very
properly also called them terriginæ, or earth-born." And it will be
remembered that Plato uses the same phrase when he speaks of the race
into which Poseidon intermarried as "the earth-born primeval men of that
country."
The Greeks, who are Aryans, traced their descent from the people who
were destroyed by the Flood, as did other races clearly Aryan.
"The nations who are comprehended under the common appellation of
Indo-European," says Max Müller--"the Hindoos, the Persians, the Celts,
Germans, Romans, Greeks, and Slavs--do not only share the same words and
the same grammar, slightly modified in each country, but they seem to
have likewise preserved a mass of popular traditions which had grown up
before they left their common home."
"Bonfey, L. Geiger, and other students of the ancient Indo-European
languages, have recently advanced the opinion that the original home of
the Indo-European races must be sought in Europe, because their stock of
words is rich in the names of plants and animals, and contains names of
seasons that are not found in tropical countries or anywhere in Asia."
("American Cyclopædia," art. Ethnology.)
By the study of comparative philology, or the seeking out of the words
common to the various branches of the Aryan race before they separated,
we are able to reconstruct an outline of the civilization of that
ancient people. Max Müller has given this subject great study, and
availing ourselves of his researches we can determine the following
facts as to the progenitors of the Aryan stock: They were a civilized
race; they possessed the institution of marriage; they recognized the
relationship of father, mother, son, daughter, grandson, brother,
sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law,
brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, and had separate words for each of
these relationships, which we are only able to express by adding the
words "in-law." They recognized also the condition of widows, or "the
husbandless." They lived in an organized society, governed by a king.
They possessed houses with doors and solid walls. They had wagons and
carriages. They possessed family names. They dwelt in towns and cities,
on highways. They were not hunters or nomads. They were a peaceful
people; the warlike words in the different Aryan languages cannot be
traced back to this original race. They lived in a country having few
wild beasts; the only wild animals whose names can be assigned to this
parent stock being the bear, the wolf, and the serpent. The name of the
elephant, "the beast with a hand," occurs only twice in the "Rig-Veda;"
a singular omission if the Aryans were from time immemorial an Asiatic
race; and "when it does occur, it is in such a way as to show that he
was still an object of wonder and terror to them." (Whitney's "Oriental
and Linguistic Studies," p. 26.) They possessed nearly all the domestic
animals we now have--the ox and the cow, the horse, the dog, the sheep,
the goat, the hog, the donkey, and the goose. They divided the year into
twelve months. They were farmers; they used the plough; their name as a
race (Aryan) was derived from it; they were, par excellence, ploughmen;
they raised various kinds of grain, including flax, barley, hemp, and
wheat; they had mills and millers, and ground their corn. The presence
of millers shows that they had proceeded beyond the primitive condition
where each family ground its corn in its own mill. They used fire, and
cooked and baked their food; they wove cloth and wore clothing; they
spun wool; they possessed the different metals, even iron: they had
gold. The word for "water" also meant "salt made from water," from which
it might be inferred that the water with which they were familiar was
saltwater. It is evident they manufactured salt by evaporating salt
water. They possessed boats and ships. They had progressed so far as to
perfect "a decimal system of enumeration, in itself," says Max Müller,
"one of the most marvellous achievements of the human mind, based on an
abstract conception of quantity, regulated by a philosophical
classification, and yet conceived, nurtured, and finished before the
soil of Europe was trodden by Greek, Roman, Slav, or Teuton."
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PLOUGH
And herein we find another evidence of relationship between the Aryans
and the people of Atlantis. Although Plato does not tell us that the
Atlanteans possessed the decimal system of numeration, nevertheless
there are many things in his narrative which point to that conclusion
"There were ten kings ruling over ten provinces; the whole country was
divided into military districts or squares ten stadia each way; the
total force of chariots was ten thousand; the great ditch or canal was
one hundred feet deep and ten thousand stadia long; there were one
hundred Nereids," etc. In the Peruvian colony the decimal system clearly
obtained: "The army had heads of ten, fifty, a hundred, five hundred, a
thousand, ten thousand.... The community at large was registered in
groups, under the control of officers over tens, fifties, hundreds, and
so on." (Herbert Spencer, "Development of Political Institutions," chap.
x.) The same division into tens and hundreds obtained among the
Anglo-Saxons.
Where, we ask, could this ancient nation, which existed before Greek was
Greek, Celt was Celt, Hindoo was Hindoo, or Goth was Goth, have been
located! The common opinion says, in Armenia or Bactria, in Asia. But
where in Asia could they have found a country so peaceful as to know no
terms for war or bloodshed--a country so civilized as to possess no
wild beasts save the bear, wolf, and serpent? No people could have been
developed in Asia without bearing in its language traces of century-long
battles for life with the rude and barbarous races around them; no
nation could have fought for ages for existence against "man-eating"
tigers, lions, elephants, and hyenas, without bearing the memory of
these things in their tongue. A tiger, identical with that of Bengal,
still exists around Lake Aral, in Asia; from time to time it is seen in
Siberia. "The last tiger killed in 1828 was on the Lena, in latitude
fifty-two degrees thirty minutes, in a climate colder than that of St.
Petersburg and Stockholm."
The fathers of the Aryan race must have dwelt for many thousand years so
completely protected from barbarians and wild beasts that they at last
lost all memory of them, and all words descriptive of them; and where
could this have been possible save in some great, long-civilized land,
surrounded by the sea, and isolated from the attack of the savage tribes
that occupied the rest of the world? And if such a great civilized
nation had dwelt for centuries in Asia, Europe, or Africa, why have not
their monuments long ago been discovered and identified? Where is the
race who are their natural successors, and who must have continued to
live after them in that sheltered and happy land, where they knew no
human and scarcely any animal enemies? Why would any people have
altogether left such a home? Why, when their civilization had spread to
the ends of the earth, did it cease to exist in the peaceful region
where it originated?
Savage nations cannot usually count beyond five. This people had names
for the numerals up to one hundred, and the power, doubtless, of
combining these to still higher powers, as three hundred, five hundred,
ten hundred, etc. Says a high authority, "If any more proof were wanted
as to the reality of that period which must have preceded the dispersion
of the Aryan race, we might appeal to the Aryan numerals as irrefragable
evidence of that long-continued intellectual life which characterizes
that period." Such a degree of progress implies necessarily an alphabet,
writing, commerce, and trade, even as the existence of words for boats
and ships has already implied navigation.
In what have we added to the civilization of this ancient people? Their
domestic animals were the same as our own, except one fowl adopted from
America. In the past ten thousand years we have added one bird to their
list of domesticated animals! They raised wheat and wool, and spun and
wove as we do, except that we have added some mechanical contrivances to
produce the same results. Their metals are ours. Even iron, the triumph,
as we had supposed, of more modern times, they had already discovered.
And it must not be forgotten that Greek mythology tells us that the
god-like race who dwelt on Olympus, that great island "in the midst of
the Atlantic," in the remote west, wrought in iron; and we find the
remains of an iron sword and meteoric iron weapons in the mounds of the
Mississippi Valley, while the name of the metal is found in the ancient
languages of Peru and Chili, and the Incas worked in iron on the shores
of Lake Titicaca.
A still further evidence of the civilization of this ancient race is
found in the fact that, before the dispersion from their original home,
the Aryans had reached such a degree of development that they possessed
a regularly organized religion: they worshipped God, they believed in an
evil spirit, they believed in a heaven for the just. All this
presupposes temples, priests, sacrifices, and an orderly state of
society.
We have seen that Greek mythology is really a history of the kings and
queens of Atlantis.
When we turn to that other branch of the great Aryan family, the
Hindoos, we find that their gods are also the kings of Atlantis. The
Hindoo god Varuna is conceded to be the Greek god Uranos, who was the
founder of the royal family of Atlantis.
In the Veda we find a hymn to "King Varuna," in which occurs this
passage:
"This earth, too, belongs to Varuna, the king, and this wide sky, with
its ends far apart. The two seas are Varuna's loins; he is contained
also in this drop of water."
Again in the Veda we find another hymn to King Varuna:
"He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the sky; who on
the waters knows the ships. He, the upholder of order, who knows the
twelve months with the offspring of each, and knows the month that is
engendered afterward."
This verse would seem to furnish additional proof that the Vedas were
written by a maritime people; and in the allusion to the twelve months
we are reminded of the Peruvians, who also divided the year into twelve
parts of thirty days each, and afterward added six days to complete the
year. The Egyptians and Mexicans also had intercalary days for the same
purpose.
But, above all, it must be remembered that the Greeks, an Aryan race, in
their mythological traditions, show the closest relationship to
Atlantis. At-tika and At-hens are reminiscences of Ad, and we are told
that Poseidon, god and founder of Atlantis, founded Athens. We find in
the "Eleusinian mysteries" an Atlantean institution; their influence
during the whole period of Greek history down to the coming of
Christianity was extraordinary; and even then this masonry of
Pre-Christian days, in which kings and emperors begged to be initiated,
was, it is claimed, continued to our own times in our own Freemasons,
who trace their descent back to "a Dionysiac fraternity which originated
in Attika." And just as we have seen the Saturnalian festivities of
Italy descending from Atlantean harvest-feasts, so these Eleusinian
mysteries can be traced back to Plato's island. Poseidon was at the base
of them; the first hierophant, Eumolpus, was "a son of Poseidon," and
all the ceremonies were associated with seed-time and harvest, and with
Demeter or Ceres, an Atlantean goddess, daughter of Chronos, who first
taught the Greeks to use the plough and to plant barley. And, as the
"Carnival" is a survival of the "Saturnalia," so Masonry is a survival
of the Eleusinian mysteries. The roots of the institutions of to-day
reach back to the Miocene Age.
We have seen that Zeus, the king of Atlantis, whose tomb was shown at
Crete, was transformed into the Greek god Zeus; and in like manner we
find him reappearing among the Hindoos as Dyaus. He is called
"Dyaus-pitar," or God the Father, as among the Greeks we have
"Zeus-pater," which became among the Romans "Jupiter."
The strongest connection, however, with the Atlantean system is shown in
the case of the Hindoo god Deva-Nahusha.
We have seen in the chapter on Greek mythology that Dionysos was a son
of Zeus and grandson of Poseidon, being thus identified with Atlantis.
"When he arrived at manhood," said the Greeks, "he set out on a journey
through all known countries, even into the remotest parts of India,
instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend the vine, and how
to practise many other arts of peace, besides teaching them the value of
just and honorable dealings. He was praised everywhere as the greatest
benefactor of mankind." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 119.)
In other words, he represented the great Atlantean civilization,
reaching into "the remotest parts of India," and "to all parts of the
known world," from America to Asia. In consequence of the connection of
this king with the vine, he was converted in later times into the
dissolute god Bacchus. But everywhere the traditions concerning him
refer us back to Atlantis. "All the legends of Egypt, India, Asia Minor,
and the older Greeks describe him as a king very great during his life,
and deified after death.... Amon, king of Arabia or Ethiopia, married
Rhea, sister of Chronos, who reigned over Italy, Sicily, and certain
countries of Northern Africa." Dionysos, according to the Egyptians, was
the son of Amon by the beautiful Amalthea. Chronos and Amon had a
prolonged war; Dionysos defeated Chronos and captured his capital,
dethroned him, and put his son Zeus in his place; Zeus reigned nobly,
and won a great fame. Dionysos succeeded his father Amon, and "became
the greatest of sovereigns. He extended his sway in all the neighboring
countries, and completed the conquest of India.... He gave much
attention to the Cushite colonies in Egypt, greatly increasing their
strength, intelligence, and prosperity." (Baldwin's "Prehistoric
Nations," p. 283.)
When we turn to the Hindoo we still find this Atlantean king.
In the Sanscrit books we find reference to a god called Deva-Nahusha,
who has been identified by scholars with Dionysos. He is connected "with
the oldest history and mythology in the world." He is said to have been
a contemporary with Indra, king of Meru, who was also deified, and who
appears in the Veda as a principal form of representation of the Supreme
Being.
"The warmest colors of imagination are used in portraying the greatness
of Deva-Nahusha. For a time he had sovereign control of affairs in Meru;
he conquered the seven dwipas, and led his armies through all the known
countries of the world; by means of matchless wisdom and miraculous
heroism he made his empire universal." (Ibid., p. 287.)
Here we see that the great god Indra, chief god of the Hindoos, was
formerly king of Meru, and that Deva-Nahusha (De(va)nushas--De-onyshas)
had also been king of Meru; and we must remember that Theopompus tells us
that the island of Atlantis was inhabited by the "Meropes;" and
Lenormant has reached the conclusion that the first people of the
ancient world were "the men of Mero."
We can well believe, when we see traces of the same civilization
extending from Peru and Lake Superior to Armenia and the frontiers of
China, that this Atlantean kingdom was indeed "universal," and extended
through all the "known countries of the world."
"We can see in the legends that Pururavas, Nahusha, and others had no
connection with Sanscrit history. They are referred to ages very long
anterior to the Sanscrit immigration, and must have been great
personages celebrated in the traditions of the natives or Dasyus....
Pururavas was a king of great renown, who ruled over thirteen islands of
the ocean, altogether surrounded by inhuman (or superhuman) personages;
he engaged in a contest with Brahmans, and perished. Nahusha, mentioned
by Maull, and in many legends, as famous for hostility to the Brahmans,
lived at the time when Indra ruled on earth. He was a very great king,
who ruled with justice a mighty empire, and attained the sovereignty of
three worlds." (Europe, Africa, and America?) "Being intoxicated with
pride, he was arrogant to Brahmans, compelled them to bear his
palanquin, and even dared to touch one of them with his foot" (kicked
him?), "whereupon he was transformed into a serpent." (Baldwin's
"Prehistoric Nations," p. 291.)
The Egyptians placed Dionysos (Osiris) at the close of the period of
their history which was assigned to the gods, that is, toward the close
of the great empire of Atlantis.
When we remember that the hymns of the "Rig-Veda" are admitted to date
back to a vast antiquity, and are written in a language that had ceased
to be a living tongue thousands of years ago, we can almost fancy those
hymns preserve some part of the songs of praise uttered of old upon the
island of Atlantis. Many of them seem to belong to sun-worship, and
might have been sung with propriety upon the high places of Peru:
"In the beginning there arose the golden child. He was the one born Lord
of all that is. He established the earth and the sky. Who is the god to
whom we shall offer sacrifice?
"He who gives life; He who gives strength; whose command all the bright
gods" (the stars?) "revere; whose light is immortality; whose shadow is
death.... He who through his power is the one God of the breathing
and awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. He whose
greatness these snowy mountains, whose greatness the sea proclaims, with
the distant river. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm....
He who measured out the light in the air... Wherever the mighty
water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence
arose He who is the sole life of the bright gods.... He to whom
heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up, trembling
inwardly.... May he not destroy us; He, the creator of the earth; He,
the righteous, who created heaven. He also created the bright and mighty
waters."
This is plainly a hymn to the sun, or to a god whose most glorious
representative was the sun. It is the hymn of a people near the sea; it
was not written by a people living in the heart of Asia. It was the hymn
of a people living in a volcanic country, who call upon their god to
keep the earth "firm" and not to destroy them. It was sung at daybreak,
as the sun rolled up the sky over an "awakening world."
The fire (Agni) upon the altar was regarded as a messenger rising from
the earth to the sun:
"Youngest of the gods, their messenger, their invoker.... For thou, O
sage, goest wisely between these two creations (heaven and earth, God
and man) like a friendly messenger between two hamlets."
The dawn of the day (Ushas), part of the sun-worship, became also a god:
"She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go
to his work. When the fire had to be kindled by man, she made the light
by striking down the darkness."
As the Egyptians and the Greeks looked to a happy abode (an under-world)
in the west, beyond the waters, so the Aryan's paradise was the other
side of some body of water. In the Veda (vii. 56, 24) we find a prayer
to the Maruts, the storm-gods: "O, Maruts, may there be to us a strong
son, who is a living ruler of men; through whom we may cross the waters
on our way to the happy abode." This happy abode is described as "where
King Vaivasvata reigns; where the secret place of heaven is; where the
mighty waters are ... where there is food and rejoicing ... where
there is happiness and delight; where joy and pleasure reside."
(Rig-Veda ix. 113, 7.) This is the paradise beyond the seas; the
Elysion; the Elysian Fields of the Greek and the Egyptian, located upon
an island in the Atlantic which was destroyed by water. One great chain
of tradition binds together these widely separated races.
"The religion of the Veda knows no idols," says Max Müller; "the worship
of idols in India is a secondary formation, a degradation of the more
primitive worship of ideal gods."
It was pure sun-worship, such as prevailed in Peru on the arrival of the
Spaniards. It accords with Plato's description of the religion of
Atlantis.
"The Dolphin's Ridge," at the bottom of the Atlantic, or the high land
revealed by the soundings taken by the ship Challenger, is, as will be
seen, of a three-pronged form--one prong pointing toward the west coast
of Ireland, another connecting with the north-east coast of South
America, and a third near or on the west coast of Africa. It does not
follow that the island of Atlantis, at any time while inhabited by
civilized people, actually reached these coasts; there is a strong
probability that races of men may have found their way there from the
three continents of Europe, America, and Africa; or the great continent
which once filled the whole bed of the present Atlantic Ocean, and from
whose débris geology tells us the Old and New Worlds were constructed,
may have been the scene of the development, during immense periods of
time, of diverse races of men, occupying different zones of climate.
There are many indications that there were three races of men dwelling
on Atlantis. Noah, according to Genesis, had three sons--Shem, Ham, and
Japheth--who represented three different races of men of different
colors. The Greek legends tell us of the rebellions inaugurated at
different times in Olympus. One of these was a rebellion of the Giants,
"a race of beings sprung from the blood of Uranos," the great original
progenitor of the stock. "Their king or leader was Porphyrion, their
most powerful champion Alkyoneus." Their mother was the earth: this
probably meant that they represented the common people of a darker line.
They made a desperate struggle for supremacy, but were conquered by
Zeus. There were also two rebellions of the Titans. The Titans seem to
have had a government of their own, and the names of twelve of their
kings are given in the Greek mythology (see Murray, p. 27). They also
were of "the blood of Uranos," the Adam of the people. We read, in fact,
that Uranos married Gæa (the earth), and had three families: 1, the
Titans; 2, the Hekatoncheires; and 3, the Kyklopes. We should conclude
that the last two were maritime peoples, and I have shown that their
mythical characteristics were probably derived from the appearance of
their ships. Here we have, I think, a reference to the three races: 1,
the red or sunburnt men, like the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the
Basques, and the Berber and Cushite stocks; 2, the sons of Shem,
possibly the yellow or Turanian race; and 3, the whiter men, the Aryans,
the Greeks, Kelts, Goths, Slavs, etc. If this view is correct, then we
may suppose that colonies of the pale-faced stock may have been sent out
from Atlantis to the northern coasts of Europe at different and perhaps
widely separated periods of time, from some of which the Aryan families
of Europe proceeded; hence the legend, which is found among them, that
they were once forced to dwell in a country where the summers were only
two months long.
From the earliest times two grand divisions are recognized in the Aryan
family: "to the east those who specially called themselves Arians, whose
descendants inhabited Persia, India, etc.; to the west, the Yavana, or
the Young Ones, who first emigrated westward, and from whom have
descended the various nations that have populated Europe. This is the
name (Javan) found in the tenth chapter of Genesis." (Lenormant and
Chevallier, "Ancient History of the East," vol. ii., p. 2.) But surely
those who "first emigrated westward," the earliest to leave the parent
stock, could not be the "Young Ones;" they would be rather the elder
brothers. But if we can suppose the Bactrian population to have left
Atlantis at an early date, and the Greeks, Latins, and Celts to have
left it at a later period, then they would indeed be the "Young Ones" of
the family, following on the heels of the earlier migrations, and herein
we would find the explanation of the resemblance between the Latin and
Celtic tongues. Lenormant says the name of Erin (Ireland) is derived
from Aryan; and yet we have seen this island populated and named Erin by
races distinctly connected with Spain, Iberia, Africa, and Atlantis.
There is another reason for supposing that the Aryan nations came from
Atlantis.
We find all Europe, except a small corner of Spain and a strip along the
Arctic Circle, occupied by nations recognized as Aryan; but when we turn
to Asia, there is but a corner of it, and that corner in the part
nearest Europe, occupied by the Aryans. All the rest of that great
continent has been filled from immemorial ages by non-Aryan races. There
are seven branches of the Aryan family: 1. Germanic or Teutonic; 2.
Slavo-Lithuanic; 3. Celtic; 4. Italic; 5. Greek; 6. Iranian or Persian;
7. Sanscritic or Indian; and of these seven branches five dwell on the
soil of Europe, and the other two are intrusive races in Asia from the
direction of Europe. The Aryans in Europe have dwelt there apparently
since the close of the Stone Age, if not before it, while the movements
of the Aryans in Asia are within the Historical Period, and they appear
as intrusive stocks, forming a high caste amid a vast population of a
different race. The Vedas are supposed to date back to 2000 B.C., while
there is every reason to believe that the Celt inhabited Western Europe
5000 B.C. If the Aryan race had originated in the heart of Asia, why
would not its ramifications have extended into Siberia, China, and
Japan, and all over Asia? And if the Aryans moved at a comparatively
recent date into Europe from Bactria, where are the populations that
then inhabited Europe--the men of the ages of stone and bronze? We
should expect to find the western coasts of Europe filled with them,
just as the eastern coasts of Asia and India are filled with Turanian
populations. On the contrary, we know that the Aryans descended upon
India from the Punjab, which lies to the north-west of that region; and
that their traditions represent that they came there from the west, to
wit, from the direction of Europe and Atlantis.
CHAPTER XI.
ATLANTIS RECONSTRUCTED.
The farther we go back in time toward the era of Atlantis, the more the
evidences multiply that we are approaching the presence of a great,
wise, civilized race. For instance, we find the Egyptians, Ethiopians,
and Israelites, from the earliest ages, refusing to eat the flesh of
swine. The Western nations departed from this rule, and in these modern
days we are beginning to realize the dangers of this article of food, on
account of the trichina contained in it; and when we turn to the Talmud,
we are told that it was forbidden to the Jews, "because of a small
insect which infests it."
The Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, and others
of the ancient races, practised circumcision. It was probably resorted
to in Atlantean days, and imposed as a religious duty, to arrest one of
the most dreadful scourges of the human race--a scourge which continued
to decimate the people of America, arrested their growth, and paralyzed
their civilization. Circumcision stamped out the disease in Atlantis; we
read of one Atlantean king, the Greek god Ouranos, who, in a time of
plague, compelled his whole army and the armies of his allies to undergo
the rite. The colonies that went out to Europe carried the practice but
not the disease out of which it originated with them; and it was not
until Columbus reopened communication with the infected people of the
West India Islands that the scourge crossed the Atlantic and "turned
Europe," as one has expressed it, "into a charnal-house."
Life-insurance statistics show, nowadays, that the average life and
health of the Hebrew is much greater than that of other men; and he owes
this to the retention of practices and beliefs imposed ten thousand
years ago by the great, wise race of Atlantis.
Let us now, with all the facts before us, gleaned from various sources,
reconstruct, as near as may be, the condition of the antediluvians.
They dwelt upon a great island, near which were other smaller islands,
probably east and west of them, forming stepping-stones, as it were,
toward Europe and Africa in one direction, and the West India Islands
and America in the other. There were volcanic mountains upon the main
island, rising to a height of fifteen hundred feet, with their tops
covered with perpetual snow. Below these were elevated table-lands, upon
which were the royal establishments. Below these, again, was "the great
plain of Atlantis." There were four rivers flowing north, south, east,
and west from a central point. The climate was like that of the Azores,
mild and pleasant; the soil volcanic and fertile, and suitable at its
different elevations for the growth of the productions of the tropical
and temperate zones.
The people represented at least two different races: a dark brown
reddish race, akin to the Central Americans, the Berbers and the
Egyptians; and a white race, like the Greeks, Goths, Celts, and
Scandinavians. Various battles and struggles followed between the
different peoples for supremacy. The darker race seems to have been,
physically, a smaller race, with small hands; the lighter-colored race
was much larger--hence the legends of the Titans and Giants. The
Guanches of the Canary Islands were men of very great stature. As the
works of the Bronze Age represent a small-handed race, and as the races
who possessed the ships and gunpowder joined in the war against the
Giants, we might conclude that the dark races were the more civilized,
that they were the metal-workers and navigators.
The fact that the same opinions and customs exist on both sides of the
ocean implies identity of origin; it might be argued that the fact that
the explanation of many customs existing on both hemispheres is to be
found only in America, implies that the primeval stock existed in
America, the emigrating portion of the population carrying away the
custom, but forgetting the reason for it. The fact that domestic cattle
and the great cereals, wheat, oats, barley, and rye, are found in Europe
and not in America, would imply that after the population moved to Atlantis
from America civilization was developed in Atlantis, and that in the
later ages communication was closer and more constant between Atlantis
and Europe than between Atlantis and America. In the case of the bulky
domestic animals, it would be more difficult to transport them, in the
open vessels of that day, from Atlantis across the wider expanse of sea
to America, than it would be to carry them by way of the now submerged
islands in front of the Mediterranean Sea to the coast of Spain. It may
be, too, that the climate of Spain and Italy was better adapted to the
growth of wheat, barley, oats and rye, than maize; while the drier
atmosphere of America was better suited to the latter plant. Even now
comparatively little wheat or barley is raised in Central America,
Mexico, or Peru, and none on the low coasts of those countries; while a
smaller quantity of maize, proportionately, is grown in Italy, Spain,
and the rest of Western Europe, the rainy climate being unsuited to it.
We have seen (p. 60, ante) that there is reason to believe that maize
was known in a remote period in the drier regions of the Egyptians and
Chinese.
As science has been able to reconstruct the history of the migrations of
the Aryan race, by the words that exist or fail to appear in the kindred
branches of that tongue, so the time will come when a careful comparison
of words, customs, opinions, arts existing on the opposite sides of the
Atlantic will furnish an approximate sketch of Atlantean history.
The people had attained a high position as agriculturists. The presence
of the plough in Egypt and Peru implies that they possessed that
implement. And as the horns and ox-head of Baal show the esteem in which
cattle were held among them, we may suppose that they had passed the
stage in which the plough was drawn by men, as in Peru and Egypt in
ancient times, and in Sweden during the Historical Period, and that it
was drawn by oxen or horses. They first domesticated the horse, hence
the association of Poseidon or Neptune, a sea-god, with horses; hence
the race-courses for horses described by Plato. They possessed sheep,
and manufactured woollen goods; they also had goats, dogs, and swine.
They raised cotton and made cotton goods; they probably cultivated
maize, wheat, oats, barley, rye, tobacco, hemp, and flax, and possibly
potatoes; they built aqueducts and practised irrigation; they were
architects, sculptors, and engravers; they possessed an alphabet; they
worked in tin, copper, bronze, silver, gold, and iron.
During the vast period of their duration, as peace and agriculture
caused their population to increase to overflowing, they spread out in
colonies east and west to the ends of the earth. This was not the work
of a few years, but of many centuries; and the relations between these
colonies may have been something like the relation between the different
colonies that in a later age were established by the Phoenicians, the
Greeks, and the Romans; there was an intermingling with the more ancient
races, the autochthones of the different lands where they settled; and
the same crossing of stocks, which we know to have been continued all
through the Historical Period, must have been going on for thousands of
years, whereby new races and new dialects were formed; and the result of
all this has been that the smaller races of antiquity have grown larger,
while all the complexions shade into each other, so that we can pass
from the whitest to the darkest by insensible degrees.
In some respects the Atlanteans exhibited conditions similar to those of
the British Islands: there were the same, and even greater, race
differences in the population; the same plantation of colonies in
Europe, Asia, and America; the same carrying of civilization to the ends
of the earth. We have seen colonies from Great Britain going out in the
third and fifth centuries to settle on the shores of France, in
Brittany, representing one of the nationalities and languages of the
mother-country--a race Atlantean in origin. In the same way we may
suppose Hamitic emigrations to have gone out from Atlantis to Syria,
Egypt, and the Barbary States. If we could imagine Highland Scotch,
Welsh, Cornish, and Irish populations emigrating en masse from England
in later times, and carrying to their new lands the civilization of
England, with peculiar languages not English, we would have a state of
things probably more like the migrations which took place from Atlantis.
England, with a civilization Atlantean in origin, peopled by races from
the same source, is repeating in these modern times the empire of Zeus
and Chronos; and, just as we have seen Troy, Egypt, and Greece warring
against the parent race, so in later days we have seen Brittany and the
United States separating themselves from England, the race
characteristics remaining after the governmental connection had ceased.
In religion the Atlanteans had reached all the great thoughts which
underlie our modern creeds. They had attained to the conception of one
universal, omnipotent, great First Cause. We find the worship of this
One God in Peru and in early Egypt. They looked upon the sun as the
mighty emblem, type, and instrumentality of this One God. Such a
conception could only have come with civilization. It is not until these
later days that science has realized the utter dependence of all earthly
life upon the sun's rays:
"All applications of animal power may be regarded as derived directly or
indirectly from the static chemical power of the vegetable substance by
which the various organisms and their capabilities are sustained; and
this power, in turn, from the kinetic action of the sun's rays.
"Winds and ocean currents, hailstorms and rain, sliding glaciers,
flowing rivers, and falling cascades are the direct offspring of solar
heat. All our machinery, therefore, whether driven by the windmill or
the water-wheel, by horse-power or by steam--all the results of
electrical and electro-magnetic changes--our telegraphs, our clocks, and
our watches, all are wound up primarily by the sun.
"The sun is the great source of energy in almost all terrestrial
phenomena. From the meteorological to the geographical, from the
geological to the biological, in the expenditure and conversion of
molecular movements, derived from the sun's rays, must be sought the
motive power of all this infinitely varied phantasmagoria."
But the people of Atlantis had gone farther; they believed that the soul
of man was immortal, and that he would live again in his material body;
in other words, they believed in "the resurrection of the body and the
life everlasting." They accordingly embalmed their dead.
The Duke of Argyll ("The Unity of Nature") says:
"We have found in the most ancient records of the Aryan language proof
that the indications of religious thought are higher, simpler, and purer
as we go back in time, until at last, in the very oldest compositions of
human speech which have come down to us, we find the Divine Being spoken
of in the sublime language which forms the opening of the Lord's Prayer.
The date in absolute chronology of the oldest Vedic literature does not
seem to be known. Professor Max Müller, however, considers that it may
possibly take us back 5000 years.... All we can see with certainty is
that the earliest inventions of mankind are the most wonderful that the
race has ever made.... The first use of fire, and the discovery of
the methods by which it can be kindled; the domestication of wild
animals; and, above all, the processes by which the various cereals were
first developed out of some wild grasses--these are all discoveries with
which, in ingenuity and in importance, no subsequent discoveries may
compare. They are all unknown to history--all lost in the light of an
effulgent dawn."
The Atlanteans possessed an established order of priests; their
religious worship was pure and simple. They lived under a kingly
government; they had their courts, their judges, their records, their
monuments covered with inscriptions, their mines, their founderies,
their workshops, their looms, their grist-mills, their boats and
sailing-vessels, their highways, aqueducts, wharves, docks, and canals.
They had processions, banners, and triumphal arches for their kings and
heroes; they built pyramids, temples, round-towers, and obelisks; they
practised religious ablutions; they knew the use of the magnet and of
gunpowder. In short, they were in the enjoyment of a civilization nearly
as high as our own, lacking only the printing-press, and those
inventions in which steam, electricity, and magnetism are used. We are
told that Deva-Nahusha visited his colonies in Farther India. An empire
which reached from the Andes to Hindostan, if not to China, must have
been magnificent indeed. In its markets must have met the maize of the
Mississippi Valley, the copper of Lake Superior, the gold and silver of
Peru and Mexico, the spices of India, the tin of Wales and Cornwall, the
bronze of Iberia, the amber of the Baltic, the wheat and barley of
Greece, Italy, and Switzerland.
It is not surprising that when this mighty nation sank beneath the
waves, in the midst of terrible convulsions, with all its millions of
people, the event left an everlasting impression upon the imagination of
mankind. Let us suppose that Great Britain should to-morrow meet with a
similar fate. What a wild consternation would fall upon her colonies and
upon the whole human family! The world might relapse into barbarism,
deep and almost universal. William the Conqueror, Richard Coeur de Lion,
Alfred the Great, Cromwell, and Victoria might survive only as the gods
or demons of later races; but the memory of the cataclysm in which the
centre of a universal empire instantaneously went down to death would
never be forgotten; it would survive in fragments, more or less
complete, in every land on earth; it would outlive the memory of a
thousand lesser convulsions of nature; it would survive dynasties,
nations, creeds, and languages; it would never be forgotten while man
continued to inhabit the face of the globe.
Science has but commenced its work of reconstructing the past and
rehabilitating the ancient peoples, and surely there is no study which
appeals more strongly to the imagination than that of this drowned
nation, the true antediluvians. They were the founders of nearly all our
arts and sciences; they were the parents of our fundamental beliefs;
they were the first civilizers, the first navigators, the first
merchants, the first colonizers of the earth; their civilization was old
when Egypt was young, and they had passed away thousands of years before
Babylon, Rome, or London were dreamed of. This lost people were our
ancestors, their blood flows in our veins; the words we use every day
were heard, in their primitive form, in their cities, courts, and
temples. Every line of race and thought, of blood and belief, leads back
to them.
Nor is it impossible that the nations of the earth may yet employ their
idle navies in bringing to the light of day some of the relics of this
buried people. Portions of the island lie but a few hundred fathoms
beneath the sea; and if expeditions have been sent out from time to time
in the past, to resurrect from the depths of the ocean sunken
treasure-ships with a few thousand doubloons hidden in their cabins, why
should not an attempt be made to reach the buried wonders of Atlantis? A
single engraved tablet dredged up from Plato's island would be worth
more to science, would more strike the imagination of mankind, than all
the gold of Peru, all the monuments of Egypt, and all the terra-cotta
fragments gathered from the great libraries of Chaldea.
May not the so-called "Phoenician coins" found on Corvo, one of the
Azores, be of Atlantean origin? Is it probable that that great race,
pre-eminent as a founder of colonies, could have visited those islands
within the Historical Period, and have left them unpeopled, as they were
when discovered by the Portuguese?
We are but beginning to understand the past: one hundred years ago the
world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the lingual tie
that binds together the Indo-European nations; nothing of the
significance of the vast volume of inscriptions upon the tombs and
temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of the arrow-headed
inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous civilizations
revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and Peru. We are on the
threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing with giant strides. Who
shall say that one hundred years from now the great museums of the world
may not be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and implements from
Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of
its inscriptions, throwing new light upon all the past history of the
human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the thinkers of
our day?
THE END.
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