In conclusion, let me recapitulate1. The original surface-rocks, underneath the Drift, are, we have seen, decomposed and changed, for varying depths of from one to one hundred feet, by fire; they are metamorphosed, and their metallic constituents vaporized out of them by heat.2. Only tremendous heat could have lifted the water of the seas into clouds, and formed the age of snow and floods evidenced by the secondary Drift.3. The traditions of the following races tell us that the earth was once swept by a great conflagration:a. The ancient Britons, as narrated in the mythology of the Druids.b. The ancient Greeks, as told by Hesiod.c. The ancient Scandinavians, as appears in theElder EddaandYounger Edda.d. The ancient Romans, as narrated by Ovid.e. The ancient Toltecs of Central America, as told in their sacred books.{p. 193}f. The ancient Aztecs of Mexico, as transcribed by Fray de Olmos.g. The ancient Persians, as recorded in the Zend-Avesta.h. The ancient Hindoos, as told in their sacred books.i. The Tahoe Indians of California, as appears by their living traditions.Also by the legends of--j. The Tupi Indians of Brazil.k. The Tacullies of British America.1. The Ute Indians of California and Utah.m. The Peruvians.n. The Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras.o. The Mbocobi of Paraguay.p. The Botocudos of Brazil.q. The Ojibway Indians of the United States.r. The Wyandot Indians of the United States.s. Lastly, the Dog-rib Indians of British Columbia.We must concede that these legends of a world-embracing conflagration represent a race-remembrance of a great fact, or that they are a colossal falsehood--an invention of man.If the latter, then that invention and falsehood must have been concocted at a time when the ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Persians, Goths, Toltecs, Aztecs, Peruvians, and the Indians of Brazil, the United States, the west coast of South America, and the northwestern extremity of North America, and the Polynesians, (who have kindred traditions,) all dwelt together, as one people, alike in language and alike in color of their hair, eyes, and skin. At that time, therefore, all the widely separated regions, now inhabited by these races, must have been without human inhabitants; the race must have been a mere handful, and dwelling in one spot.{p. 194}What vast lapses of time must have been required before mankind slowly overflowed to these remote regions of the earth, and changed into these various races speaking such diverse tongues!And if we take the ground that this universal tradition of a world-conflagration was an invention, a falsehood, then we must conclude that this handful of men, before they dispersed, in the very infancy of the world, shared in the propagation of a prodigious lie, and religiously perpetuated it for tens of thousands of years.And then the question arises, How did they hit upon a lie that accords so completely with the revelations of science? They possessed no great public works, in that infant age, which would penetrate through hundreds of feet ofdébris, and lay bare the decomposed rocks beneath; therefore they did not make a theory to suit an observed fact.And how did mankind come to be reduced to a handful? If men grew, in the first instance, out of bestial forms, mindless and speechless, they would have propagated and covered the world as did the bear and the wolf. But after they had passed this stage, and had so far developed as to be human in speech and brain, some cause reduced them again to a handful. What was it? Something, say these legends, some fiery object, some blazing beast or serpent, which appeared in the heavens, which filled the world with conflagrations, and which destroyed the human race, except a remnant, who saved themselves in caverns or in the water; and from this seed, this handful, mankind again replenished the earth, and spread gradually to all the continents and the islands of the sea.{p. 195}CHAPTER VII.LEGENDS OF THE CAVE-LIFE.I HAVE shown that man could only have escaped the fire, the poisonous gases, and the falling stones and clay-dust, by taking refuge in the water or in the deep caves of the earth.And hence everywhere in the ancient legends we find the races claiming that they came up out of the earth. Man was earth-born. The Toltecs and Aztecs traced back their origin to "the seven caves." We have seen the ancestors of the Peruvians emerging from the primeval cave,Pacarin-Tampu; and the Aztec Nanahuatzin taking refuge in a cave; and the ancestors of the Yurucares, the Takahlis, and the Mbocobi of America, all biding themselves from the conflagration in a cave; and we have seen the tyrannical and cruel race of the Tahoe legend buried in a cave. And, passing to a far-distant region, we find the Bungogees and Pankhoos, Hill tribes, of the most ancient races of Chittagong, in British India, relating that "their ancestors came out of a cave in the earth, under the guidance of a chief named Tlandrokpah."[1]We read in the Toltec legends that a dreadful hurricane visited the earth in the early age, and carried away trees, mounds, horses, etc., and the people escaped byseeking safety in cavesand places where the great hurricane[1. Captain Lewin, "The Hill Tribes of Chittagong" p. 95, 1869.]{p. 196}could not reach them. After a few days they came forth "to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness, without the light of the sun Or the moon, which the wind had brought them."[1]A North American tribe, a branch of the Tinneh of British America, have a legend that "the earth existed first in a chaotic state, with only one human inhabitant, a woman,who dwelt in a caveand lived on berries." She met one day a mysterious animal, like a dog, who transformed himself into a handsome young man, and they became the parents of a giant race."[2]There seems to be an allusion to the cave-life in Ovid, where, detailing the events that followed soon after the creation, he says:"Then for the first time did the parched airglow with sultry heat, and theice, bound up by the winds, was pendent. Then for the first time did men enter houses; those houses werecaverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with bark."[3]But it is in the legends of the Navajo Indians of North America that we find the most complete account of the cave-life.It is as follows:"The Navajos, living north of the Pueblos, say that at one time all the nations, Navajos, Pueblos, Coyoteros, and white people, lived together tinder ground, in the heart of a mountain, near the river San Juan.Their food was meat, which they had in abundance, for all kinds of game were closed up with them in their cave;but their light was dim, and only endured for a few hours each day. There were, happily, two dumb men among the Navajos, flute-players,[1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 239.2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 105.3. "The Metamorphoses," Fable IV.]{p. 197}who enlivened the darkness with music. One of these, striking by chance on the roof of the limbo with his flute, brought out a hollow sound, upon which the elders of the tribe determined to bore in the direction whence the sound came. The flute was then set up against the roof, and the Raccoon sent up the tubeto dig a way out, but he could not. Then the Moth-worm mounted into the breach, and bored and bored till he found himself suddenly on the outside of the mountain, andsurrounded by water."We shall see hereafter that, in the early ages, mankind, all over the world, was divided into totemic septs or families, bearing animal names. It was out of this fact that the fables of animals possessing human speech arose. When we are told that the Fox talked to the Crow or the Wolf, it simply means that a man of the Fox totem talked to a man of the Crow or Wolf totem. And, consequently, when we read, in the foregoing legend, that the Raccoon went up to dig a way out of the cave and could not, it signifies that a man of the Raccoon totem made the attempt and failed, while a man of the Moth-worm totem succeeded. We shall see hereafter that these totemic distinctions probably represented original race or ethnic differences.The Navajo legend continues:"Under these novel circumstances, he, (the Moth-worm,) heaped up a little mound, and set himself down on it to observe and ponder the situation. A critical situation enough!--for from the four corners of the universe four great white Swans bore down upon him, every one with two arrows, one under each wing. The Swan from the north reached him first, and, having pierced him with two arrows, drew them out and examined their points, exclaiming, as the result, 'He is of my race.' So, also, in succession, did all the others. Then they went away; and toward the directions in which they departed, to the north, south, east, and west, were found four greatarroyos,{p. 198}by whichall the water flowed off, leaving onlyMUD. The Worm now returned to the cave, and the Raccoon went up into the mud,sinking in it mid-leg deep, as the marks on his fur show to this day. And the wind began to rise, sweeping up the four greatarroyos, andthe mud was dried away."Then the men and the animals began to come up from their cave, and their coming up required several days. First came the Navajos, and no sooner had they reached the surface than they commenced gaming atpatole, their favorite game. Then came the Pueblos and other Indians, whocrop their hair and build houses. Lastly camethe white people, who started off at oncefor the rising sun, and were lost sight of for many winters."When these nations lived under ground they allspake one tongue; but, with the light of day and the level of earth, came many languages. The earth was at this time very small, andthe light was quite as scanty as it had been down below, for there was as yet no heaven, no sun, nor moon, nor stars. So another council of the ancients was held, and a committee of their number appointed to manufacture these luminaries."[1]Here we have the same story:In an ancient age, before the races of men had differentiated, a remnant of mankind was driven, by some great event, into a cave; all kinds of animals had sought shelter in. the same place; something--the Drift--had closed up the mouth of the cavern; the men subsisted on the animals. At last they dug their way out, to find the world covered with mud and water. Great winds cut the mud into deep valleys, by which the waters ran off. The mud was everywhere; gradually it dried up. But outside the cave it was nearly as dark as it was within it; the clouds covered the world; neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen; the earth was very small, that is, but little of it was above the waste of waters.[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 81.]{p. 199}And here we have the people longing for the return of the sun. The legend proceeds to give an account of the making of the sun and moon. The dumb fluter, who had charge of the construction of the sun, through his clumsiness,came near setting fire to the world."The old men, however, either more lenient than Zeus, or lacking his thunder, contented themselves with forcing the offender back by puffing the smoke of their pipes into his face."Here we have the event, which properly should have preceded the cave-story, brought in subsequent to it. The sun nearly burns up the earth, and the earth is saved amid the smoke of incense from the pipes of the old men--the gods. And we are told that the increasing size of the earth has four times rendered it necessary that the sun should be put farther back from the earth. The clearer the atmosphere, the farther away the sun has appeared."At night, also, the other dumb man issues from this cave, bearing the moon under his arm, and lighting up such part of the world as he can. Next, the old men set to work to make the heavens, intending tobroider in the stars in beautiful patterns of bears, birds, and such things."That is to say, a civilized race 'began to divide up the heavens into constellations, to which they gave the names of the Great and Little Bear, the Wolf, the Serpent, the Dragon, the Eagle, the Swan, the Crane, the Peacock, the Toucan, the Crow, etc.; some of which names they retain among ourselves to this day."But, just as they had made a beginning, a prairie-wolf rushed in, and, crying out, 'Why all this trouble and embroidery?' scattered the pile of stars over all the floor of heaven, just as they still lie."This iconoclastic and unæsthetical prairie-wolf represents a barbarian's incapacity to see in the arrangement{p. 200}of the stars any such constellations, or, in fact, anything but an unmeaning jumble of cinders.And then we learn how the tribes of men separated:"The old men" (the civilized race, the gods) "prepared two earthentinages, or water-jars, and having decorated one with bright colors, filled it with trifles; while the other was left plain on the outside, but filled within with flocks and herds and riches of all kinds. These jars being covered, and presented to the Navajos and Pueblos, the former chose the gaudy but paltry jar; while the Pueblos received the plain and rich vessel--each nation showing, in its choice, traits which characterize it to this day."In the legends of the Lenni-Lenape,--the Delaware Indians,--mankind was once buried in the earth with a wolf; and they owed their release to the wolf, who scratched away the soil and dug out a means of escape for the men and for himself. The Root-Diggers of California were released in the same way by a coyote."[1]"The Tonkaways, a wild people of Texas, still celebrate this early entombment of the race in a most curious fashion. They have a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, isburied in the earth; the others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dighim up with their nails."[2]Compare this American custom with the religious ceremony of an ancient Italian tribe:"Three thousand years ago the Hirpani, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe of Italy, were wont to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites, in memory of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain their living as wolves do, by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed in wolf-skins,[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 247.2. Ibid.]{p. 201}ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed wolfishly whatever they could seize."[1]All the tribes of the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into one common confederacy, unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence they pretended to have emerged. This hill is an elevation of earth about half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast corner a wall of equal height extends for nearly half a mile to the high land. This was theNunne Chaha, properlyNanih waiya, sloping hill, famous in Choctaw story, and which Captain Gregg found they had not yet forgotten in their Western home."The legend was, that in its center was a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he made the first men from theclay around him, and, as at that time the waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, hebanished the waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his creatures."[2]Here, again, we have the beginnings of the present race of men in a cave, surrounded by clay and water, which covered the earth, and we have the water subsiding into its channels and beds, and the dry land appearing, whereupon the men emerged from the cave.A parallel to this Southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the North. They with one consent looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River, in the State of New York, as the locality where their forefathers saw the light of day; and their name, Oneida, signifiesthe people of the stone.[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 217.2. Ibid., p. 242.]{p. 202}The cave of Pacarin-Tampu, already alluded to, the Lodgings of the Dawn, or the Place of Birth of the Peruvians, was five leagues distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove, and inclosed with temples of great antiquity."From its hallowed recesses the mythical civilizers, of Peru, tile first of men, emerged, and in it, during the time of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the waves."[1]We read in the legends of Oraibi, hereafter quoted more fully, that the people climbed up a ladder from a lower world to this--that is, they ascended from the cave in which they had taken refuge. This was in an age of cold and darkness; there was yet no sun or moon.The natives in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta, in Northern California, have a strange legend which refers to the age of Caves and Ice.They say the Great Spirit made Mount Shasta first:"Boring a hole in the sky," (the heavens cleft in twain of the Edda?) "using alarge stoneas an auger," (the fall of stones and pebbles?) "he pushed downsnow and ice until they reached the desired height;then he stepped from cloud to cloud down tothe great icy pile, and from it to the earth, where he planted the first trees by merely putting his finger into the soil here and there.The sun began to melt the snow; the snow produced water; the water ran down the sides of the mountains, refreshed the trees, and made rivers. The Creator gathered the leaves that fell from the trees, blew upon them, and they became birds," etc.[2]This is a representation of the end of the Glacial Age.But the legends of these Indians of Mount Shasta go still further. After narrating, as above, the fall of a[1. Balboa, "Histoire du Pérou," p. 4.2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 90.]{p. 203}stone from heaven, and the formation of immense masses of ice, which subsequently melted and formed rivers, and after the Creator had made trees, birds,. and animals, especially the grizzly bear, then we have a legend which reminds us of the cave-life which accompanied the great catastrophe:"Indeed, this animal" (the grizzly bear) "was then so large, strong, and cunning, that the Creator somewhat feared him, and hollowed out Mount Shasta as a wigwam for himself, where he might reside while on earth in the most perfect security and comfort. So the smoke was soon to be seen curling up from the mountain where the Great Spirit and his family lived, and still live, though their hearth-fire is alive no longer, now that the white-man is in the land."Here the superior race seeks shelter in a cave on Mount Shasta, and their camp-fire is associated with the smoke which once went forth out of the volcano; while an inferior race, a Neanderthal race, dwell in the plains at the foot of the mountain."This was thousands of snows ago, and there came after this a late and severe spring-time, in which a memorable storm blew up from the sea, shaking the huge lodge" (Mount Shasta) "to its base."(Another recollection of the Ice Age.)"The Great Spirit commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind to be still, cautioning her, at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign, before she delivered her message."[1]Here we seem to have a reminiscence of the cave-dwellers, looking out at the terrible tempest from their places of shelter.[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 91.]{p. 204}The child of the Great Spirit exposes herself too much, is caught by the wind and blown down the mountain-side, where she is found, shivering on the snow, by a family of grizzly bears. These grizzly bears evidently possessed some humane as well as human traits: "They walked then on their hind-legs like men, and talked, and carried clubs, using the fore-limbs as men use their arms." They represent in their bear-skins the rude, fur-clad race that were developed during the intense cold of the Glacial Age.The child of the Great Spirit, the superior race, intermarries with one of the grizzly bears, andfrom this union came the race of men, to wit, the Indians."But the Great Spirit punished the grizzly bears by depriving them of the power of speech, and of standing erect--in short, by making true bears of them. But no Indian will, to this day, kill a grizzly bear, recognizing as he does the tie of blood."Again, we are told:"The inhabitants of central Europe and the Teutonic races who came late to England place their mythical heroes under ground in caves, in vaults beneath enchanted castles, orin moundswhich rise up and open, and show their buried inhabitants alive and busy about the avocations of earthly men. . . . In Morayshire the buried race aresupposed to be under the sandhills, as they are in some parts of Brittany."[1]Associated with these legends we find many that refer to the time of great cold, and snow, and ice. I give one or two specimens:In the story of the Iroquois, (see p. 173,ante,) we are told that the White One, [the Light One, the Sun,] after he had destroyed the monster who covered the earth with[1. "Frost and Fire," vol. ii, p. 190.]{p. 205}blood and stones, then destroyed the gigantic frog. The frog, a cold-blooded, moist reptile, was always the emblem of water and cold; it represented the great ice-fields that squatted, frog-like, on the face of the earth. It had "swallowed all the waters," says the Iroquois legend; that is, "the waters were congealed in it; and when it was killed great and destructive torrents broke forth and devastated the land, and Manibozho, the White One, the beneficent Sun, guided these waters into smooth streams and lakes." The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a great green frog carved from a single emerald.[1]In the Omaha we have the fable of "How the Rabbit killed the Winter," told in the Indian manner. The Rabbit was probably a reminiscence of the Great Hare, Manabozho; and he, probably, as we shall see, a recollection of a great race, whose totem was the Hare.I condense the Indian story:"The Rabbit in the past time moving came where the Winter was. The Winter said: 'You have not been here lately; sit down.' The Rabbit said he came because his grandmother had altogetherbeaten the life out of him" (the fallendébris?). "The Winter went hunting. It wasvery cold: there was a snow-storm. The Rabbit seared up a deer. 'Shoot him,' said the Rabbit. 'No; I do not hunt such things as that,' said the Winter. They came upon some men. That was the Winter's game. He killed the men andboiled them for supper," (cave-cannibalism). "The Rabbit refused to eat the human flesh. The Winter went hunting again. The Rabbit found out from the Winter's wife that the thing the Winter dreaded most of all the world was the head of a Rocky Mountain sheep. The Rabbit procured one.It was dark. He threw it suddenly at the Winter, saying, 'Uncle, thatround thingby you is the head of a Rocky Mountain[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 185.]{p. 206}sheep.' The Winter became altogether dead. Only the woman remained.Therefore from that time it has not been very cold."Of course, any attempt to interpret such a crude myth must be guess-work. It shows, however, that the Indians believed that there was a time when the winter was much more severe than it is now; it was very cold and dark. Associated with it is the destruction of men and cannibalism. At last the Rabbit brings a round object, (the Sun?), the head of a Rocky Mountain sheep, and the Winter looks on it, and perishes.Even tropical Peru has its legend of the Age of Ice.Garcilaso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an ancient indigenous poem of his nation, which seems to allude to a great event, the breaking to fragments of some large object, associated with ice and snow. Dr. Brinton translates it from the Quichua, as follows"Beauteous princess,Lo, thy brotherBreaks thy vesselNow in fragments.From the blow comeThunder, lightning,Strokes of lightningAnd thou, princess,Tak'st the water,With it raineth,Andthe hail, orSnow dispenseth.Viracocha,World-constructor,World-enlivener,To this officeThee appointed,Thee created."[1][1. "Myths of the New World," p. 167.]{p. 207}But it may be asked, How in such a period of terror and calamity--as we must conceive the comet to have caused-would men think of finding refuge in caves?The answer is plain: either they or their ancestors had lived in caves.Caves were the first shelters of uncivilized men. It was not necessary to fly to the caves through the rain of fallingdébris; many were doubtless already in them when the great world-storm broke, and others naturally sought their usual dwelling-places."The cavern," says Brinton, "dimly lingered in the memories of nations."Man is born of the earth; he is made of the clay like Adam, created--"Of good red clay,Haply from Mount Aornus, beyond sweepOf the black eagle's wing."The cave-temples of India-the oldest temples, probably, on earth--are a reminiscence of this cave-life.We shall see hereafter that Lot and his daughters "dwelt in a cave"; and we shall find Job bidden away in the "narrow-mouthed bottomless" pit or cave.[1. "Myths of the New World," p. 244.]{p. 208}CHAPTER VIII.LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF DARKNESS.ALL the cosmogonies begin with an Age of Darkness; a damp, cold, rainy, dismal time.Hesiod tells us, speaking of the beginning of things"In truth, then,foremost sprung Chaos. . . . But from Chaos were bornErebus and black Night;and from Night again sprang forth Æther and Day, whom she bare after having conceived byunion with Erebus."Aristophanes, in his "Aves," says:[1]"Chaos and Night and black Erebusand wide Tartarusfirst existed."[2]Orpheus says:"From the beginning the gloomy night enveloped and obscured all thingsthat were under the ether" (the clouds). "The earth was invisible on account of the darkness, but the lightbroke through the ether" (the clouds), "and illuminated the earth."By this power were produced the sun, moon, and stars.[3]It is from Sanchoniathon that we derive most of the little we know of that ancient and mysterious people, the Phœnicians. He lived before the Trojan war; and of his writings but fragments survive--quotations in the writings of others.[1. "The Theogony."2. Faber's "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," vol. i, p. 255.3. Cory's "Fragments," p. 298.]{p. 209}He tells us that--"The beginning of all things was a condensed, windy air, or a breeze ofthickair, and achaos turbid and black as Erebus."Out of this chaos was generated Môt, which some call Ilus," (mud,) "but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from this sprang all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe. . . . And, when the air began to send forth light, winds were produced and clouds, and very great defluxions andtorrents of the heavenly waters."Was this "thick air" the air thick with comet-dust, which afterward became the mud? Is this the meaning of the "turbidchaos"?We turn to the Babylonian legends. Berosus wrote from records preserved in the temple of Belus at Babylon. He says:"There was a time in which thereexisted nothing but darknessand anabyss of waters, wherein residedmost hideous beings, which were produced of a twofold principle."Were these "hideous beings" the comets?From the "Laws of Menu," of the Hindoos, we learn that the universe existed at first in darkness.We copy the following text from the Vedas:"The Supreme Being alone existed;afterward there was universal darkness;next the watery ocean was produced by the diffusion of virtue."We turn to the legends of the Chinese, and we find the same story:Their annals begin with "Pwan-ku, or the Reign of Chaos."[1][1. "The Ancient Dynasties of Berosus and China," Rev. T. P. Crawford, D. D., p. 4.]{p. 210}And we are told by the Chinese historians that--"P'an-ku came forth in the midst of thegreat chaotic void, and we know not his origin; that he knew the rationale of heaven and earth, andcomprehended the changes of the Darkness and the Light."[1]He "existedbefore the shining of the Light."[2] He was "the Prince of Chaos.""After the chaoscleared away, heaven appeared first in order, then earth, then after they existed,and the atmosphere had changed its character, man came forth."[3]That is to say, P'an-ku lived through the Age of Darkness, during a chaotic period, and while the atmosphere was pestilential with the gases of the comet. Where did he live? The Chinese annals tell us:"In the age after the chaos, when heaven and earth hadjust separated."That is, when the great mass of cloud had just lifted from the earth:"Records had not yet been established or inscriptions invented. At first even the rulersdwelt in cavesand desert places, eating raw flesh and drinking blood. At this fortunate juncture Pan-ku-szecame forth, and from that time heaven and earth began to be heaven and earth, men and things to be men and things, and so the chaotic state passed away."[1]This is the rejuvenation of the world told of in so many legends.And these annals tell us further of the "Ten Stems," being the stages of the earth's primeval history."AtWu--the Sixth Stem--the Darkness and the Light unitewith injurious effects--all things becomesolid," (frozen?), "and the Darkness destroys the growth of all things.[1. Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing 1526-1590," Crawford, p. 3.2. Ibid.3. Ibid., p. 2.4. Ibid., p. 3.]{p. 211}"AtKung--the Seventh Stem--the Darkness nips all things."But the Darkness is passing away:"AtJin--the Ninth Stem--the Lightbegins to nourish all things in the recesses below."Lastly, atTsze, all thingsbegin to germinate."[1]The same story is told in the "Twelve Branches.""1.K'wun-tunstands for the period ofchaos, the cold midnight darkness. It is said that with it all things began to germinate in the hidden recesses of the under-world."In the 2d--Ch'i-fun-yoh--"light and heat become active, and all things begin to rise in obedience to its nature." In the 3d--Sheh-ti-kuh--the stars and sun probably appear, as from this point the calendar begins. In the 5th--Chi-shii--all things in a torpid state begin to come forth. In the 8th--Hëen-hia--all things harmonize, and the present order of things is established; that is to say, the effects of the catastrophe have largely passed away.[2]The kings who governed before the Drift were called the Rulers of heaven and earth; those who came after were the Rulers of man."Cheu Ching-huensays: 'The Rulers of man succeeded to the Rulers of heaven and the Rulers of earth in the government; that thenthe atmosphere gradually cleared away, and all things sprang up together; that the order of time was gradually settled, and the usages of society gradually became correct and respectful."[3]And then we read that "the day and night had not yet been divided," but, after a time, "day and night were distinguished from each other."[4]Here we have the history of some event which changed[1. "Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing 1526-1590," Crawford, pp. 4, 5.2. Ibid., p. 8.3. Ibid.4. Ibid., p. 7.]{p. 212}the dynasties of the world: the heavenly kingdom was succeeded by a merely human one; there were chaos, cold, and darkness, and death to vegetation; then the light increases, and vegetation begins once more to germinate; the atmosphere is thick; the heavens rest on the earth; day and night can not be distinguished from one another, and mankind dwell in caves, and live on raw meat and blood.Surely all this accords wonderfully with our theory.And here we have the same story in another form:"The philosopher of Oraibi tells us that when the people ascended by means of the magical tree, which constituted the ladder from the lower world to this, they found the firmament,the ceiling of this world, low down upon the earth--the floor of this world."That is to say, when the people climbed up, from the cave in which they were bidden, to the surface of the earth, the dense clouds rested on the face of the earth."Machito, one of their gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is now seen.Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. Machito said, 'Bring me seven maidens'; and they brought him seven maidens; and he said, 'Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls'; and they brought him seven baskets of cotton-bolls; and he taught the seven maidens to weave a magical fabric from the cotton, and when they had finished it he held it aloft, and the breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in the twinkling of an eye it was transformed into a beautiful and full-orbed moon; and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton, which the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried them aloft, and they were transformed into bright stars. Butstill it was cold;and the people murmured again, and Machito said, 'Bring me seven buffalo-robes'; and they brought him seven buffalo-robes, and from the densely matted hair of the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the storm carried{p. 213}away into the sky, and it was transformed into the full-orbed sun. Then Machito appointed times and seasons, and ways for the heavenly bodies; and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the injunctions of Machito from the day of their creation to the present." *Among the Thlinkeets of British Columbia there is a legend that the Great Crow or Raven, Yehl, was the creator of most things:"Very dark, damp, and chaoticwas the world in the beginning; nothing with breath or body moved there except Yehl; in the likeness ofa raven he brooded over the mist; his black winds beat down the vast confusion; the waters went back before him and the dry land appeared. The Thlinkeets were placed on the earth--though how or when does not exactly appear--while the world wasstill in darkness, and without sun, moon, or stars."[2]The legend proceeds at considerable length to tell the doings of Yehl. His uncle tried to slay him, and, when he failed, "he imprecated with a potent curse a deluge upon all the earth. . . . The flood came, the waters rose and rose; but Yehl clothed himself in his bird-skin, and soared up to the heavens, where he stuck his beak into a cloud, and remained until the waters were assuaged."[3]This tradition reminds us of the legend of the Thessalian Cerambos, "who escaped the flood by rising into the air on wings, given him by the nymphs."I turn now to the traditions of the Miztecs, who dwelt on the outskirts of the Mexican Empire; this legend was taken by Fray Gregoria Garcia[4] from a book found in a convent in Cuilapa, a little Indian town, about a league and a half south of Oajaca; the book had been compiled by the vicar of the convent, "just as they[1. "Popular Science Monthly," October, 1879, p. 800.2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 98.3. Ibid., p. 99.4. "Origen de los Ind.," pp. 327-329.]{p. 214}themselves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls":"In the year and inthe day of obscurity and darkness," (the days of the dense clouds?), "yea, even before the days or the years were," (before the visible revolution of the sun marked the days, and the universal darkness and cold prevented the changes of the seasons?), "when the world was ingreat darkness and chaos, when the earth was covered with water, and there was nothing butmud and slime on all the face of the earth--behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surname was the Lion-snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-snake. These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods."This lion-snake was probably one of the comets; the tiger-snake was doubtless a second comet, called after the tiger, on account of its variegated, mottled appearance. It will be observed they appearedbeforethe light had returned,These gods built a temple on a high place, and laid out a garden, and waited patiently, offering sacrifices to the higher gods, wounding themselves withflintknives, and "praying that it might seem good to them to shape the firmament, andlighten the darknessof the world, and to establish the foundation of the earth; or, rather, to gather the waters together so that the earth might appear--as they had no place to rest in save only one little garden."Here we have the snakes and the people confounded together. The earth was afterward made fit for the use of mankind, and at a later date there came--"A great deluge, wherein perished many of the sons and daughters that had been born to the gods; and it is said that, when the deluge was passed, the human race{p. 215}was restored, as at the first, and the Miztec kingdom populated, and the heavens and the earth established."[1]Father Duran, in his MS. "History Antique of New Spain," written in A. D. 1585, gives the Cholula legend, which commences:"In the beginning,before the light of the sunhad been created, this land wasin obscurity and darknessand void of any created thing."In the Toltec legends we read of a time when--"There was a tremendous hurricane that carried away trees, mounds, houses, and the largest edifices, notwithstanding which many men and women escaped,principally in caves, and places where the great hurricane could not reach them. A few days having passed, they set out to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness,without seeing the light of the sun, nor the moon, that the wind had brought them."[2]In the Aztec creation-myths, according to the accounts furnished by Mendieta, and derived from Fray Andres de Olmos, one of the earliest of the Christian missionaries among the Mexicans, we have the following legend of the "Return of the Sun":"Now, there had been no sun in existence for many years;so the gods being assembled in a place called Teotihuacan, six leagues from Mexico, and gathered at the timearound a great fire, told their devotees that he of them who should first cast himself into that, fire should have the honor of being transformed into a sun. So, one of them, called Nanahuatzin . . . flung himself into the fire. Then the gods" (the chiefs?) "began to peer through the gloom in all directionsfor the expected light, and to make bets as to what part of heaven. he should[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, pp. 71-73.2. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 239.]{p. 216}first appear in. Some said 'Here,' and some said 'There'; but when the sun rose they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east."In the long-continued darkness they had lost all knowledge of the cardinal points. The ancient landmarks, too, were changed.The "Popul Vuh," the national book of the Quiches, tells us of four ages of the world. The man of the first age was made of clay; he was "strengthless, inept, watery; he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was restricted, he could not look behind him," that is, he had no knowledge of the past; "he had been endowed with language, but he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water."[1]Then followed a higher race of men; they filled the world with their progeny; they had intelligence, butno moral sense"; "they forgot the Heart of Heaven." They weredestroyed by fire and pitch from heaven, accompanied by tremendous earthquakes, from which only a few escaped.Then followed a periodwhen all was dark, save the white light "of the morning-star--sole light as yet of the primeval world"--probably a volcano."Once more are the gods in council,in the darkness, in the night of a desolated universe."Then the people prayed to God for light, evidently for the return of the sun:"'Hail! O Creator they cried, 'O Former! Thou that hearest and understandest us! abandon us not! forsake us not! O God, thou that art in heaven and on earth; O Heart of Heaven I O Heart of Earth!give us descendants, and a posterity as long as the light endure.'" . . .In other words, let not the human race cease to be.[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 46.]{p. 217}"It was thus they spake, living tranquilly,invoking the return of the light; waiting the rising of the sun;watching the star of the morning, precursor of the sun. But no sun came, and the four men and their descendants grew uneasy. 'We have no person to watch over us,' they said; 'nothing to guard our symbols!' Then they adopted gods of their own, and waited. They kindled fires,for the climate was colder;then there fellgreat rains and hail-storms,and put out their fires. Several times they made fires, and several times the rains and storms extinguished them. Many other trials also they underwent in Tulan, famines and such things, anda general dampness and cold--for the earth wasmoist, there being yet no sun."All this accords with what I have shown we might expect as accompanying the close of the so-called Glacial Age. Dense clouds covered the sky, shutting out the light of the sun; perpetual rains and storms fell; the world was cold and damp, muddy and miserable; the people were wanderers, despairing and hungry. They seem to have come from an eastern land. We are told:"Tulan was a much colder climate than the happy eastern land they had left."Many generations seem to have grown up and perished under the sunless skies, "waiting for the return of the light"; for the "Popul Vuh" tells us that "here also the language of all the families was confused, so that no one of the first four men could any longer understand the speech of the others."That is to say, separation and isolation into rude tribes had made their tongues unintelligible to one another.This shows that many, many years--it may be centuries--must have elapsed before that vast volume of moisture, carried up by evaporation, was able to fall{p. 218}back, in snow and rain to the land and sea, and allow the sun to shine through "the blanket of the dark." Starvation encountered the scattered fragments of mankind.And in these same Quiche legends of Central America we are told:"The persons of the godhead were enveloped in thedarkness which enshrouded a desolated world."[1]They counseled together, and created four men of white and yellow maize (the white and yellow races?). It wasstill dark;for they had no light but the light of the morning-star. They came to Tulan.And the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg gives further details of the Quiche legends:Now, behold our ancients and our fathers were made lords, andhad their dawn. Behold we will relate also the rising of the sun, the moon, and the stars! Great was their joy when they saw the morning-star, which came out first, with its resplendent face before the sun.At lastthe sun itself began to come forth; the animals, small and great, were in joy; they rose from the water-courses and ravines, and stood on the mountain-tops, with their heads toward where the sun was coming. An innumerable crowd of people were there, and the dawn cast light on all these people at once. At lastthe face of the ground was dried by the sun:like a man the sun showed himself, and his presence warmed and dried the surface of the ground. Before the sun appeared,muddy and wetwas the surface of the ground, and it was before the sun appeared, and then only the sun rose like a man.But his heat had no strength, and hedid but show when he rose;he only remained like" (an image in) "a mirror and it is not, indeed, the same sun that appears now, they say, in the stories."[2][1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 214.2. Tylor's "Early History of Mankind," p. 308.]{p. 219}How wonderfully does all this accord with what we have shown would follow from the earth's contact with a comet!The earth is wet and covered with mud, the clay; the sun is long absent; at last he returns; he dries the mud, but his face is still covered with the remnants of the great cloud-belt; "his heat has no strength"; he shows himself only in glimpses; he shines through the fogs like an image in a mirror; he is not like the great blazing orb we see now.But the sun, when it did appear in all its glory, must have been a terrible yet welcome sight to those who had not looked upon him for many years. We read in the legends of the Thlinkeets of British Columbia, after narrating that the world was once "dark, damp, and chaotic," full of water, with no sun, moon, or stars, how these luminaries were restored. The great hero-god of the race, Yehl, got hold of three mysterious boxes, and, wrenching the lids off, let out the sun, moon, and stars."When he set up the blazing light" (of the sun) "in heaven, the people that saw it were at first afraid. Many hid themselves in the mountains, and in the forests, and even in the water, and were changed into the various kinds of animals that frequent these places."[1]Says James Geikie:"Nor can we form any proper conception of how long a time was needed to bring about that other change of climate, under the influence of which, slowly and imperceptibly, this immense sheet of frost melted away from the lowlands and retired to the mountain recesses. We must allow that long ages elapsed before the warmth became such as to induce plants and animals to clothe and people the land. How vast a time, also, must have passed away ere the warmth reached its climax!"[2][1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 100.2. "The Great Ice Age," p. 184.]{p. 220}And all this time the rain fell. There could be no return of the sun until all the mass of moisture sucked up by the comet's heat had been condensed into water, and falling on the earth had found its way back to the ocean; and this process had to be repeated many times. It was the age of the great primeval rain.###THE PRIMEVAL STORM.In the Andes, Humboldt tells us of a somewhat similar state of facts:"A thick mist during a particular season obscures the firmament for many months. Not a planet, not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--Canopus, the{p. 221}Southern Cross, nor the feet of Centaur--are visible. It is frequently almost impossible to discover the position of the moon. If by chance the outlines of the sun's disk be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays."Says Croll:"We have seen that the accumulation of snow and ice on the ground, resulting from the long and cold winters, tended to cool the air and produce fogs, which cut off the sun's rays."[1]The same writer says:"Snow and ice lower the temperature by chilling the air and condensing the rays into thick fogs. The great strength of the sun's rays during summer, due to his nearness at that season, would, in the first place, tend to produce an increased amount of evaporation. But the presence of snow-clad mountains and an icy sea would chill the atmosphere and condense the vapors into thick fogs. The thick fogs and cloudy sky would effectually prevent the sun's rays from reaching the earth, and the snow, in consequence, would remain unmelted during the entire summer. In fact, we have this very condition of things exemplified in some of the islands of the Southern Ocean at the present day. Sandwich Land, which is in the same parallel of latitude as the north of Scotland, is covered with ice and snow the entire summer; and in the Island of South Georgia, which is in the same parallel as the center of England, the perpetual snow descends to the very sea-beach. The following is Captain Cook's description of this dismal place: 'We thought it very extraordinary,' he says, 'that an island between the latitudes of 54° and 55° should, in the very height of summer, be almost wholly covered with frozen snow, in some places many fathoms deep. . . . The head of the bay was terminated by ice-cliffs of considerable height, pieces of which were continually breaking off, which made a noise like cannon. Nor were the interior parts of the country less horrible. The savage rocks raised their lofty summits[1. "Climate and Time," p. 75.]{p. 222}till lost in the clouds, and valleys were covered with seemingly perpetual snow. Not a tree nor a shrub of any size was to be seen.'"I return to the legends.The Gallinomeros of Central California also recollect the day of darkness and the return of the sun:"In the beginning they say there wasno light, but a thick darkness covered all the earth. Man stumbled blindly against man and against the animals, the birds clashed together in the air, and confusion reigned everywhere. The Hawk happening by chance to fly into the face of the Coyote, there followed mutual apologies, and afterward a long discussion on the emergency of the situation. Determined to make some effort toward abating the public evil, the two set about a remedy. The Coyote gathered a great heap, of tules" (rushes) "rolled them into a ball, and gave it to the Hawk, together with some pieces of flint. Gathering all together as well as he could, the Hawk flew straight up into the sky, where he struck fire with the flints, lit his ball of reeds, and left it there whirling along all in a fierce red glow as it continues to the present; for it is the sun. In the same way the moon was made, but as the tules of which it was constructed were rather damp, its light has always been somewhat uncertain and feeble."[2]The Algonquins believed in a world, an earth, "anterior to this of ours, but onewithout light or human inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly."This reminds us of the Welsh legend, and the bursting of the lake Llion (see page 135,ante).The ancient world was united in believing in great cycles of time terminating in terrible catastrophes:[1. Captain Cook's "Second Voyage," vol. ii, pp. 232-235;2. "Climate and Time," Croll, pp. 60, 61.3. Powers's Pomo MS., Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 86.]{p. 223}Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounding off by sweeping destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some thought in these all things perished, others that a few survived. . . . For instance, Epietetus favors the opinion that at the solstices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely.[1] Macrobius, so far from agreeing with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and the equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great cycle."[2]In the Babylonian Genesis tablets we have the same references to the man or people who, after the great disaster, divided the heavens into constellations, and regulated, that is, discovered and revealed, their movements. In the Fifth Tablet of the Creation Legend[3] we read:"1. It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.2. Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,4. Twelve months or signs of stars in three rows he arranged,5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars to shine in their courses,7. That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one."That is to say, the civilized race that followed the great cataclysm, with whom the history of the event was[1. Discourses," book iii, chapter xiii.2. Brinton's Myths of the New World," p. 215.3. Proctor's Pleasant Ways," p. 393.]{p. 224}yet fresh, and who were impressed with all its horrors, and who knew well the tenure of danger and terror on which they held all the blessings of the world, turned their attention to the study of the heavenly bodies, and sought to understand the source of the calamity which had so recently overwhelmed the world. Hence they "marked," as far as they were able, "the positions of the 'comets,'" "that they might not" again "do injury, and not trouble any one." The word here given isNibir, which Mr. Smith says does not mean planets, and, in the above account,Nibiris contradistinguished from the stars; they have already been arranged in constellations; hence it can only mean comets.And the tablet proceeds, with distinct references to the Age of Darkness:"8. The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him,9. Andhe opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded.10. The fastenings were strong on the left and right.11. In its mass, (i. e., the lower chaos,) he made aboiling.12. The god Uru (the moon)he caused to rise out, thenight he overshadowed,13. To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day.14. That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular,15. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,16. His (the sun's) horns are breaking through to shine on the heavens.17. On the seventh dayto a circle he begins to swell,18. And stretchestoward the dawn further,19. When the god Shamas, (the in the horizon of heaven, in the east,20 . . . . formed beautifully and . . .21 . . . . to the orbit Shamas was perfected."{p. 225}Here the tablet becomes illegible. The meaning, however, seems plain:Although to left and right, to east and west, the darkness was fastened firm, was dense, yet "the great gods opened the great gates in the darkness," and let the light through. First, the moon appeared, through a "boiling," or breaking up of the clouds, so that now men were able to once more count time by the movements of the moon. On the seventh day, Shamas, the sun, appeared; first, his horns, his beams, broke through the darkness imperfectly; then he swells to a circle, and comes nearer and nearer to perfect dawn; at last he appeared on the horizon, in the east, formed beautifully, and his orbit was perfected; i. e., his orbit could be traced continuously through the clearing heavens.But how did the human race fare in this miserable time?In his magnificent poem "Darkness," Byron has imagined such a blind and darkling world as these legends depict; and he has imagined, too, the hunger, and the desolation, and the degradation of the time.We are not to despise the imagination. There never was yet a great thought that had not wings to it; there never was yet a great mind that did not survey things from above the mountain-tops.If Bacon built the causeway over which modern science has advanced, it was because, mounting on the pinions of his magnificent imagination, he saw that poor struggling mankind needed such a pathway; his heart embraced humanity even as his brain embraced the universe.The river which is a boundary to the rabbit, is but a landmark to the eagle. Let not the gnawers of the world, the rodentia, despise the winged creatures of the upper air.{p. 226}Byron saw what the effects of the absence of the sunlight would necessarily be upon the world, and that which he prefigured the legends of mankind tell us actually came to pass, in the dark days that followed the Drift.He says:"Morn came, and went--and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation, and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light. . . .A fearful hope was all the world contained;Forests were set on fire--but hour by hourThey fell and faded,--and the crackling trunksExtinguished with a crash,--and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them; some lay downAnd bid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clinchèd hands and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled. . . .And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again--a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sat sullenly apart,Gorging himself in gloom, . . . and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails;--menDied, and their bones were tombless as their fleshThe meager by the meager were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters."How graphic, how dramatic, how realistic is this picture! And how true!For the legends show us that when, at last, the stones and clay had ceased to fall, and the fire had exhausted itself, and the remnant of mankind were able to dig their way out, to what an awful wreck of nature did they return.{p . 227}Instead of the fair face of the world, as they had known it, bright with sunlight, green with the magnificent foliage of the forest, or the gentle verdure of the plain, they go forth upon a wasted, an unknown land, covered with oceans of mud and stones; the very face of the country changed--lakes, rivers, hills, all swept away and lost. They wander, breathing a foul and sickening atmosphere, under the shadow of an awful darkness, a darkness which knows no morning, no stars, no moon; a darkness palpable and visible, lighted only by electrical discharges from the abyss of clouds, with such roars of thunder as we, in this day of harmonious nature, can form no conception of. It is, indeed, "chaos and ancient night." All the forces of nature are there, but disorderly, destructive, battling against each other, and multiplied a thousand-fold in power; the winds are cyclones, magnetism is gigantic, electricity is appalling.The world is more desolate than the caves from which they have escaped. The forests are gone; the fruit-trees are swept away; the beasts of the chase have perished; the domestic animals, gentle ministers to man, have disappeared; the cultivated fields are buried deep in drifts of mud and gravel; the people stagger in the darkness against each other; they fall into the chasms of the earth; within them are the two great oppressors of humanity, hunger and terror; hunger that knows not where to turn; fear that shrinks before the whirling blasts, the rolling thunder, the shocks of blinding lightning; that knows not what moment the heavens may again open and rain fire and stones and dust upon them.God has withdrawn his face; his children are deserted; all the, kindly adjustments of generous Nature are gone. God has left man in the midst of a material world without law; he is a wreck, a fragment, a lost particle,{p. 228}in the midst of an illimitable and endless warfare of giants.Some lie down to die, hopeless, cursing their helpless gods; some die by their own bands; some gather around the fires of volcanoes for warmth and light--stars that attract them from afar off; some feast on such decaying remnants of the great animals as they may find projecting above thedébris, running to them, as we shall see, with outcries, and fighting over the fragments.The references to the worship of "the morning star," which occur in the legend, seem to relate to some great volcano in the East, which alone gave light when all the world was lost in darkness. As Byron says, in his great poem, "Darkness":And they did live by watch-fires--and the thrones,The palaces of crownèd kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were theywho dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanoes and their mountain-torch."In this pitiable state were once the ancestors of all mankind.If you doubt it, reader, peruse again the foregoing legends, and then turn to the following Central American prayer, the prayer of the Aztecs, already referred to on page 186,ante, addressed to the god Tezcatlipoca, himself represented as a flying or winged serpent, perchance the comet:"Is it possible that this lash and chastisement are not given for our correction and amendment, but only for our total destruction and overthrow; thatthe sun will never more shine upon us, but that we must remain in perpetual darkness?. . . It is a sore thing to tell how we are all in{p. 229}darkness. . . . O Lord, . . . make an end ofthis smoke and fog. Quench also theburning and destroying fire of thine anger; let serenity come andclearness," (light); "let the small birds of thy people begin to sing andapproach the sun."There is still another Aztec prayer, addressed to the same deity, equally able, sublime, and pathetic, which it seems to me may have been uttered when the people had left their biding-place, when the conflagration had passed, but while darkness still covered the earth, before vegetation had returned, and while crops of grain as yet were not. There are a few words in it that do not answer to this interpretation, where it refers to those "people who have something"; but there may have been comparative differences of condition even in the universal poverty; or these words may have been an interpolation of later days. The prayer is as follows:"O our Lord, protector most strong and compassionate, invisible and impalpable, thou art the giver of life; lord of all, and lord of battles. I present myself here before thee to say some few words concerning the need of the poor people of none estate or intelligence. When they lie down at night they have nothing, nor when they rise up in the morning; the darkness and the light pass alike in great poverty. Know, O Lord, that thy subjects and servants suffer a sore poverty that can not be told of more than that it is a sore poverty and desolateness. The men have no garments, nor the women, to cover themselves with, but only certain rags rent in every part, that allow the air and the cold to pass everywhere."With great toil and weariness they scrape together enough for each day,going by mountain and wilderness seeking their food; so faint and enfeebled are they that their bowels cleave to their ribs, and all their body reechoes with hollowness, and they walk as people affrighted, the face and body in likeness of death. If they be merchants, they now sell only cakes of salt and broken{p. 230}pepper; the people that have something despise their wares, so that they go out to sell from door to door, and from house to house; and when they sell nothing they sit down sadly by some fence or wall, or in some corner, licking their lips and gnawing the nails of their hands for the hunger that is in them; they look on the one side and on the other at the mouths of those that pass by, hoping peradventure that one may speak some word to them."O compassionate God, the bed on which they lie down is not a thing to rest upon, but to endure torment in; they draw a rag over them at night, and so sleep; there they throw down their bodies, and the bodies of children that thou hast given them. For the misery that they grow up in, for the filth of their food, for the lack of covering, their faces are yellow, and all their bodies of the color of earth. Theytremble with cold, and for leaness they stagger in walking. They go weeping and sighing, and full of sadness, and all misfortunes are joined to them;though they stay by afire, they find little heat."[1]
In conclusion, let me recapitulate
1. The original surface-rocks, underneath the Drift, are, we have seen, decomposed and changed, for varying depths of from one to one hundred feet, by fire; they are metamorphosed, and their metallic constituents vaporized out of them by heat.
2. Only tremendous heat could have lifted the water of the seas into clouds, and formed the age of snow and floods evidenced by the secondary Drift.
3. The traditions of the following races tell us that the earth was once swept by a great conflagration:
a. The ancient Britons, as narrated in the mythology of the Druids.
b. The ancient Greeks, as told by Hesiod.
c. The ancient Scandinavians, as appears in theElder EddaandYounger Edda.
d. The ancient Romans, as narrated by Ovid.
e. The ancient Toltecs of Central America, as told in their sacred books.
{p. 193}
f. The ancient Aztecs of Mexico, as transcribed by Fray de Olmos.
g. The ancient Persians, as recorded in the Zend-Avesta.
h. The ancient Hindoos, as told in their sacred books.
i. The Tahoe Indians of California, as appears by their living traditions.
Also by the legends of--
j. The Tupi Indians of Brazil.
k. The Tacullies of British America.
1. The Ute Indians of California and Utah.
m. The Peruvians.
n. The Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras.
o. The Mbocobi of Paraguay.
p. The Botocudos of Brazil.
q. The Ojibway Indians of the United States.
r. The Wyandot Indians of the United States.
s. Lastly, the Dog-rib Indians of British Columbia.
We must concede that these legends of a world-embracing conflagration represent a race-remembrance of a great fact, or that they are a colossal falsehood--an invention of man.
If the latter, then that invention and falsehood must have been concocted at a time when the ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Persians, Goths, Toltecs, Aztecs, Peruvians, and the Indians of Brazil, the United States, the west coast of South America, and the northwestern extremity of North America, and the Polynesians, (who have kindred traditions,) all dwelt together, as one people, alike in language and alike in color of their hair, eyes, and skin. At that time, therefore, all the widely separated regions, now inhabited by these races, must have been without human inhabitants; the race must have been a mere handful, and dwelling in one spot.
{p. 194}
What vast lapses of time must have been required before mankind slowly overflowed to these remote regions of the earth, and changed into these various races speaking such diverse tongues!
And if we take the ground that this universal tradition of a world-conflagration was an invention, a falsehood, then we must conclude that this handful of men, before they dispersed, in the very infancy of the world, shared in the propagation of a prodigious lie, and religiously perpetuated it for tens of thousands of years.
And then the question arises, How did they hit upon a lie that accords so completely with the revelations of science? They possessed no great public works, in that infant age, which would penetrate through hundreds of feet ofdébris, and lay bare the decomposed rocks beneath; therefore they did not make a theory to suit an observed fact.
And how did mankind come to be reduced to a handful? If men grew, in the first instance, out of bestial forms, mindless and speechless, they would have propagated and covered the world as did the bear and the wolf. But after they had passed this stage, and had so far developed as to be human in speech and brain, some cause reduced them again to a handful. What was it? Something, say these legends, some fiery object, some blazing beast or serpent, which appeared in the heavens, which filled the world with conflagrations, and which destroyed the human race, except a remnant, who saved themselves in caverns or in the water; and from this seed, this handful, mankind again replenished the earth, and spread gradually to all the continents and the islands of the sea.
{p. 195}
I HAVE shown that man could only have escaped the fire, the poisonous gases, and the falling stones and clay-dust, by taking refuge in the water or in the deep caves of the earth.
And hence everywhere in the ancient legends we find the races claiming that they came up out of the earth. Man was earth-born. The Toltecs and Aztecs traced back their origin to "the seven caves." We have seen the ancestors of the Peruvians emerging from the primeval cave,Pacarin-Tampu; and the Aztec Nanahuatzin taking refuge in a cave; and the ancestors of the Yurucares, the Takahlis, and the Mbocobi of America, all biding themselves from the conflagration in a cave; and we have seen the tyrannical and cruel race of the Tahoe legend buried in a cave. And, passing to a far-distant region, we find the Bungogees and Pankhoos, Hill tribes, of the most ancient races of Chittagong, in British India, relating that "their ancestors came out of a cave in the earth, under the guidance of a chief named Tlandrokpah."[1]
We read in the Toltec legends that a dreadful hurricane visited the earth in the early age, and carried away trees, mounds, horses, etc., and the people escaped byseeking safety in cavesand places where the great hurricane
[1. Captain Lewin, "The Hill Tribes of Chittagong" p. 95, 1869.]
{p. 196}
could not reach them. After a few days they came forth "to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness, without the light of the sun Or the moon, which the wind had brought them."[1]
A North American tribe, a branch of the Tinneh of British America, have a legend that "the earth existed first in a chaotic state, with only one human inhabitant, a woman,who dwelt in a caveand lived on berries." She met one day a mysterious animal, like a dog, who transformed himself into a handsome young man, and they became the parents of a giant race."[2]
There seems to be an allusion to the cave-life in Ovid, where, detailing the events that followed soon after the creation, he says:
"Then for the first time did the parched airglow with sultry heat, and theice, bound up by the winds, was pendent. Then for the first time did men enter houses; those houses werecaverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with bark."[3]
But it is in the legends of the Navajo Indians of North America that we find the most complete account of the cave-life.
It is as follows:
"The Navajos, living north of the Pueblos, say that at one time all the nations, Navajos, Pueblos, Coyoteros, and white people, lived together tinder ground, in the heart of a mountain, near the river San Juan.Their food was meat, which they had in abundance, for all kinds of game were closed up with them in their cave;but their light was dim, and only endured for a few hours each day. There were, happily, two dumb men among the Navajos, flute-players,
[1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 239.
2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 105.
3. "The Metamorphoses," Fable IV.]
{p. 197}
who enlivened the darkness with music. One of these, striking by chance on the roof of the limbo with his flute, brought out a hollow sound, upon which the elders of the tribe determined to bore in the direction whence the sound came. The flute was then set up against the roof, and the Raccoon sent up the tubeto dig a way out, but he could not. Then the Moth-worm mounted into the breach, and bored and bored till he found himself suddenly on the outside of the mountain, andsurrounded by water."
We shall see hereafter that, in the early ages, mankind, all over the world, was divided into totemic septs or families, bearing animal names. It was out of this fact that the fables of animals possessing human speech arose. When we are told that the Fox talked to the Crow or the Wolf, it simply means that a man of the Fox totem talked to a man of the Crow or Wolf totem. And, consequently, when we read, in the foregoing legend, that the Raccoon went up to dig a way out of the cave and could not, it signifies that a man of the Raccoon totem made the attempt and failed, while a man of the Moth-worm totem succeeded. We shall see hereafter that these totemic distinctions probably represented original race or ethnic differences.
The Navajo legend continues:
"Under these novel circumstances, he, (the Moth-worm,) heaped up a little mound, and set himself down on it to observe and ponder the situation. A critical situation enough!--for from the four corners of the universe four great white Swans bore down upon him, every one with two arrows, one under each wing. The Swan from the north reached him first, and, having pierced him with two arrows, drew them out and examined their points, exclaiming, as the result, 'He is of my race.' So, also, in succession, did all the others. Then they went away; and toward the directions in which they departed, to the north, south, east, and west, were found four greatarroyos,
{p. 198}
by whichall the water flowed off, leaving onlyMUD. The Worm now returned to the cave, and the Raccoon went up into the mud,sinking in it mid-leg deep, as the marks on his fur show to this day. And the wind began to rise, sweeping up the four greatarroyos, andthe mud was dried away.
"Then the men and the animals began to come up from their cave, and their coming up required several days. First came the Navajos, and no sooner had they reached the surface than they commenced gaming atpatole, their favorite game. Then came the Pueblos and other Indians, whocrop their hair and build houses. Lastly camethe white people, who started off at oncefor the rising sun, and were lost sight of for many winters.
"When these nations lived under ground they allspake one tongue; but, with the light of day and the level of earth, came many languages. The earth was at this time very small, andthe light was quite as scanty as it had been down below, for there was as yet no heaven, no sun, nor moon, nor stars. So another council of the ancients was held, and a committee of their number appointed to manufacture these luminaries."[1]
Here we have the same story:
In an ancient age, before the races of men had differentiated, a remnant of mankind was driven, by some great event, into a cave; all kinds of animals had sought shelter in. the same place; something--the Drift--had closed up the mouth of the cavern; the men subsisted on the animals. At last they dug their way out, to find the world covered with mud and water. Great winds cut the mud into deep valleys, by which the waters ran off. The mud was everywhere; gradually it dried up. But outside the cave it was nearly as dark as it was within it; the clouds covered the world; neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen; the earth was very small, that is, but little of it was above the waste of waters.
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 81.]
{p. 199}
And here we have the people longing for the return of the sun. The legend proceeds to give an account of the making of the sun and moon. The dumb fluter, who had charge of the construction of the sun, through his clumsiness,came near setting fire to the world.
"The old men, however, either more lenient than Zeus, or lacking his thunder, contented themselves with forcing the offender back by puffing the smoke of their pipes into his face."
Here we have the event, which properly should have preceded the cave-story, brought in subsequent to it. The sun nearly burns up the earth, and the earth is saved amid the smoke of incense from the pipes of the old men--the gods. And we are told that the increasing size of the earth has four times rendered it necessary that the sun should be put farther back from the earth. The clearer the atmosphere, the farther away the sun has appeared.
"At night, also, the other dumb man issues from this cave, bearing the moon under his arm, and lighting up such part of the world as he can. Next, the old men set to work to make the heavens, intending tobroider in the stars in beautiful patterns of bears, birds, and such things."
That is to say, a civilized race 'began to divide up the heavens into constellations, to which they gave the names of the Great and Little Bear, the Wolf, the Serpent, the Dragon, the Eagle, the Swan, the Crane, the Peacock, the Toucan, the Crow, etc.; some of which names they retain among ourselves to this day.
"But, just as they had made a beginning, a prairie-wolf rushed in, and, crying out, 'Why all this trouble and embroidery?' scattered the pile of stars over all the floor of heaven, just as they still lie."
This iconoclastic and unæsthetical prairie-wolf represents a barbarian's incapacity to see in the arrangement
{p. 200}
of the stars any such constellations, or, in fact, anything but an unmeaning jumble of cinders.
And then we learn how the tribes of men separated:
"The old men" (the civilized race, the gods) "prepared two earthentinages, or water-jars, and having decorated one with bright colors, filled it with trifles; while the other was left plain on the outside, but filled within with flocks and herds and riches of all kinds. These jars being covered, and presented to the Navajos and Pueblos, the former chose the gaudy but paltry jar; while the Pueblos received the plain and rich vessel--each nation showing, in its choice, traits which characterize it to this day."
In the legends of the Lenni-Lenape,--the Delaware Indians,--mankind was once buried in the earth with a wolf; and they owed their release to the wolf, who scratched away the soil and dug out a means of escape for the men and for himself. The Root-Diggers of California were released in the same way by a coyote."[1]
"The Tonkaways, a wild people of Texas, still celebrate this early entombment of the race in a most curious fashion. They have a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, isburied in the earth; the others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dighim up with their nails."[2]
Compare this American custom with the religious ceremony of an ancient Italian tribe:
"Three thousand years ago the Hirpani, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe of Italy, were wont to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites, in memory of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain their living as wolves do, by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed in wolf-skins,
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 247.
2. Ibid.]
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ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed wolfishly whatever they could seize."[1]
All the tribes of the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into one common confederacy, unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence they pretended to have emerged. This hill is an elevation of earth about half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast corner a wall of equal height extends for nearly half a mile to the high land. This was theNunne Chaha, properlyNanih waiya, sloping hill, famous in Choctaw story, and which Captain Gregg found they had not yet forgotten in their Western home.
"The legend was, that in its center was a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he made the first men from theclay around him, and, as at that time the waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, hebanished the waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his creatures."[2]
Here, again, we have the beginnings of the present race of men in a cave, surrounded by clay and water, which covered the earth, and we have the water subsiding into its channels and beds, and the dry land appearing, whereupon the men emerged from the cave.
A parallel to this Southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the North. They with one consent looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River, in the State of New York, as the locality where their forefathers saw the light of day; and their name, Oneida, signifiesthe people of the stone.
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 217.
2. Ibid., p. 242.]
{p. 202}
The cave of Pacarin-Tampu, already alluded to, the Lodgings of the Dawn, or the Place of Birth of the Peruvians, was five leagues distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove, and inclosed with temples of great antiquity.
"From its hallowed recesses the mythical civilizers, of Peru, tile first of men, emerged, and in it, during the time of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the waves."[1]
We read in the legends of Oraibi, hereafter quoted more fully, that the people climbed up a ladder from a lower world to this--that is, they ascended from the cave in which they had taken refuge. This was in an age of cold and darkness; there was yet no sun or moon.
The natives in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta, in Northern California, have a strange legend which refers to the age of Caves and Ice.
They say the Great Spirit made Mount Shasta first:
"Boring a hole in the sky," (the heavens cleft in twain of the Edda?) "using alarge stoneas an auger," (the fall of stones and pebbles?) "he pushed downsnow and ice until they reached the desired height;then he stepped from cloud to cloud down tothe great icy pile, and from it to the earth, where he planted the first trees by merely putting his finger into the soil here and there.The sun began to melt the snow; the snow produced water; the water ran down the sides of the mountains, refreshed the trees, and made rivers. The Creator gathered the leaves that fell from the trees, blew upon them, and they became birds," etc.[2]
This is a representation of the end of the Glacial Age.
But the legends of these Indians of Mount Shasta go still further. After narrating, as above, the fall of a
[1. Balboa, "Histoire du Pérou," p. 4.
2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 90.]
{p. 203}
stone from heaven, and the formation of immense masses of ice, which subsequently melted and formed rivers, and after the Creator had made trees, birds,. and animals, especially the grizzly bear, then we have a legend which reminds us of the cave-life which accompanied the great catastrophe:
"Indeed, this animal" (the grizzly bear) "was then so large, strong, and cunning, that the Creator somewhat feared him, and hollowed out Mount Shasta as a wigwam for himself, where he might reside while on earth in the most perfect security and comfort. So the smoke was soon to be seen curling up from the mountain where the Great Spirit and his family lived, and still live, though their hearth-fire is alive no longer, now that the white-man is in the land."
Here the superior race seeks shelter in a cave on Mount Shasta, and their camp-fire is associated with the smoke which once went forth out of the volcano; while an inferior race, a Neanderthal race, dwell in the plains at the foot of the mountain.
"This was thousands of snows ago, and there came after this a late and severe spring-time, in which a memorable storm blew up from the sea, shaking the huge lodge" (Mount Shasta) "to its base."
(Another recollection of the Ice Age.)
"The Great Spirit commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind to be still, cautioning her, at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign, before she delivered her message."[1]
Here we seem to have a reminiscence of the cave-dwellers, looking out at the terrible tempest from their places of shelter.
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 91.]
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The child of the Great Spirit exposes herself too much, is caught by the wind and blown down the mountain-side, where she is found, shivering on the snow, by a family of grizzly bears. These grizzly bears evidently possessed some humane as well as human traits: "They walked then on their hind-legs like men, and talked, and carried clubs, using the fore-limbs as men use their arms." They represent in their bear-skins the rude, fur-clad race that were developed during the intense cold of the Glacial Age.
The child of the Great Spirit, the superior race, intermarries with one of the grizzly bears, andfrom this union came the race of men, to wit, the Indians.
"But the Great Spirit punished the grizzly bears by depriving them of the power of speech, and of standing erect--in short, by making true bears of them. But no Indian will, to this day, kill a grizzly bear, recognizing as he does the tie of blood."
Again, we are told:
"The inhabitants of central Europe and the Teutonic races who came late to England place their mythical heroes under ground in caves, in vaults beneath enchanted castles, orin moundswhich rise up and open, and show their buried inhabitants alive and busy about the avocations of earthly men. . . . In Morayshire the buried race aresupposed to be under the sandhills, as they are in some parts of Brittany."[1]
Associated with these legends we find many that refer to the time of great cold, and snow, and ice. I give one or two specimens:
In the story of the Iroquois, (see p. 173,ante,) we are told that the White One, [the Light One, the Sun,] after he had destroyed the monster who covered the earth with
[1. "Frost and Fire," vol. ii, p. 190.]
{p. 205}
blood and stones, then destroyed the gigantic frog. The frog, a cold-blooded, moist reptile, was always the emblem of water and cold; it represented the great ice-fields that squatted, frog-like, on the face of the earth. It had "swallowed all the waters," says the Iroquois legend; that is, "the waters were congealed in it; and when it was killed great and destructive torrents broke forth and devastated the land, and Manibozho, the White One, the beneficent Sun, guided these waters into smooth streams and lakes." The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a great green frog carved from a single emerald.[1]
In the Omaha we have the fable of "How the Rabbit killed the Winter," told in the Indian manner. The Rabbit was probably a reminiscence of the Great Hare, Manabozho; and he, probably, as we shall see, a recollection of a great race, whose totem was the Hare.
I condense the Indian story:
"The Rabbit in the past time moving came where the Winter was. The Winter said: 'You have not been here lately; sit down.' The Rabbit said he came because his grandmother had altogetherbeaten the life out of him" (the fallendébris?). "The Winter went hunting. It wasvery cold: there was a snow-storm. The Rabbit seared up a deer. 'Shoot him,' said the Rabbit. 'No; I do not hunt such things as that,' said the Winter. They came upon some men. That was the Winter's game. He killed the men andboiled them for supper," (cave-cannibalism). "The Rabbit refused to eat the human flesh. The Winter went hunting again. The Rabbit found out from the Winter's wife that the thing the Winter dreaded most of all the world was the head of a Rocky Mountain sheep. The Rabbit procured one.It was dark. He threw it suddenly at the Winter, saying, 'Uncle, thatround thingby you is the head of a Rocky Mountain
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 185.]
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sheep.' The Winter became altogether dead. Only the woman remained.Therefore from that time it has not been very cold."
Of course, any attempt to interpret such a crude myth must be guess-work. It shows, however, that the Indians believed that there was a time when the winter was much more severe than it is now; it was very cold and dark. Associated with it is the destruction of men and cannibalism. At last the Rabbit brings a round object, (the Sun?), the head of a Rocky Mountain sheep, and the Winter looks on it, and perishes.
Even tropical Peru has its legend of the Age of Ice.
Garcilaso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an ancient indigenous poem of his nation, which seems to allude to a great event, the breaking to fragments of some large object, associated with ice and snow. Dr. Brinton translates it from the Quichua, as follows
"Beauteous princess,Lo, thy brotherBreaks thy vesselNow in fragments.From the blow comeThunder, lightning,Strokes of lightningAnd thou, princess,Tak'st the water,With it raineth,Andthe hail, orSnow dispenseth.Viracocha,World-constructor,World-enlivener,To this officeThee appointed,Thee created."[1]
"Beauteous princess,Lo, thy brotherBreaks thy vesselNow in fragments.From the blow comeThunder, lightning,Strokes of lightningAnd thou, princess,Tak'st the water,With it raineth,Andthe hail, orSnow dispenseth.Viracocha,World-constructor,World-enlivener,To this officeThee appointed,Thee created."[1]
"Beauteous princess,Lo, thy brotherBreaks thy vesselNow in fragments.From the blow comeThunder, lightning,Strokes of lightningAnd thou, princess,Tak'st the water,With it raineth,Andthe hail, orSnow dispenseth.Viracocha,World-constructor,World-enlivener,To this officeThee appointed,Thee created."[1]
[1. "Myths of the New World," p. 167.]
{p. 207}
But it may be asked, How in such a period of terror and calamity--as we must conceive the comet to have caused-would men think of finding refuge in caves?
The answer is plain: either they or their ancestors had lived in caves.
Caves were the first shelters of uncivilized men. It was not necessary to fly to the caves through the rain of fallingdébris; many were doubtless already in them when the great world-storm broke, and others naturally sought their usual dwelling-places.
"The cavern," says Brinton, "dimly lingered in the memories of nations."
Man is born of the earth; he is made of the clay like Adam, created--
"Of good red clay,Haply from Mount Aornus, beyond sweepOf the black eagle's wing."
"Of good red clay,Haply from Mount Aornus, beyond sweepOf the black eagle's wing."
"Of good red clay,Haply from Mount Aornus, beyond sweepOf the black eagle's wing."
The cave-temples of India-the oldest temples, probably, on earth--are a reminiscence of this cave-life.
We shall see hereafter that Lot and his daughters "dwelt in a cave"; and we shall find Job bidden away in the "narrow-mouthed bottomless" pit or cave.
[1. "Myths of the New World," p. 244.]
{p. 208}
ALL the cosmogonies begin with an Age of Darkness; a damp, cold, rainy, dismal time.
Hesiod tells us, speaking of the beginning of things
"In truth, then,foremost sprung Chaos. . . . But from Chaos were bornErebus and black Night;and from Night again sprang forth Æther and Day, whom she bare after having conceived byunion with Erebus."
Aristophanes, in his "Aves," says:[1]
"Chaos and Night and black Erebusand wide Tartarusfirst existed."[2]
Orpheus says:
"From the beginning the gloomy night enveloped and obscured all thingsthat were under the ether" (the clouds). "The earth was invisible on account of the darkness, but the lightbroke through the ether" (the clouds), "and illuminated the earth."
By this power were produced the sun, moon, and stars.[3]
It is from Sanchoniathon that we derive most of the little we know of that ancient and mysterious people, the Phœnicians. He lived before the Trojan war; and of his writings but fragments survive--quotations in the writings of others.
[1. "The Theogony."
2. Faber's "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," vol. i, p. 255.
3. Cory's "Fragments," p. 298.]
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He tells us that--
"The beginning of all things was a condensed, windy air, or a breeze ofthickair, and achaos turbid and black as Erebus.
"Out of this chaos was generated Môt, which some call Ilus," (mud,) "but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from this sprang all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe. . . . And, when the air began to send forth light, winds were produced and clouds, and very great defluxions andtorrents of the heavenly waters."
Was this "thick air" the air thick with comet-dust, which afterward became the mud? Is this the meaning of the "turbidchaos"?
We turn to the Babylonian legends. Berosus wrote from records preserved in the temple of Belus at Babylon. He says:
"There was a time in which thereexisted nothing but darknessand anabyss of waters, wherein residedmost hideous beings, which were produced of a twofold principle."
Were these "hideous beings" the comets?
From the "Laws of Menu," of the Hindoos, we learn that the universe existed at first in darkness.
We copy the following text from the Vedas:
"The Supreme Being alone existed;afterward there was universal darkness;next the watery ocean was produced by the diffusion of virtue."
We turn to the legends of the Chinese, and we find the same story:
Their annals begin with "Pwan-ku, or the Reign of Chaos."[1]
[1. "The Ancient Dynasties of Berosus and China," Rev. T. P. Crawford, D. D., p. 4.]
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And we are told by the Chinese historians that--
"P'an-ku came forth in the midst of thegreat chaotic void, and we know not his origin; that he knew the rationale of heaven and earth, andcomprehended the changes of the Darkness and the Light."[1]
He "existedbefore the shining of the Light."[2] He was "the Prince of Chaos."
"After the chaoscleared away, heaven appeared first in order, then earth, then after they existed,and the atmosphere had changed its character, man came forth."[3]
That is to say, P'an-ku lived through the Age of Darkness, during a chaotic period, and while the atmosphere was pestilential with the gases of the comet. Where did he live? The Chinese annals tell us:
"In the age after the chaos, when heaven and earth hadjust separated."
That is, when the great mass of cloud had just lifted from the earth:
"Records had not yet been established or inscriptions invented. At first even the rulersdwelt in cavesand desert places, eating raw flesh and drinking blood. At this fortunate juncture Pan-ku-szecame forth, and from that time heaven and earth began to be heaven and earth, men and things to be men and things, and so the chaotic state passed away."[1]
This is the rejuvenation of the world told of in so many legends.
And these annals tell us further of the "Ten Stems," being the stages of the earth's primeval history.
"AtWu--the Sixth Stem--the Darkness and the Light unitewith injurious effects--all things becomesolid," (frozen?), "and the Darkness destroys the growth of all things.
[1. Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing 1526-1590," Crawford, p. 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 3.]
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"AtKung--the Seventh Stem--the Darkness nips all things."
But the Darkness is passing away:
"AtJin--the Ninth Stem--the Lightbegins to nourish all things in the recesses below.
"Lastly, atTsze, all thingsbegin to germinate."[1]
The same story is told in the "Twelve Branches."
"1.K'wun-tunstands for the period ofchaos, the cold midnight darkness. It is said that with it all things began to germinate in the hidden recesses of the under-world."
In the 2d--Ch'i-fun-yoh--"light and heat become active, and all things begin to rise in obedience to its nature." In the 3d--Sheh-ti-kuh--the stars and sun probably appear, as from this point the calendar begins. In the 5th--Chi-shii--all things in a torpid state begin to come forth. In the 8th--Hëen-hia--all things harmonize, and the present order of things is established; that is to say, the effects of the catastrophe have largely passed away.[2]
The kings who governed before the Drift were called the Rulers of heaven and earth; those who came after were the Rulers of man.
"Cheu Ching-huensays: 'The Rulers of man succeeded to the Rulers of heaven and the Rulers of earth in the government; that thenthe atmosphere gradually cleared away, and all things sprang up together; that the order of time was gradually settled, and the usages of society gradually became correct and respectful."[3]
And then we read that "the day and night had not yet been divided," but, after a time, "day and night were distinguished from each other."[4]
Here we have the history of some event which changed
[1. "Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing 1526-1590," Crawford, pp. 4, 5.
2. Ibid., p. 8.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 7.]
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the dynasties of the world: the heavenly kingdom was succeeded by a merely human one; there were chaos, cold, and darkness, and death to vegetation; then the light increases, and vegetation begins once more to germinate; the atmosphere is thick; the heavens rest on the earth; day and night can not be distinguished from one another, and mankind dwell in caves, and live on raw meat and blood.
Surely all this accords wonderfully with our theory.
And here we have the same story in another form:
"The philosopher of Oraibi tells us that when the people ascended by means of the magical tree, which constituted the ladder from the lower world to this, they found the firmament,the ceiling of this world, low down upon the earth--the floor of this world."
That is to say, when the people climbed up, from the cave in which they were bidden, to the surface of the earth, the dense clouds rested on the face of the earth.
"Machito, one of their gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is now seen.Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. Machito said, 'Bring me seven maidens'; and they brought him seven maidens; and he said, 'Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls'; and they brought him seven baskets of cotton-bolls; and he taught the seven maidens to weave a magical fabric from the cotton, and when they had finished it he held it aloft, and the breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in the twinkling of an eye it was transformed into a beautiful and full-orbed moon; and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton, which the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried them aloft, and they were transformed into bright stars. Butstill it was cold;and the people murmured again, and Machito said, 'Bring me seven buffalo-robes'; and they brought him seven buffalo-robes, and from the densely matted hair of the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the storm carried
{p. 213}
away into the sky, and it was transformed into the full-orbed sun. Then Machito appointed times and seasons, and ways for the heavenly bodies; and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the injunctions of Machito from the day of their creation to the present." *
Among the Thlinkeets of British Columbia there is a legend that the Great Crow or Raven, Yehl, was the creator of most things:
"Very dark, damp, and chaoticwas the world in the beginning; nothing with breath or body moved there except Yehl; in the likeness ofa raven he brooded over the mist; his black winds beat down the vast confusion; the waters went back before him and the dry land appeared. The Thlinkeets were placed on the earth--though how or when does not exactly appear--while the world wasstill in darkness, and without sun, moon, or stars."[2]
The legend proceeds at considerable length to tell the doings of Yehl. His uncle tried to slay him, and, when he failed, "he imprecated with a potent curse a deluge upon all the earth. . . . The flood came, the waters rose and rose; but Yehl clothed himself in his bird-skin, and soared up to the heavens, where he stuck his beak into a cloud, and remained until the waters were assuaged."[3]
This tradition reminds us of the legend of the Thessalian Cerambos, "who escaped the flood by rising into the air on wings, given him by the nymphs."
I turn now to the traditions of the Miztecs, who dwelt on the outskirts of the Mexican Empire; this legend was taken by Fray Gregoria Garcia[4] from a book found in a convent in Cuilapa, a little Indian town, about a league and a half south of Oajaca; the book had been compiled by the vicar of the convent, "just as they
[1. "Popular Science Monthly," October, 1879, p. 800.
2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 98.
3. Ibid., p. 99.
4. "Origen de los Ind.," pp. 327-329.]
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themselves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls":
"In the year and inthe day of obscurity and darkness," (the days of the dense clouds?), "yea, even before the days or the years were," (before the visible revolution of the sun marked the days, and the universal darkness and cold prevented the changes of the seasons?), "when the world was ingreat darkness and chaos, when the earth was covered with water, and there was nothing butmud and slime on all the face of the earth--behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surname was the Lion-snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-snake. These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods."
This lion-snake was probably one of the comets; the tiger-snake was doubtless a second comet, called after the tiger, on account of its variegated, mottled appearance. It will be observed they appearedbeforethe light had returned,
These gods built a temple on a high place, and laid out a garden, and waited patiently, offering sacrifices to the higher gods, wounding themselves withflintknives, and "praying that it might seem good to them to shape the firmament, andlighten the darknessof the world, and to establish the foundation of the earth; or, rather, to gather the waters together so that the earth might appear--as they had no place to rest in save only one little garden."
Here we have the snakes and the people confounded together. The earth was afterward made fit for the use of mankind, and at a later date there came--
"A great deluge, wherein perished many of the sons and daughters that had been born to the gods; and it is said that, when the deluge was passed, the human race
{p. 215}
was restored, as at the first, and the Miztec kingdom populated, and the heavens and the earth established."[1]
Father Duran, in his MS. "History Antique of New Spain," written in A. D. 1585, gives the Cholula legend, which commences:
"In the beginning,before the light of the sunhad been created, this land wasin obscurity and darknessand void of any created thing."
In the Toltec legends we read of a time when--
"There was a tremendous hurricane that carried away trees, mounds, houses, and the largest edifices, notwithstanding which many men and women escaped,principally in caves, and places where the great hurricane could not reach them. A few days having passed, they set out to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness,without seeing the light of the sun, nor the moon, that the wind had brought them."[2]
In the Aztec creation-myths, according to the accounts furnished by Mendieta, and derived from Fray Andres de Olmos, one of the earliest of the Christian missionaries among the Mexicans, we have the following legend of the "Return of the Sun":
"Now, there had been no sun in existence for many years;so the gods being assembled in a place called Teotihuacan, six leagues from Mexico, and gathered at the timearound a great fire, told their devotees that he of them who should first cast himself into that, fire should have the honor of being transformed into a sun. So, one of them, called Nanahuatzin . . . flung himself into the fire. Then the gods" (the chiefs?) "began to peer through the gloom in all directionsfor the expected light, and to make bets as to what part of heaven. he should
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, pp. 71-73.
2. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 239.]
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first appear in. Some said 'Here,' and some said 'There'; but when the sun rose they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east."
In the long-continued darkness they had lost all knowledge of the cardinal points. The ancient landmarks, too, were changed.
The "Popul Vuh," the national book of the Quiches, tells us of four ages of the world. The man of the first age was made of clay; he was "strengthless, inept, watery; he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was restricted, he could not look behind him," that is, he had no knowledge of the past; "he had been endowed with language, but he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water."[1]
Then followed a higher race of men; they filled the world with their progeny; they had intelligence, butno moral sense"; "they forgot the Heart of Heaven." They weredestroyed by fire and pitch from heaven, accompanied by tremendous earthquakes, from which only a few escaped.
Then followed a periodwhen all was dark, save the white light "of the morning-star--sole light as yet of the primeval world"--probably a volcano.
"Once more are the gods in council,in the darkness, in the night of a desolated universe."
Then the people prayed to God for light, evidently for the return of the sun:
"'Hail! O Creator they cried, 'O Former! Thou that hearest and understandest us! abandon us not! forsake us not! O God, thou that art in heaven and on earth; O Heart of Heaven I O Heart of Earth!give us descendants, and a posterity as long as the light endure.'" . . .
In other words, let not the human race cease to be.
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 46.]
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"It was thus they spake, living tranquilly,invoking the return of the light; waiting the rising of the sun;watching the star of the morning, precursor of the sun. But no sun came, and the four men and their descendants grew uneasy. 'We have no person to watch over us,' they said; 'nothing to guard our symbols!' Then they adopted gods of their own, and waited. They kindled fires,for the climate was colder;then there fellgreat rains and hail-storms,and put out their fires. Several times they made fires, and several times the rains and storms extinguished them. Many other trials also they underwent in Tulan, famines and such things, anda general dampness and cold--for the earth wasmoist, there being yet no sun."
All this accords with what I have shown we might expect as accompanying the close of the so-called Glacial Age. Dense clouds covered the sky, shutting out the light of the sun; perpetual rains and storms fell; the world was cold and damp, muddy and miserable; the people were wanderers, despairing and hungry. They seem to have come from an eastern land. We are told:
"Tulan was a much colder climate than the happy eastern land they had left."
Many generations seem to have grown up and perished under the sunless skies, "waiting for the return of the light"; for the "Popul Vuh" tells us that "here also the language of all the families was confused, so that no one of the first four men could any longer understand the speech of the others."
That is to say, separation and isolation into rude tribes had made their tongues unintelligible to one another.
This shows that many, many years--it may be centuries--must have elapsed before that vast volume of moisture, carried up by evaporation, was able to fall
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back, in snow and rain to the land and sea, and allow the sun to shine through "the blanket of the dark." Starvation encountered the scattered fragments of mankind.
And in these same Quiche legends of Central America we are told:
"The persons of the godhead were enveloped in thedarkness which enshrouded a desolated world."[1]
They counseled together, and created four men of white and yellow maize (the white and yellow races?). It wasstill dark;for they had no light but the light of the morning-star. They came to Tulan.
And the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg gives further details of the Quiche legends:
Now, behold our ancients and our fathers were made lords, andhad their dawn. Behold we will relate also the rising of the sun, the moon, and the stars! Great was their joy when they saw the morning-star, which came out first, with its resplendent face before the sun.At lastthe sun itself began to come forth; the animals, small and great, were in joy; they rose from the water-courses and ravines, and stood on the mountain-tops, with their heads toward where the sun was coming. An innumerable crowd of people were there, and the dawn cast light on all these people at once. At lastthe face of the ground was dried by the sun:like a man the sun showed himself, and his presence warmed and dried the surface of the ground. Before the sun appeared,muddy and wetwas the surface of the ground, and it was before the sun appeared, and then only the sun rose like a man.But his heat had no strength, and hedid but show when he rose;he only remained like" (an image in) "a mirror and it is not, indeed, the same sun that appears now, they say, in the stories."[2]
[1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 214.
2. Tylor's "Early History of Mankind," p. 308.]
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How wonderfully does all this accord with what we have shown would follow from the earth's contact with a comet!
The earth is wet and covered with mud, the clay; the sun is long absent; at last he returns; he dries the mud, but his face is still covered with the remnants of the great cloud-belt; "his heat has no strength"; he shows himself only in glimpses; he shines through the fogs like an image in a mirror; he is not like the great blazing orb we see now.
But the sun, when it did appear in all its glory, must have been a terrible yet welcome sight to those who had not looked upon him for many years. We read in the legends of the Thlinkeets of British Columbia, after narrating that the world was once "dark, damp, and chaotic," full of water, with no sun, moon, or stars, how these luminaries were restored. The great hero-god of the race, Yehl, got hold of three mysterious boxes, and, wrenching the lids off, let out the sun, moon, and stars.
"When he set up the blazing light" (of the sun) "in heaven, the people that saw it were at first afraid. Many hid themselves in the mountains, and in the forests, and even in the water, and were changed into the various kinds of animals that frequent these places."[1]
Says James Geikie:
"Nor can we form any proper conception of how long a time was needed to bring about that other change of climate, under the influence of which, slowly and imperceptibly, this immense sheet of frost melted away from the lowlands and retired to the mountain recesses. We must allow that long ages elapsed before the warmth became such as to induce plants and animals to clothe and people the land. How vast a time, also, must have passed away ere the warmth reached its climax!"[2]
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 100.
2. "The Great Ice Age," p. 184.]
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And all this time the rain fell. There could be no return of the sun until all the mass of moisture sucked up by the comet's heat had been condensed into water, and falling on the earth had found its way back to the ocean; and this process had to be repeated many times. It was the age of the great primeval rain.
###
THE PRIMEVAL STORM.
In the Andes, Humboldt tells us of a somewhat similar state of facts:
"A thick mist during a particular season obscures the firmament for many months. Not a planet, not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--Canopus, the
{p. 221}
Southern Cross, nor the feet of Centaur--are visible. It is frequently almost impossible to discover the position of the moon. If by chance the outlines of the sun's disk be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays."
Says Croll:
"We have seen that the accumulation of snow and ice on the ground, resulting from the long and cold winters, tended to cool the air and produce fogs, which cut off the sun's rays."[1]
The same writer says:
"Snow and ice lower the temperature by chilling the air and condensing the rays into thick fogs. The great strength of the sun's rays during summer, due to his nearness at that season, would, in the first place, tend to produce an increased amount of evaporation. But the presence of snow-clad mountains and an icy sea would chill the atmosphere and condense the vapors into thick fogs. The thick fogs and cloudy sky would effectually prevent the sun's rays from reaching the earth, and the snow, in consequence, would remain unmelted during the entire summer. In fact, we have this very condition of things exemplified in some of the islands of the Southern Ocean at the present day. Sandwich Land, which is in the same parallel of latitude as the north of Scotland, is covered with ice and snow the entire summer; and in the Island of South Georgia, which is in the same parallel as the center of England, the perpetual snow descends to the very sea-beach. The following is Captain Cook's description of this dismal place: 'We thought it very extraordinary,' he says, 'that an island between the latitudes of 54° and 55° should, in the very height of summer, be almost wholly covered with frozen snow, in some places many fathoms deep. . . . The head of the bay was terminated by ice-cliffs of considerable height, pieces of which were continually breaking off, which made a noise like cannon. Nor were the interior parts of the country less horrible. The savage rocks raised their lofty summits
[1. "Climate and Time," p. 75.]
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till lost in the clouds, and valleys were covered with seemingly perpetual snow. Not a tree nor a shrub of any size was to be seen.'"
I return to the legends.
The Gallinomeros of Central California also recollect the day of darkness and the return of the sun:
"In the beginning they say there wasno light, but a thick darkness covered all the earth. Man stumbled blindly against man and against the animals, the birds clashed together in the air, and confusion reigned everywhere. The Hawk happening by chance to fly into the face of the Coyote, there followed mutual apologies, and afterward a long discussion on the emergency of the situation. Determined to make some effort toward abating the public evil, the two set about a remedy. The Coyote gathered a great heap, of tules" (rushes) "rolled them into a ball, and gave it to the Hawk, together with some pieces of flint. Gathering all together as well as he could, the Hawk flew straight up into the sky, where he struck fire with the flints, lit his ball of reeds, and left it there whirling along all in a fierce red glow as it continues to the present; for it is the sun. In the same way the moon was made, but as the tules of which it was constructed were rather damp, its light has always been somewhat uncertain and feeble."[2]
The Algonquins believed in a world, an earth, "anterior to this of ours, but onewithout light or human inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly."
This reminds us of the Welsh legend, and the bursting of the lake Llion (see page 135,ante).
The ancient world was united in believing in great cycles of time terminating in terrible catastrophes:
[1. Captain Cook's "Second Voyage," vol. ii, pp. 232-235;
2. "Climate and Time," Croll, pp. 60, 61.
3. Powers's Pomo MS., Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 86.]
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Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounding off by sweeping destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some thought in these all things perished, others that a few survived. . . . For instance, Epietetus favors the opinion that at the solstices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely.[1] Macrobius, so far from agreeing with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and the equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great cycle."[2]
In the Babylonian Genesis tablets we have the same references to the man or people who, after the great disaster, divided the heavens into constellations, and regulated, that is, discovered and revealed, their movements. In the Fifth Tablet of the Creation Legend[3] we read:
"1. It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.
2. Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.
3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,
4. Twelve months or signs of stars in three rows he arranged,
5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.
6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars to shine in their courses,
7. That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one."
That is to say, the civilized race that followed the great cataclysm, with whom the history of the event was
[1. Discourses," book iii, chapter xiii.
2. Brinton's Myths of the New World," p. 215.
3. Proctor's Pleasant Ways," p. 393.]
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yet fresh, and who were impressed with all its horrors, and who knew well the tenure of danger and terror on which they held all the blessings of the world, turned their attention to the study of the heavenly bodies, and sought to understand the source of the calamity which had so recently overwhelmed the world. Hence they "marked," as far as they were able, "the positions of the 'comets,'" "that they might not" again "do injury, and not trouble any one." The word here given isNibir, which Mr. Smith says does not mean planets, and, in the above account,Nibiris contradistinguished from the stars; they have already been arranged in constellations; hence it can only mean comets.
And the tablet proceeds, with distinct references to the Age of Darkness:
"8. The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him,
9. Andhe opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded.
10. The fastenings were strong on the left and right.
11. In its mass, (i. e., the lower chaos,) he made aboiling.
12. The god Uru (the moon)he caused to rise out, thenight he overshadowed,
13. To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day.
14. That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular,
15. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,
16. His (the sun's) horns are breaking through to shine on the heavens.
17. On the seventh dayto a circle he begins to swell,
18. And stretchestoward the dawn further,
19. When the god Shamas, (the in the horizon of heaven, in the east,
20 . . . . formed beautifully and . . .
21 . . . . to the orbit Shamas was perfected."
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Here the tablet becomes illegible. The meaning, however, seems plain:
Although to left and right, to east and west, the darkness was fastened firm, was dense, yet "the great gods opened the great gates in the darkness," and let the light through. First, the moon appeared, through a "boiling," or breaking up of the clouds, so that now men were able to once more count time by the movements of the moon. On the seventh day, Shamas, the sun, appeared; first, his horns, his beams, broke through the darkness imperfectly; then he swells to a circle, and comes nearer and nearer to perfect dawn; at last he appeared on the horizon, in the east, formed beautifully, and his orbit was perfected; i. e., his orbit could be traced continuously through the clearing heavens.
But how did the human race fare in this miserable time?
In his magnificent poem "Darkness," Byron has imagined such a blind and darkling world as these legends depict; and he has imagined, too, the hunger, and the desolation, and the degradation of the time.
We are not to despise the imagination. There never was yet a great thought that had not wings to it; there never was yet a great mind that did not survey things from above the mountain-tops.
If Bacon built the causeway over which modern science has advanced, it was because, mounting on the pinions of his magnificent imagination, he saw that poor struggling mankind needed such a pathway; his heart embraced humanity even as his brain embraced the universe.
The river which is a boundary to the rabbit, is but a landmark to the eagle. Let not the gnawers of the world, the rodentia, despise the winged creatures of the upper air.
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Byron saw what the effects of the absence of the sunlight would necessarily be upon the world, and that which he prefigured the legends of mankind tell us actually came to pass, in the dark days that followed the Drift.
He says:
"Morn came, and went--and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation, and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light. . . .A fearful hope was all the world contained;Forests were set on fire--but hour by hourThey fell and faded,--and the crackling trunksExtinguished with a crash,--and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them; some lay downAnd bid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clinchèd hands and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled. . . .And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again--a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sat sullenly apart,Gorging himself in gloom, . . . and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails;--menDied, and their bones were tombless as their fleshThe meager by the meager were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters."
"Morn came, and went--and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation, and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light. . . .A fearful hope was all the world contained;Forests were set on fire--but hour by hourThey fell and faded,--and the crackling trunksExtinguished with a crash,--and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them; some lay downAnd bid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clinchèd hands and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled. . . .And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again--a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sat sullenly apart,Gorging himself in gloom, . . . and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails;--menDied, and their bones were tombless as their fleshThe meager by the meager were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters."
"Morn came, and went--and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation, and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light. . . .A fearful hope was all the world contained;Forests were set on fire--but hour by hourThey fell and faded,--and the crackling trunksExtinguished with a crash,--and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them; some lay downAnd bid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clinchèd hands and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled. . . .And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again--a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sat sullenly apart,Gorging himself in gloom, . . . and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails;--menDied, and their bones were tombless as their fleshThe meager by the meager were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters."
How graphic, how dramatic, how realistic is this picture! And how true!
For the legends show us that when, at last, the stones and clay had ceased to fall, and the fire had exhausted itself, and the remnant of mankind were able to dig their way out, to what an awful wreck of nature did they return.
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Instead of the fair face of the world, as they had known it, bright with sunlight, green with the magnificent foliage of the forest, or the gentle verdure of the plain, they go forth upon a wasted, an unknown land, covered with oceans of mud and stones; the very face of the country changed--lakes, rivers, hills, all swept away and lost. They wander, breathing a foul and sickening atmosphere, under the shadow of an awful darkness, a darkness which knows no morning, no stars, no moon; a darkness palpable and visible, lighted only by electrical discharges from the abyss of clouds, with such roars of thunder as we, in this day of harmonious nature, can form no conception of. It is, indeed, "chaos and ancient night." All the forces of nature are there, but disorderly, destructive, battling against each other, and multiplied a thousand-fold in power; the winds are cyclones, magnetism is gigantic, electricity is appalling.
The world is more desolate than the caves from which they have escaped. The forests are gone; the fruit-trees are swept away; the beasts of the chase have perished; the domestic animals, gentle ministers to man, have disappeared; the cultivated fields are buried deep in drifts of mud and gravel; the people stagger in the darkness against each other; they fall into the chasms of the earth; within them are the two great oppressors of humanity, hunger and terror; hunger that knows not where to turn; fear that shrinks before the whirling blasts, the rolling thunder, the shocks of blinding lightning; that knows not what moment the heavens may again open and rain fire and stones and dust upon them.
God has withdrawn his face; his children are deserted; all the, kindly adjustments of generous Nature are gone. God has left man in the midst of a material world without law; he is a wreck, a fragment, a lost particle,
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in the midst of an illimitable and endless warfare of giants.
Some lie down to die, hopeless, cursing their helpless gods; some die by their own bands; some gather around the fires of volcanoes for warmth and light--stars that attract them from afar off; some feast on such decaying remnants of the great animals as they may find projecting above thedébris, running to them, as we shall see, with outcries, and fighting over the fragments.
The references to the worship of "the morning star," which occur in the legend, seem to relate to some great volcano in the East, which alone gave light when all the world was lost in darkness. As Byron says, in his great poem, "Darkness":
And they did live by watch-fires--and the thrones,The palaces of crownèd kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were theywho dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanoes and their mountain-torch."
And they did live by watch-fires--and the thrones,The palaces of crownèd kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were theywho dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanoes and their mountain-torch."
And they did live by watch-fires--and the thrones,The palaces of crownèd kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were theywho dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanoes and their mountain-torch."
In this pitiable state were once the ancestors of all mankind.
If you doubt it, reader, peruse again the foregoing legends, and then turn to the following Central American prayer, the prayer of the Aztecs, already referred to on page 186,ante, addressed to the god Tezcatlipoca, himself represented as a flying or winged serpent, perchance the comet:
"Is it possible that this lash and chastisement are not given for our correction and amendment, but only for our total destruction and overthrow; thatthe sun will never more shine upon us, but that we must remain in perpetual darkness?. . . It is a sore thing to tell how we are all in
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darkness. . . . O Lord, . . . make an end ofthis smoke and fog. Quench also theburning and destroying fire of thine anger; let serenity come andclearness," (light); "let the small birds of thy people begin to sing andapproach the sun."
There is still another Aztec prayer, addressed to the same deity, equally able, sublime, and pathetic, which it seems to me may have been uttered when the people had left their biding-place, when the conflagration had passed, but while darkness still covered the earth, before vegetation had returned, and while crops of grain as yet were not. There are a few words in it that do not answer to this interpretation, where it refers to those "people who have something"; but there may have been comparative differences of condition even in the universal poverty; or these words may have been an interpolation of later days. The prayer is as follows:
"O our Lord, protector most strong and compassionate, invisible and impalpable, thou art the giver of life; lord of all, and lord of battles. I present myself here before thee to say some few words concerning the need of the poor people of none estate or intelligence. When they lie down at night they have nothing, nor when they rise up in the morning; the darkness and the light pass alike in great poverty. Know, O Lord, that thy subjects and servants suffer a sore poverty that can not be told of more than that it is a sore poverty and desolateness. The men have no garments, nor the women, to cover themselves with, but only certain rags rent in every part, that allow the air and the cold to pass everywhere.
"With great toil and weariness they scrape together enough for each day,going by mountain and wilderness seeking their food; so faint and enfeebled are they that their bowels cleave to their ribs, and all their body reechoes with hollowness, and they walk as people affrighted, the face and body in likeness of death. If they be merchants, they now sell only cakes of salt and broken
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pepper; the people that have something despise their wares, so that they go out to sell from door to door, and from house to house; and when they sell nothing they sit down sadly by some fence or wall, or in some corner, licking their lips and gnawing the nails of their hands for the hunger that is in them; they look on the one side and on the other at the mouths of those that pass by, hoping peradventure that one may speak some word to them.
"O compassionate God, the bed on which they lie down is not a thing to rest upon, but to endure torment in; they draw a rag over them at night, and so sleep; there they throw down their bodies, and the bodies of children that thou hast given them. For the misery that they grow up in, for the filth of their food, for the lack of covering, their faces are yellow, and all their bodies of the color of earth. Theytremble with cold, and for leaness they stagger in walking. They go weeping and sighing, and full of sadness, and all misfortunes are joined to them;though they stay by afire, they find little heat."[1]