"The first of these events," it is said, "was the irruption of Llyn-llion, or 'the lake of waves,' and the inundation (bawdd) of the whole country, by which all mankind was drowned with the exception of Dwyfan and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel without rigging, and it was by them that the island of Prydain was re-peopled."[51]
"The first of these events," it is said, "was the irruption of Llyn-llion, or 'the lake of waves,' and the inundation (bawdd) of the whole country, by which all mankind was drowned with the exception of Dwyfan and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel without rigging, and it was by them that the island of Prydain was re-peopled."[51]
Pictet here observes—
"Although the triads in their actual form hardly date further than the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly connected with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to a borrowing from Genesis."But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad[52]speaking of the vessel Nefydd-naf-Neifion, which at the time of the overflow of Llyn-llion, bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too much resembles the ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch may have suggested this triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning, but evidently formed on the principle of Cymric alliteration. In the same triad we have the enigmatic story of the horned oxen (ychain bannog) of Hu the mighty, who drew out of Llyn-llion theavanc(beaver or crocodile?) in order that the lake should not overflow. The meaning of these enigmas could only be hoped from deciphering the chaos of bardic monuments of the Welsh middle age; but meanwhile we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an indigenous tradition of the Deluge."
"Although the triads in their actual form hardly date further than the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly connected with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to a borrowing from Genesis.
"But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad[52]speaking of the vessel Nefydd-naf-Neifion, which at the time of the overflow of Llyn-llion, bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too much resembles the ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch may have suggested this triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning, but evidently formed on the principle of Cymric alliteration. In the same triad we have the enigmatic story of the horned oxen (ychain bannog) of Hu the mighty, who drew out of Llyn-llion theavanc(beaver or crocodile?) in order that the lake should not overflow. The meaning of these enigmas could only be hoped from deciphering the chaos of bardic monuments of the Welsh middle age; but meanwhile we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an indigenous tradition of the Deluge."
We also find a vestige of the same tradition in the Scandinavian Ealda.[53]But here the story is combined with a cosmogonic myth. The three sons of Borr, Othin, Wili, and We, grandsons of Buri, the first man, slay Ymir, the father of the Hrimthursar or Ice giants, and his body serves them for the construction of the world. Blood flows from his wounds in such abundance that all the race of giants is drowned in it, except Bergelmir, who saves himself, with his wife, in a boat, and reproduces the race. "Thus," Pictet again observes, "the myth onlybelongs to the general tradition through these last features, by which, however, we trace it up to a common source."
Of all European peoples the Lithuanians were the last to embrace Christianity, and their language remains nearest to the original Aryan. They have a legend of the Deluge, the groundwork of which appears very ancient, although it has assumed the simple character of a popular tale, and some of its details may have been borrowed from Genesis at the time of the first Christian missions. According to it[54]the god Pramzimras, seeing the whole earth to be full of iniquity, sends two giants, Wandu and Wêjas (fire and wind), to lay it waste. These overthrew everything in their fury, and only a few men saved themselves on a mountain. Pramzimras, who was engaged in eating celestial walnuts, dropped a shell near the mountain, and in it the men took refuge, the giants respecting it. Having escaped from the calamity, they afterwards disperse, and only one very aged couple remain in the country, greatly bewailing their childless condition. Pramzimras, to console them, sends his rainbow and bids them jump "on the bones of the earth," which curiously recalls the oracle to Deucalion. The two old people jump nine times, and nine pairs are the result, who became the ancestors of the nine Lithuanian tribes.
Egyptian Traditions.—While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place in the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogonic speculations, have not afforded one, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm. When the Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the Deluge of Deucalion, their reply was that they had been preserved from it as well as from the conflagration produced by Phaëton; they even added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much importance to that event, as there had been several other local catastrophes resembling it. According to a passage in Manetho, much suspected, however, of being an interpolation, Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus had himself, before the cataclysm, inscribed on stelæ in hieroglyphical and sacred language the principles of all knowledge. After it the second Thoth translated into the vulgar tongue the contents of these stelæ. This would be the only Egyptian mention of the Deluge, the same Manetho not speaking of it in what remains to us of his "Dynasties," his only complete authentic work. The silence of all other myths of the Pharaonic religion on this head render it very likely that the above is merely a foreign tradition, recently introduced, and no doubt of Asiatic and Chaldean origin. "Thus," says M. Maury, "the Seriadic land, where the passage in question places these hieroglyphic columns, might very well be no other than Chaldea. This tradition, though not in the Bible, existed as a popular legend among the Jews at the beginningof our era, which confirms our supposition; as the Hebrews might have learnt it during the Babylonian captivity. Josephus tells us that the patriarch Seth, in order that wisdom and astronomical knowledge should not perish, erected, in prevision of the double destruction by fire and water predicted by Adam, two columns, the one in brick, the other in stone, on which this knowledge was engraved, and which subsisted in the Seriadic country." This history is evidently only a variety of the Chaldean legend of the terra-cotta tables bearing the divine revelations, and the principles of all sciences which Êa ordered Khasisatra to bury before the Deluge, "in the city of the Sun at Sippara," as we have had it above in the extracts from Berosus.
Nevertheless, the Egyptians did admit a destruction by the gods of primal men on account of their rebellion and their sins. This event was related in a chapter of the sacred books of Thoth, those famous Hermetic books of the Egyptian priesthood which are graven on the sides of one of the inmost chambers of the funereal hypogeum of Seti the First at Thebes. The text has been published and translated by M. Edouard Naville.[55]
The scene is laid at the close of the reign of the god Râ, the earliest terrestrial reign, according to the system of the priests of Thebes, the second, according to that of the priests of Memphis, which is the one followed by Manetho, who placed at the very origin of things the reign of Phtah, previous to that of Râ. Irritated by the impiety and crimes of the men he has made, the god assembles the other gods to hold counsel with them in profound secrecy, "so that men should not see it, nor their heart be afraid."
"Said by Râ to Nun:[56]'Thou, the eldest of the gods, of whom I am born, and ye ancient gods, here are the men who are born from myself; they speak words against me, tell me what you would do in the matter; lo, I have waited, and have not slain them before hearing your words.'"Said by the Majesty of Nun: 'My son Râ, a greater god than he who has made him and created him, I stand in great fear of thee; do thou deliberate alone.'"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'Lo, they take to flight through the country, and their hearts are afraid....'"Said by the Gods: 'Let thy face permit, and let those men be smitten who plot evil things, thine enemies, and let none [of them remain.]'"
"Said by Râ to Nun:[56]'Thou, the eldest of the gods, of whom I am born, and ye ancient gods, here are the men who are born from myself; they speak words against me, tell me what you would do in the matter; lo, I have waited, and have not slain them before hearing your words.'
"Said by the Majesty of Nun: 'My son Râ, a greater god than he who has made him and created him, I stand in great fear of thee; do thou deliberate alone.'
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'Lo, they take to flight through the country, and their hearts are afraid....'
"Said by the Gods: 'Let thy face permit, and let those men be smitten who plot evil things, thine enemies, and let none [of them remain.]'"
A goddess, whose name has unfortunately disappeared, but who seems to have been Tefnut, identified with Hathor and Sekhet, is then sent to accomplish the sentence of destruction.
"This goddess left, and slew the men upon the earth."Said by the Majesty of this God: 'Come in peace, Hathor; thou hast done [what was ordained thee.]'"Said by this Goddess: 'Thou art living; for I have been stronger than men, and my heart is satisfied.'"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'I am living, for I will rule over them [and I will complete] their ruin.'"And lo, Sekhet, during several nights, trod their blood under-foot as far as the town of Hâ-klinen-su (Héracléopolis.)"
"This goddess left, and slew the men upon the earth.
"Said by the Majesty of this God: 'Come in peace, Hathor; thou hast done [what was ordained thee.]'
"Said by this Goddess: 'Thou art living; for I have been stronger than men, and my heart is satisfied.'
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'I am living, for I will rule over them [and I will complete] their ruin.'
"And lo, Sekhet, during several nights, trod their blood under-foot as far as the town of Hâ-klinen-su (Héracléopolis.)"
But the massacre ended, the anger of Râ was appeased; he began to repent of what he had done. A great expiatory sacrifice succeeded in finally calming him. Fruits were gathered throughout Egypt, bruised, and their juice mingled with human blood, 7000 pitchers being filled with it and presented to the god.
"And lo, the Majesty of Râ, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, comes with the gods in three days of sailing to see these vases of drink, after he had ordered the goddess to slay men."Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'This is well; I will protect men because of it.' Said by Râ: 'I raise my hand concerning this, to say that I will no more destroy men.'"The Majesty of Râ, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, commanded in the middle of the night to overthrow the liquid in the vases, and the fields were completely filled with water by the will of this god. The goddess arrived in the morning, and found the fields full of water. Her face grew joyous, and she drank abundantly and went away satisfied. She no more perceived any men."Said by the Majesty of Râ to the goddess: 'Come in peace, gracious goddess.'"And he caused the young priestesses of Amu to be born."Said by the Majesty of Râ to this goddess: 'Libations shall be made to her at each of the festivals of the new year, under the superintendence of my priestesses.'"Hence it comes that libations are made under the superintendence of the priestesses of Hathor by all men since the ancient days."
"And lo, the Majesty of Râ, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, comes with the gods in three days of sailing to see these vases of drink, after he had ordered the goddess to slay men.
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'This is well; I will protect men because of it.' Said by Râ: 'I raise my hand concerning this, to say that I will no more destroy men.'
"The Majesty of Râ, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, commanded in the middle of the night to overthrow the liquid in the vases, and the fields were completely filled with water by the will of this god. The goddess arrived in the morning, and found the fields full of water. Her face grew joyous, and she drank abundantly and went away satisfied. She no more perceived any men.
"Said by the Majesty of Râ to the goddess: 'Come in peace, gracious goddess.'
"And he caused the young priestesses of Amu to be born.
"Said by the Majesty of Râ to this goddess: 'Libations shall be made to her at each of the festivals of the new year, under the superintendence of my priestesses.'
"Hence it comes that libations are made under the superintendence of the priestesses of Hathor by all men since the ancient days."
Nevertheless, some men have escaped the destruction commanded by Râ, and renewed the population of the earth. As for the solar god who reigns over the world, he feels himself old, sick and weary; he has had enough of living among men, whom he regrets not to have completely annihilated, but has sworn henceforth to spare.
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'There is a smarting pain that torments me; what is it then that hurts me?' Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'I am living, but my heart is weary of being with them [men], and I have in no way destroyed them. That destruction is not one that I have made myself.'"Said by the gods who accompany him: 'Away with lassitude, thou hast obtained all thou didst desire.'"
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'There is a smarting pain that torments me; what is it then that hurts me?' Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'I am living, but my heart is weary of being with them [men], and I have in no way destroyed them. That destruction is not one that I have made myself.'
"Said by the gods who accompany him: 'Away with lassitude, thou hast obtained all thou didst desire.'"
The god Râ decides, however, to accept the help of the men of the new human race who offer themselves to him to combat his enemies, and a great battle takes place, out of which they come victorious. But in spite of this success the god, disgusted with earthly life, resolves to quit it for ever, and has himself carried into heaven by the goddess Nut, who takes the form of a cow. Then he creates a region of delight, the fields of Aalu, the Elysium of Egyptian mythology, which he peoples with stars. Entering into rest, he assigns to different gods the government of different parts of the world. Shu, who is to succeed him as king, is to administer celestial matters with Nut; Seb and Nun receive the charge of the things of earth and water. Finally, Râ, a sovereign who has voluntarily abdicated, goes to dwell with Thoth, his favourite son, on whom he has bestowed the superintendence of the under-world.
Such is this strange narrative, "in which," as M. Naville has well said, "in the midst of fantastic and often puerile inventions, we do nevertheless find the two terms of existence as understood by the ancient Egyptians. Râ begins with earth, and passing through heaven stops in the region of profundity, Ament, in which he apparently wishes to sojourn. This then is a symbolic and religious representation of life, which for every Egyptian—and especially for a royal conqueror—had to begin and end like the sun. This explains the chapter being inscribed in a tomb."
Hence it was the last portion of the narrative—which we can analyse but very briefly—the abdication of Râ and his retreat, first, in heaven, next in the Ament, a symbol of death which is to be followed by resurrection as the setting of the sun by its rising—it is this which constituted its interest in the conception of the doctrine of a future life, illustrated in the decoration of the interior of the tomb of Seti I. For our present purpose, on the contrary, it is the beginning of the story which constitutes its importance, it is that destruction of primal humanity by the gods of which no mention has been hitherto found elsewhere. Although the means of destruction employed by Râ are quite dissimilar, although he does not proceed by submersion but by a massacre in which the lion-headed goddess Tefnut or Sekhet, the dreadful form of Hathor, is the agent, the other sides of the story bear a sufficiently striking analogy to that of the Mosaic or Chaldean Deluge to show that it is the special and very individual form assumed in Egypt by that tradition. In both we have human corruption exciting divine wrath, and punished by a divinely ordained annihilation of the race, from which there escapes but a very small number destined to give birth to a new humanity. Finally, after the event an expiatory sacrifice appeases the celestial anger, and a solemn covenant is made between men and the deity, who swears never so to destroy them again. To me, the agreement of these principal features outweighs the divergence in detail. And we have also to observe how singularly akin is the part ascribed by the Egyptian priest to Râ with that assigned in the epic poem of Uruk to the god Bel, in the deluge of Khasisatra. The Egyptians believed, as did other nations, in the destruction of mankind; but as inundation meant for them prosperity and life, they changed the primitive tradition; the human race, instead of perishing by water, was otherwise exterminated; and the inundation—that crowning benefit to the valley of the Nile—became in their eyes the sign that the wrath of Râ was appeased.
American Stories of the Flood.
"It is a very remarkable fact," says M. Alfred Maury, "that we find in America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that of the Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the Old World. It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that certainly took place from Asia into North America by the Kourile and Aleutian islands, andstill does so in our day, should have brought in these memories, since no trace is found of them among those Mongol or Siberian populations,[57]which were fused with the natives of the New World.... No doubt certain American nations, the Mexicans and Peruvians, had reached a very advanced social condition at the time of the Spanish conquest, but this civilization had a special character, and seems to have been developed on the soil where it flourished. Many very simple inventions, such as the use of weights, were unknown to these people, and this shows that their knowledge was not derived from India or Japan. The attempts that have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia have not as yet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have introduced a myth not found in its own Scriptures.[58]The cause of these similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations of the New World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
"It is a very remarkable fact," says M. Alfred Maury, "that we find in America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that of the Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the Old World. It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that certainly took place from Asia into North America by the Kourile and Aleutian islands, andstill does so in our day, should have brought in these memories, since no trace is found of them among those Mongol or Siberian populations,[57]which were fused with the natives of the New World.... No doubt certain American nations, the Mexicans and Peruvians, had reached a very advanced social condition at the time of the Spanish conquest, but this civilization had a special character, and seems to have been developed on the soil where it flourished. Many very simple inventions, such as the use of weights, were unknown to these people, and this shows that their knowledge was not derived from India or Japan. The attempts that have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia have not as yet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have introduced a myth not found in its own Scriptures.[58]The cause of these similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations of the New World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
I have particular pleasure in quoting these words by a man of immense erudition, because he does not belong to orthodox writers, and will not therefore be thought biassed by a preconceived opinion. Others also, no less rationalistic than he, have pointed out this likeness between American traditions of the Deluge and those of the Bible and the Chaldeans.
The most important among the former are the Mexican, for they appear to have been definitively fixed by symbolic and mnemonic paintings before any contact with Europeans. According to these documents, the Noah of the Mexican cataclysm was Coxcox, called by certain peoples Teocipactli or Tezpi. He had saved himself, together with his wife Xochiquetzal, in a bark, or, according to other traditions, on a raft, made of cypress wood (Cupressus disticha). Paintings retracing the deluge of Coxcox have been discovered among the Aztecs, Miztecs, Zapotecs, Tlascaltecs, and Mechoacaneses. The tradition of the latter is still more strikingly in conformity with the story as we have it in Genesis and in Chaldean sources. It tells how Tezpi embarked in a spacious vessel with his wife, his children, and several animals, and grain, whose preservation was essential to the subsistence of the human race. When the great god Tezcatlipoca decreed that the waters should retire, Tezpi sent a vulture from the bark. The bird, feeding on the carcases with which the earth was laden, did not return. Tezpi sent out other birds, of which the humming-bird only came back with a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, seeing that the country began to vegetate, left his bark on the mountain of Colhuacan.
The document, however, that gives the most valuable information as to the cosmogony of the Mexicans is one known as "Codex Vaticanus," from the library where it is preserved. It consists of four symbolic pictures, representing the four ages of the world preceding the actualone. They were copied at Chobula from a manuscript anterior to the conquest, and accompanied by the explanatory commentary of Pedro de los Rios, a Dominican monk, who in 1566, less than fifty years after the arrival of Cortez, devoted himself to the research of indigenous traditions as being necessary to his missionary work.
The first age is marked with the cipher 13×400+6, or 5206, which Alexander von Humboldt understands as giving the number of years of the period, and Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg as the date of its commencement, from a proleptic era going back from the period of the execution of the manuscript. This age is calledTlatonatiuh, "Sun of Earth." It is that of the giants, or Quinames, the earliest inhabitants of Anahuac, whose end was destruction by famine.
The number of the second age is 12×400+4, or 4804, and it is calledTlatonatiuh, "Sun of Fire." It closes with the descent on Earth of Xiuhteuchli, the god of fire. Mankind are all transformed into birds, and only thus escape the conflagration. Nevertheless, one human pair find refuge in a cave, and repeople the world.
As to the third age,Ehécatonatiuh, "Sun of Wind," its number is 10×400+10, or 4010. Its final catastrophe is a terrible hurricane raised by Quetzalcoatl, the "god of the air." With few exceptions, men are metamorphosed into monkeys.
Then comes the fourth age,Atonatiuh, "Sun of Water," whose number is 10×400+8, or 4008. It ends by a great inundation, a veritable deluge. All mankind are changed into fish, with the exception of one man and his wife, who save themselves in a bark made of the trunk of a cypress-tree. The picture represents Matlalcueye, goddess of waters, and consort of Tlaloc, god of rain, as darting down towards earth. Coxcox and Xochiquetzal, the two human beings preserved, are seen seated on a tree-trunk and floating in the midst of the waters. This flood is represented as the last cataclysm that devastates the earth.
All this is most important, as a mind of the order of Humboldt's did not hesitate to acknowledge. However, M. Girard de Realle wrote quite recently:
"The myth of the deluge has been met with in several parts of America, and Christian writers have not failed to see in it a reminiscence of the Biblical tradition, nay, in connection with the pyramid of Chobula, they have found traces of the Tower of Babel. We shall not waste time in pointing out how out of a fish-god, Coxcox, among the Chichimecs, Teocipactli among the Aztecs, and a goddess of flowers, Xochiquetzal, it was easy to concoct the Mexican figures of Noah and his wife by joining on to them the story of the ark and the dove. It is enough to observe that all these legends have only been collected and published at a relatively recent period.[59]The first chroniclers, so cautious already despite their honest simplicity, such as Sahagun, Mendieta, Olmos, and the Hispano-indigenous authors, such as the Tezcucan Ixthilxochitl and the Tlascaltec Camargo, never breathe a word of stories they could not have failed to bring to light, had they existed in their days. Lastly, we find in Mr. Bancroft's[60]work a criticism of these legends, due to Don José Fernando Ramirez, keeper of the National Museum,which proves incontestably that all these stories spring from all too ready and tendency-fraught interpretations of old Mexican paintings, which according to him only represent episodes in the migration of Aztecs around the central lakes of the plateau of Anahuac."
"The myth of the deluge has been met with in several parts of America, and Christian writers have not failed to see in it a reminiscence of the Biblical tradition, nay, in connection with the pyramid of Chobula, they have found traces of the Tower of Babel. We shall not waste time in pointing out how out of a fish-god, Coxcox, among the Chichimecs, Teocipactli among the Aztecs, and a goddess of flowers, Xochiquetzal, it was easy to concoct the Mexican figures of Noah and his wife by joining on to them the story of the ark and the dove. It is enough to observe that all these legends have only been collected and published at a relatively recent period.[59]The first chroniclers, so cautious already despite their honest simplicity, such as Sahagun, Mendieta, Olmos, and the Hispano-indigenous authors, such as the Tezcucan Ixthilxochitl and the Tlascaltec Camargo, never breathe a word of stories they could not have failed to bring to light, had they existed in their days. Lastly, we find in Mr. Bancroft's[60]work a criticism of these legends, due to Don José Fernando Ramirez, keeper of the National Museum,which proves incontestably that all these stories spring from all too ready and tendency-fraught interpretations of old Mexican paintings, which according to him only represent episodes in the migration of Aztecs around the central lakes of the plateau of Anahuac."
I much fear that thetendencyhere is not on the side of writers who are looked on as ground to powder by the epithet Christian; which, indeed, be it said in passing, might well surprise a few among them. And this tendency, when resolved at any cost to attack the Bible, is as anti-scientific as when grasping at any uncritical argument in its defence. No doubt the identical character of Xochiquetzal or Maciulxochiquetzal, as goddess of the fertilizing rain and of vegetation, with that of Chalchihuitlicué or Mallalcuéyé, is a well-known fact, more certain even than the character of fish-god of Coxcox or Teocipactli. But the transformation of gods into heroes is a very common fact in all polytheisms, and most common in the kind of unconscious euhemerism from which infant peoples never free themselves. There is therefore nothing here to contradict the fact that these two divine personages, contemplated as heroes, may be taken as the two survivors of the Flood, and the ancestors of the new humanity. As to the theory of Don José Ramirez, about the symbolic pictures that have been interpreted as expressing the diluvian tradition, it is very ingenious and scientifically presented, but not so absolutely proved as M. Girard de Realle considers. But even granting its incontestability, it only removes part of the evidence which may have been unintentionally forced by those naturally disposed to see in it a parallel to Genesis; as for instance, with regard to the sending out the birds by Tezpi. Still the existence of the tradition among Mexican peoples would not be shaken, for it rests upon a whole of indubitable testimony, confirming in a striking manner the interpretation hitherto given of the "Codex Vaticanus."
The valuable work in the Aztec language, and in Latin letters, compiled by a native, subsequently to the Spanish conquest, calledCodex Chimalpopocaby Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, who gives an analysis and partial translation of it in the first volume of his "Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique," contains in its third portion a history of the suns, or successive ages of the world. Each takes its name from the way in which humanity is destroyed at its close. The first is the age of jaguars, who devour the primordial giants;[61]the second, the age of wind; at its close men lost themselves, and were carried off by the hurricane, and transformed themselves into monkeys. Houses, woods, everything was swept away by the wind. Then comes the age of fire, whose sun is called Tlalocan-Teuctli, "Lord of the lower regions," the usual appellation of Mictlanteuctli, the Mexican Pluto, which seems to point to the idea of an age of special volcanic activity. At its close, mankind is destroyed by a rain of fire, and such as do not perish escape underthe form of birds. Finally, the fourth age is that of water, which immediately precedes our present epoch, and closes with the Deluge.
Here is the narrative according to Abbé Brasseur's version, held correct by Americanists:—
"This is the sun calledNahui-atl, '4 water.'[62]Now the water was tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth times. When the sunNahui-atlcame there had passed away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and found themselves changed into fish. The sky came nearer the water. In a single day all was lost and the dayNahui-xochitl'4 flower,' destroyed all our flesh."And that year was that ofcé-calli, '1 house,'[63]and the dayNahui-atlall was lost. Even the mountains sank into the water, and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs."Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his spouse Nena, saying: 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month Tozontli the water approaches the sky.'"Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door he said: 'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize and thy wife one also.'"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and on opening it they began to see fish."Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish."The gods Citlallinicué and Citlalatonac instantly looking down said: 'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there. Why do they thus smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended. He began to chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And seizing hold of the fish he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into dogs (chichime)."
"This is the sun calledNahui-atl, '4 water.'[62]Now the water was tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth times. When the sunNahui-atlcame there had passed away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and found themselves changed into fish. The sky came nearer the water. In a single day all was lost and the dayNahui-xochitl'4 flower,' destroyed all our flesh.
"And that year was that ofcé-calli, '1 house,'[63]and the dayNahui-atlall was lost. Even the mountains sank into the water, and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs.
"Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his spouse Nena, saying: 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month Tozontli the water approaches the sky.'
"Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door he said: 'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize and thy wife one also.'
"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and on opening it they began to see fish.
"Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish.
"The gods Citlallinicué and Citlalatonac instantly looking down said: 'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there. Why do they thus smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended. He began to chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And seizing hold of the fish he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into dogs (chichime)."
This last touch is a satire on the Chichimecs, or "barbarians of the North," founders of the kingdom of Tezcuco. It proves the decidedly indigenous character of the story, and removes any such suspicion of a Biblical imitation, as the date might have led to.
The manuscript, written in Spanish by Motolina, who belonged to the generation of the "conquistadores," has hitherto only been known by extracts given from it by Abbé Brasseur in his "Recherches sur les Ruines de Palenque," a work containing many useful documents, though already pervaded by the delusions which towards the end of his career so strangely misled this learned pioneer of Mexican antiquarianism. Here, too, we find the theory of the four suns, or four ages, given in the same order as by the author of the "Codex Chimalpopoca."
The first is called "age of Tezcatlipoca," because that god had then added on a half to the sun, which was only half luminous, or had "made himself sun in its place." This was the age of the Quinames, or giants, who were almost all exterminated by famine. After this, Quetzlcoatl, the god of the air, having armed himself with a great stick, struck Tezcatlipoca with it, threw him into the water, and "and made himself sun in his place." The fallen god, transforming himself into a jaguar,devoured such of the Quinames as had escaped from the famine. The statements of the "Codex Vaticanus" and the "Codex Chimalpopoca" as to the final catastrophe of the world's first age, are thus reconciled by this last narrative.
Motolina calls the two next ages those of wind and fire; they are closed in the way we have seen.
The fourth is the age of the "Sun of Water," placed under the patronage of the goddess Chalchihuitlicué. The Deluge terminates it, and after this last cataclysm, we enter upon our present era.
We come next to the "History of the Chichimecs," by Don Fernando d'Alva Ixtlilxochitl, descendant of the old pagan kings of Tezcuco, whose pretended silence on the subject we have seen appealed to as disproving the authenticity of these Mexican diluvian traditions. In the first chapter of his first book, Ixtlilxochitl relates the story of the cosmic ages according to the traditions of his native city. He only gives four in all, including the actual period. The first is theAtonatiuh, or "Sun of Waters," which begins with the creation, and ends with a universal deluge. Then comes theThlachitonatiuh, or "Sun of Earth," when the giants called Quinametziu-Tzocuilhioxime lived, descendants of the survivors of the first epoch. A frightful earthquake, overthrowing the mountains, and destroying the greater part of the dwellers on earth, closes this age. It is in the third age,Ehecatonatiuh, "Sun of Wind," that Olmecs and Xicalanques came from the east to settle in the south of Mexico. At first they were conquered by the remnant of the Quinames, but ended by massacring these. Quetzalcoatl next appears as a religious reformer, but is not listened to by men, whose indocility is punished by the appalling hurricane during which such as escaped became monkeys. Then begins the present age,Tlatonatiuh, or "Sun of Fire," thus called because it is to end by a rain of fire. We see, therefore, that Ixtlilxochitl was perfectly acquainted with the diluvian tradition, and if he does not enter into its details, he assigns it an important place in his series of ages.
Therefore we must needs acknowledge the diluvian tradition to be really indigenous in Mexico and not an invention of missionaries. We may doubt as to some particulars in some of the versions, though this arises chiefly from a preconceived idea, because they too much resemble the story in Genesis; but as to the fundamental tradition it is unassailable, and intimately connected with a conception not drawn from the Bible—and universally admitted to have existed—that, namely, of the four ages of the world. Between this conception, and that of the four ages or Yugas of India, and of themanvantaraswhere the destruction of the world and the renewals of humanity alternate, there is an analogy which appeared very significant to Humboldt, MacCulloch, and M. Maury. It is one that justifies us in asking whether the Mexicans devised it independently or borrowed it more or less directly from India. The system of the four ages, inseparable in Mexico from that of thediluvian tradition, confronts us with the problem—ever recurring with regard to American civilization—of how far these are spontaneous and how far derived from Asia through Buddhist or other missionaries. In the present state of our knowledge we can as little solve this problem negatively as affirmatively, and all attempts made to come to a positive conclusion are premature and unproductive. Before discovering whence American civilizations came, we must thoroughly know what they were, nor attempt the arduous and obscure question of their origin till we frame a real American archæology on the same scientific basis and by the same methods as other archæologies. And in this respect Messrs. T. G. Müller and Herbert Bancroft appear to me greatly in advance of their precursors in this field of inquiry.
For the present, all that can be done is, as I have attempted with Flood stories, to determine facts without pretending to draw inferences. Hence I should no longer boldly write, as I did eight years ago: "The Flood stories of Mexico positively prove the tradition of the Deluge to be one of the oldest held by humanity—a tradition so primitive as to be anterior to the dispersion of human families and the final developments of material civilization; which the Red race peopling America brought from the common cradle of our species into their new home, at the same time that the Semites, Chaldeans, and Aryans respectively carried it into theirs."[64]The fact is that among American peoples this tradition may not be primitive. We may indeed affirm that it was not borrowed from the Bible after the arrival of the Spaniards, but we cannot be equally confident that it was not the result of some previous foreign importation, the precise date of which we have no means of fixing.
Be that as it may, the doctrines of successive ages, and of the destruction of the men of the first age by a Deluge, is also found in the curious book ofPopol-vuhthat collection of the mythological traditions of Guatemala, written after the conquest in the native tongue, by a secret adept of the old religion; discovered, copied, and translated into Spanish in the beginning of the last century by the Dominican Francisco Ximenez, curé of St. Thomas of Chiula. His Spanish version has been published by M. Schelzer, the original text with a French translation by Abbé Brasseur. Here we read that the gods, seeing that animals were neither capable of speaking nor of adoring them, determined to make men in their own image. They fashioned them at first in clay. But those men had no consistency, could not turn their heads; spoke, indeed, but understood nothing. The gods then destroyed their imperfect work by a Deluge. Setting about it for the second time, they made a man of wood and a woman of resin. These creatures were far superior to the former; they moved and lived, but only like other animals; they spoke, but unintelligibly; and gave no thought to the gods. Then Hurakan, "the heart of heaven," the god of storm, caused a rain of burning resin to fall, while the ground was shaken by a fearful earthquake.All the descendants of the wood-and-resin pair perished, with a few exceptions, who became monkeys of the forest. Finally, out of white and yellow maize, the gods produced four perfect men: Balam-Quitze, "the smiling jaguar;" Balam-agab, "the jaguar of the night;" Mahuentah, "the distinguished name;" and Igi-Balam, "the jaguar of the moon." They were tall and strong; saw and knew everything, and rendered thanks to the gods. But the latter were alarmed at this their final success, and feared for their supremacy: accordingly, they threw a light veil, like a mist, over the vision of the four men, which became like that of the men of to-day. While they slept the gods created for them four wives of great beauty, and from three of these pairs the Quichés were born—Igi-Balam and his wife Cakixaha having no children. This series of awkward attempts at creation is sufficiently removed from the Biblical narrative to do away with any suspicion of Christian missionary influence over this indigenous quadrennial legend, where, as usual, we find the belief in the destruction of primal mankind by a great flood.
We meet with it in Nicaragua as well. Oviedo relates that Pedsarias Davila, governor of the province in 1538, charged F. Bobadilla, of the Order of St. Dominic, to inquire into the spiritual condition of those Indians whom his predecessors boasted of having converted in great numbers to Catholicism, which he, Davila, with good reason, doubted. The monk accordingly examined the natives, and Oviedo has transmitted several dialogues which show us the creed of the Nicaraguans a few years after the Spanish conquest. The following bears directly on our subject:—
"Question by Bobadilla.Who has created heaven and earth, the stars and moon, man and all else?"Answer (by the Cacique Avogoaltegoan).Tamagastad and Cippatoval, the one is a man, the other a woman."Q.Who created that man and woman?"A.No one. On the contrary, all men and women descend from them."Q.Did they create Christians?"A.I do not know, but the Indians descend from Tamagastad and Cippatoval."Q.Are there any gods greater than they?"A.No; we believe them to be the greatest."Q.Are they gods of flesh or wood, or any other substance?"A.They are of flesh; they are man and woman, brown in colour like us Indians. They walked on earth dressed like us, and ate what Indians eat."Q.Who gave them to eat?"A.Everything belongs to them."Q.Where are they now?"A.In heaven, according to what our ancestors have told us."Q.How did they ascend thither?"A.I only know that it is their home. I do not know how they were born, for they have no father nor mother."Q.How do they live at present?"A.They eat what Indians eat, for maize and all food proceeds from the place where dwell theteotes(gods)."Q.Do you know, or have you heard tell, whether since theteotescreated the world it has been destroyed?"A.Before the present race existed, the world was destroyed by water and all became sea."Q.How did that man and woman escape?"A.They were in heaven, for that was their dwelling, and afterwards they came down to earth and re-made all things as they now are, and we are their issue."Q.You say the whole world was destroyed by water. Did not some individuals save themselves in a canoe, or by some other way?"A.No. All the world was drowned, according to what my ancestors told me."
"Question by Bobadilla.Who has created heaven and earth, the stars and moon, man and all else?
"Answer (by the Cacique Avogoaltegoan).Tamagastad and Cippatoval, the one is a man, the other a woman.
"Q.Who created that man and woman?
"A.No one. On the contrary, all men and women descend from them.
"Q.Did they create Christians?
"A.I do not know, but the Indians descend from Tamagastad and Cippatoval.
"Q.Are there any gods greater than they?
"A.No; we believe them to be the greatest.
"Q.Are they gods of flesh or wood, or any other substance?
"A.They are of flesh; they are man and woman, brown in colour like us Indians. They walked on earth dressed like us, and ate what Indians eat.
"Q.Who gave them to eat?
"A.Everything belongs to them.
"Q.Where are they now?
"A.In heaven, according to what our ancestors have told us.
"Q.How did they ascend thither?
"A.I only know that it is their home. I do not know how they were born, for they have no father nor mother.
"Q.How do they live at present?
"A.They eat what Indians eat, for maize and all food proceeds from the place where dwell theteotes(gods).
"Q.Do you know, or have you heard tell, whether since theteotescreated the world it has been destroyed?
"A.Before the present race existed, the world was destroyed by water and all became sea.
"Q.How did that man and woman escape?
"A.They were in heaven, for that was their dwelling, and afterwards they came down to earth and re-made all things as they now are, and we are their issue.
"Q.You say the whole world was destroyed by water. Did not some individuals save themselves in a canoe, or by some other way?
"A.No. All the world was drowned, according to what my ancestors told me."
The great god Tamagastad, of whom mention is made in this dialogue, is evidently the same as Thomagata, the awful-visaged spirit of fire, whose cultus was anterior among a portion of the Muyscas at Tunga and Sogamosa to that of Botchica. This, therefore, brings us back to the religious and cosmogonic traditions of the very advanced civilization in the high table-land of Cundinamarca, and we are led to recognize in the Flood-legend of Botchica a certain echo of the so universally spread tradition of the Deluge of early ages, mingled with the memory of a local event, from which the ancestors of the Muyscas had suffered at the time of their first settlement. Neither must we forget that Botchica and his wicked spouse, who brought about the inundation of Cundinamarca, are no other than personifications of the sun and moon, as were the pair Manco-Capac and Mama-Oello in the empire of the Incas. "The moon of Peru is gentle and beneficent," well observes M. Girard de Realle, "she helps her brother and husband in the work of civilization; on the plateau of Cundinamarca, on the contrary, she is a witch, a veritable deity of night and of evil, worthily represented by the lugubrious owl."
Some have believed themselves to have discovered the Flood-tradition among the Peruvians, but careful criticism disproves this. For it only arises from an unintelligent interpretation of the myth of Viracocha or Con, god of waters, or more precisely, the personification of the element, as shown by the legend which represents him as having no bones, and yet stretching himself out afar, lowering the mountains and filling up the valleys in his course. He was the chief god of the Aymaras, who, according to them, had created the earth; and who, issuing from Lake Titicaca, to manifest himself on earth, had assembled the earliest men at Tiahuanaco. Later, the official cosmogony of the Incas led to his undergoing an euhemeristic transformation diminishing his religious importance; and he is represented as one of the sons of the Sun, come upon earth to dwell among and civilize mankind, a younger brother of Manco-Capac. Now it is under the government of Viracocha that the Deluge is placed by the writers of very recent date, who mention this event, of which the native tradition was unknown to the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, to Montesinos, Balboa, Gomara, F. Oliva, and, in short, to all authorities of any weight in Peruvian matters. MacCulloch does indeed quote Acosta and Herrera, but these authors never speak of a Deluge involving all humanity; they only say thatViracocha gave laws to the earliest men at the close of a primordial period anterior to their creation, when the whole surface of the earth had been under water.
Numerous legends of the great inundation of earliest times have been found among the savage tribes of America. But by their very nature these leave room for doubt. They have not been committed to writing by the natives, we only know them by intermediaries who may, in perfectly good faith, have altered them considerably in an unconscious desire to assimilate them to the Bible story. Besides, they have been only collected very lately, when the tribes had been for a long time in contact with Europeans, and had often had living among them more than one adventurer who might well have introduced new elements into their traditions. They are therefore very inferior in importance to those we have found existing in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, previous to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors.
The most remarkable of them, as excluding by its very form the idea of European communication, is that of the Cherokees. It seems a childish version of the Indian tradition, only that it is a dog instead of a fish who plays the part of deliverer to the man who escapes the catastrophe; but this brings us back to a myth special to America—that of the transformation of fish into dogs, as we have seen in the Flood-story of the "Codex Chimalpopoca."
"The dog," says the legend of the Cherokees, "never ceased for several days to run up and down the banks of the river, looking fixedly at the water and howling as in distress. His master was annoyed by his ways and roughly ordered him to go home, upon which he began speaking and revealed the impending calamity, ending his prediction by saying that the only way in which his master and his family could escape was by throwing him at once into the water, for he would become their deliverer by swimming to seek a boat, but that there was not a moment to lose, for a terrible rain was at hand which would lead to a general inundation in which everything would perish. The man obeyed his dog, was saved with his family, and they repeopled the earth."
"The dog," says the legend of the Cherokees, "never ceased for several days to run up and down the banks of the river, looking fixedly at the water and howling as in distress. His master was annoyed by his ways and roughly ordered him to go home, upon which he began speaking and revealed the impending calamity, ending his prediction by saying that the only way in which his master and his family could escape was by throwing him at once into the water, for he would become their deliverer by swimming to seek a boat, but that there was not a moment to lose, for a terrible rain was at hand which would lead to a general inundation in which everything would perish. The man obeyed his dog, was saved with his family, and they repeopled the earth."
It is said that the Tamanakis, a Carib tribe on the banks of the Orinoco, have a legend of the man and woman who escaped the flood by reaching the summit of Mount Tapanacu. There they threw cocoa-nuts behind them, from which sprung a new race of men and women. If the report be true, which, however, we cannot affirm, this would be a very singular agreement with one of the distinctive features of the Greek story of Deucalion and Pyrrha.
Russian explorers have reported a childlike narrative of the flood in the Aleutian Islands, forming the geographical link between Asia and North America, and at the extremity of the north-east of America among the Kolosks. Henry the traveller gives the following tradition as current among the Indians of the Great Lakes:—
"In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt towards the rising sun. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming upon the earth, he built a raft, on which he saved himself with his family and all the animals. He floated thus for several months. The animals, who at that time spoke, loudlycomplained and murmured against him. At last a new earth appeared, on which he landed with all the animals, who from that time lost the power of speech as a punishment for their murmurs against their deliverer."
"In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt towards the rising sun. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming upon the earth, he built a raft, on which he saved himself with his family and all the animals. He floated thus for several months. The animals, who at that time spoke, loudlycomplained and murmured against him. At last a new earth appeared, on which he landed with all the animals, who from that time lost the power of speech as a punishment for their murmurs against their deliverer."
According to Father Charlevoix, the tribes of Canada and the valley of the Mississippi relate in their rude legends that all mankind was destroyed by a flood, and that the good spirit, to repeople the earth, had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we owe our acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways—full of grotesque and perplexing touches—in which the man saved from the deluge is called Menaboshu.[65]To know if the earth be drying he sends a bird, the diver, out of his bark; then becomes the restorer of the human race and the founder of existing society. Catlin relates a story, current among the Mandans, of the earth being a great tortoise borne on the waters, and that when one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of white men pierced the shell of the tortoise, it sank, and the water covering it drowned all men, with the exception of one, who saved himself in a boat; and when the earth re-emerged, sent out a dove, who returned with a branch of willow in its beak. Here we have Noah's dove, as in the story of Tezpi and Menaboshu we have other birds substituted for it. But the native originality of this detail, as of the whole diluvian tradition among the Mandans, may well be doubted when we remember that the physical peculiarities of this curious tribe on the banks of the Missouri led Catlin to consider it of mixed blood, and partly white origin.
In the songs of the inhabitants of New California allusion was made to a very remote period when the sea left its bed and covered the earth. The whole race of men and animals perished in this deluge, sent by the supreme god Chinigchinig, with the exception of a few who had taken refuge on a high mountain which the water failed to reach. The Commissioners of the United States who explored New Mexico before its annexation, tell of the existence of a similar tradition among the different native tribes of that vast territory. Other travellers give us kindred narratives, more or less strikingly resembling the Bible record. But for the most part they are too vaguely reported to be entirely trusted.
Polynesian Traditions.—In Oceania even, and not among the Pelagian negroes or Papoos,[66]but the Polynesian, racenatives of the archipelago of Australasia, the diluvian tradition has been traced, mingled with recollections of sudden rises of the sea, which are one of the most frequent scourges of those islands. The most noted is that of Tahiti, which has been specially referred to the primeval tradition. Here it is asgiven by M. Gaussin,[67]who has published a translation of it, as well as the Tahitian text, written by a native named Maré:—