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Page 3
The legend then pictures a council between these "Fathers" and the
Supreme Creator; after which, the word is spoken, and the earth bursts
forth from the darkness, with its great mountains and forests and
animals and birds, as they might to a voyager approaching the shore. An
episode occurs, describing a deluge, but still bearing in it the
traces of the double tradition,--the one referring to some primeval
catastrophe, and the other to a local inundation, which had perhaps
surprised the first legislators in the midst of their efforts. The
Mexican tradition (Codex Chimalpopoca) shows more distinctly the united
action of the Mediator (Quetzalcohuatl) and the Deity:--"From ashes had
God created man and animated him, and they say it is Quetzalcohuatl who
hath perfected him who had been made, and hath _breathed into him, on
the seventh day, the breath of life_."
Another legend, after describing the creation of men of wood, and women
of _cibak_, (the marrow of the corn-flag,) tells us that "the fathers
and the children, from want of intelligence, did not use the language
which they had received to praise the benefaction of their creation, and
never thought of raising their eyes to praise Hurakan. Then were they
destroyed in an inundation. There descended from heaven a rain of
bitumen and resin... And on account of them, the earth was obscured; and
it rained night and day. And men went and came, out of themselves, as if
struck with madness. They wished to mount upon the roofs, and the houses
fell beneath them; when they took refuge in the caves and the
grottoes, these closed over them. This was their punishment and
destruction."--Vol. I. p. 55.
In the Mexican tradition, instead of the rain we find a violent eruption
of the volcanoes, and men are changed into fishes, and again into
_chicime_,--which may designate the barbarian tribes that invaded
Central America.
In still another tradition, the Deity and his associates are more
plainly men of superior intelligence, laboring to civilize savage
races; and finally, when they cannot inspire two essential elements of
civilization,--a taste for labor, and the religious idea,--a sudden
inundation delivers them from the indocile people. Then--so far as the
mysterious language of the legend can be interpreted--they appear to
have withdrawn themselves to a more teachable race. But with these
the difficulty for the new law-givers is that they find nothing
corresponding to the productions of the country from which they had
come. Fruits are in abundance, but there is no grain which requires
culture, and which would give origin to a continued industry. The legend
relates, somewhat naively, the hunger and distress of these elevated
beings, until at length they discover the maize, and other nutritious
fruits and grains in the county of Paxil and Cayala.
Our author places these latter in the state of Chiapas, and the
countries watered by the Usumasinta. The provinces of Mexico and the
Atlantic border of Central America he supposes to be those where the
first legislators of America landed, and where was the cradle of the
first American civilization. In these regions, the great city attributed
to Votan,--Palenque,--the ruins of whose magnificent temples and palaces
even yet astonish the traveller, was one of the first products of this
civilization.
With regard to the much-vexed question of the origin of the Indian
races, M. de Bourbourg offers no theory. In his view, the evidence from
language establishes no certain connection between the Indian tribes and
any other race whatever; though, as he justly remarks, the knowledge of
the languages of the Northeast of Asia and of the interior of America is
yet very limited, and more complete investigations must be waited for
before any very satisfactory conclusions can be attained. The similarity
of the Indian languages points without doubt to a common origin, while
their variety and immense number are indications of a high antiquity;
for who can estimate the succession of years necessary to subdivide a
common tongue into so many languages, and to give birth out of a savage
or nomadic life to a civilization like that of the Aztecs?
In the passage of man from one hemisphere to another he sees no
difficulty; as, without considering Behring's Strait, the voyage, from
Mantchooria, or Japan, following the chain of the Koorile and the
Aleutian Isles, even to the Peninsula of Alaska, would be an enterprise
of no great hazard.
The traditions of the Indian tribes, as well as their monumental
inscriptions, point to an Eastern origin. From whatever direction the
particular tribe may have emigrated, they always speak of their fathers
as having come from the rising of the sun. The Quiche, as well as the
Chippeway traditions, allude to the voyages of their fathers from the
East, from a cold and icy region, through a cloudy and wintry sea, to
countries as cold and gloomy, from which they again turned towards the
South.
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