Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World - Ignatius Donnelly (short novels to read .txt) 📗

rebellion of the Titans in Greek mythology was the rising up of a subject population.

In 1836 C. S. Rafinesque published in Philadelphia, Pa., a work called “The American Nations,” in which he gives the historical songs or chants of the Lenni-Lenapi, or Delaware Indians, the tribe that originally dwelt along, the Delaware River. After describing a time “when there was nothing but sea-water on top of the land,” and the creation of sun, moon, stars, earth, and man, the legend depicts the Golden Age and the Fall in these words: “All were willingly pleased, all were easy-thinking, and all were well-happified. But after a while a snake-priest, Powako, brings on earth secretly the snake-worship (Initako) of the god of the snakes, Wakon. And there came wickedness, crime, and unhappiness. And bad weather was coming, distemper was coming, with death was coming. All this happened very long ago, at the first land, Netamaki, beyond the great ocean Kitahikau.” Then follows the Song of the Flood:

“There was, long ago, a powerful snake, Maskanako, when the men had become bad beings, Makowini. This strong snake had become the foe of the Jins, and they became troubled, hating each other. Both were fighting, both were, spoiling, both were never peaceful. And they were fighting, least man Mattapewi with dead-keeper Nihaulowit. And the strong snake readily resolved to destroy or fight the beings or the men. The dark snake he brought, the monster (Amanyam) he brought, snake-rushing water he brought (it). Much water is rushing, much go to hills, much penetrate, much destroying. Meanwhile at Tula (this is the same Tula referred to in the Central American legends), at THAT ISLAND, Nana-Bush (the great hare Nana) becomes the ancestor of beings and men. Being born creeping, he is ready to move and dwell at Tula. The beings and men all go forth from the flood creeping in shallow water or swimming afloat, asking which is the way to the turtle-back, Tula-pin. But there are many monsters in the way, and some men were devoured by them. But the daughter of a spirit helped them in a boat, saying, ‘Come, come;’ they were coming and were helped. The name of the boat or raft is Mokol. . .

. Water running off, it is drying; in the plains and the mountains, at the path of the cave, elsewhere went the powerful action or motion.”

Then follows Song 3, describing the condition of mankind after the Flood. Like the Aryans, they moved into a cold country: “It freezes was there; it snows was there; it is cold was there.” They move to a milder region to hunt cattle; they divided their forces into tillers and hunters. “The good and the holy were the hunters;” they spread themselves north, south, east, and west.” Meantime all the snakes were afraid in their huts, and the Snake-priest Nakopowa said to all, ‘Let us go.’ Eastwardly they go forth at Snakeland (Akhokink), and they went away earnestly grieving.” Afterward the fathers of the Delawares, who “were always boating and navigating,” find that the Snake-people have taken possession of a fine country; and they collect together the people from north, south, east, and west, and attempt “to pass over the waters of the frozen sea to possess that land.” They seem to travel in the dark of an Arctic winter until they come to a gap of open sea. They can go no farther; but some tarry at Firland, while the rest return to where they started from, “the old turtle land.”

Here we find that the land that was destroyed was the “first land;” that it was an island “beyond the great ocean.” In all early age the people were happy and peaceful; they became wicked; “snake worship” was introduced, and was associated, as in Genesis, with the “fall of man;”

Nana-Bush became the ancestor of the new race; his name reminds us of the Toltec Nata and the Hebrew Noah. After the flood came a dispersing of the people, and a separation into hunters and tillers of the soil.

Among the Mandan Indians we not only find flood legends, but, more remarkable still, we find an image of the ark preserved from generation to generation, and a religious ceremony performed which refers plainly to the destruction of Atlantis, and to the arrival of one of those who escaped from the Flood, bringing the dreadful tidings of the disaster.

It must be remembered, as we will show hereafter, that many of these Mandan Indians were white men, with hazel, gray, and blue eyes, and all shades of color of the hair from black to pure white; that they dwelt in houses in fortified towns, and manufactured earthen-ware pots in which they could boil water—an art unknown to the ordinary Indians, who boiled water by putting heated stones into it.

I quote the very interesting account of George Catlin, who visited the Mandans nearly fifty years ago, lately republished in London in the “North American Indians,” a very curious and valuable work. He says (vol. i., p. 88):

“In the centre of the village is an open space, or public square, 150

feet in diameter and circular in form, which is used for all public games and festivals, shows and exhibitions. The lodges around this open space front in, with their doors toward. the centre; and in the middle of this stands an object of great religious veneration, on account of the importance it has in connection with the annual religious ceremonies. This object is in the form of a large hogshead, some eight or ten feet high, made of planks and hoops, containing within it some of their choicest mysteries or medicines. They call it the ‘Big Canoe.’”

This is a representation of the ark; the ancient Jews venerated a similar image, and some of the ancient Greek States followed in processions a model of the ark of Deucalion. But it is indeed surprising to find this practice perpetuated, even to our own times, by a race of Indians in the heart of America. On page 158 of the first volume of the same work Catlin describes the great annual mysteries and religious ceremonials of which this image of the ark was the centre. He says: “On the day set apart for the commencement of the ceremonies a solitary figure is seen approaching the village.

“During the deafening din and confusion within the pickets of the village the figure discovered on the prairie continued to approach with a dignified step, and in a right line toward the village; all eyes were upon him, and he at length made his appearance within the pickets, and proceeded toward the centre of the village, where all the chiefs and braves stood ready to receive him, which they did in a cordial manner by shaking hands, recognizing him as an old acquaintance, and pronouncing his name, Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah (the first or only man). The body of this strange personage, which was chiefly naked, was painted with white clay, so as to resemble at a distance a white man. He enters the medicine lodge, and goes through certain mysterious ceremonies.

“During the whole of this day Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah (the first or only man) travelled through the village, stopping in front of each man’s lodge, and crying until the owner of the lodge came out and asked who he was, and what was the matter? To which be replied by narrating the sad catastrophe which had happened on the earth’s surface by the overflowing of the waters, saying that ‘he was the only person saved from the universal calamity; that he landed his big canoe on a high mountain in the west, where he now resides; that be has come to open the medicine lodge, which must needs receive a present of an edged tool from the owner of every wigwam, that it may be sacrificed to the water; for,’ he says, ‘if this is not done there will be another flood, and no one will be saved, as it was with such tools that the big canoe was made.’

“Having visited every lodge in the village during the day, and having received such a present from each as a hatchet, a knife, etc. (which is undoubtedly always prepared ready for the occasion), be places them in the medicine lodge; and, on the last day of the ceremony, they are thrown into a deep place in the river—‘sacrificed to the Spirit of the Waters.”’

Among the sacred articles kept in the great medicine lodge are four sacks of water, called Eeh-teeh-ka, sewed together, each of them in the form of a tortoise lying on its back, with a bunch of eagle feathers attached to its tail. “These four tortoises,” they told me, “contained the waters from the four quarters of the world—that those waters had been contained therein ever since the settling down of the waters,” “I did not,” says Catlin, who knew nothing of an Atlantis theory, “think it best to advance anything against such a ridiculous belief.” Catlin tried to purchase one of these water-sacks, but could not obtain it for any price; he was told they were “a society property.”

He then describes a dance by twelve men around the ark: “They arrange themselves according to the four cardinal points; two are painted perfectly black, two are vermilion color, some were painted partially white. They dance a dance called Bel-lohck-na-pie,’” with horns on their heads, like those used in Europe as symbolical of Bel, or Baal.

Could anything be more evident than the connection of these ceremonies with the destruction of Atlantis? Here we have the image of the ark; here we have a white man coming with the news that “the waters had overflowed the land,” and that all the people were destroyed except himself; here we have the sacrifice to appease the spirit that caused the Flood, just as we find the Flood terminating, in the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Central American legends, with a sacrifice. Here, too, we have the image of the tortoise, which we find in other flood legends of the Indians, and which is a very natural symbol for an island. As one of our own poets has expressed it,

“Very fair and full of promise Lay the island of St. Thomas; Like a great green turtle slumbered On the sea which it encumbered.”

Here we have, too, the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its four rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a dance, where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four cardinal points of the compass; the dancers are painted to represent the black and red races, while “the first and only man” represents the white race; and the name of the dance is a reminiscence of Baal, the ancient god of the races derived from Atlantis.

But this is not all. The Mandans were evidently of the race of Atlantis.

They have another singular legend, which we find in the account of Lewis and Clarke:

“Their belief in a future state is connected with this theory of their origin: The whole nation resided in one large village, underground, near a subterranean lake. A grape-vine extended its roots down to their habitation, and gave them a view of the light. Some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine, and were delighted with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo, and rich with every kind of fruit. Returning with the grapes they had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper region. Men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine, but, when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth,