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I HAVE traversed the subject of the traditions relating to Atlantis in Europe, Africa and America so frequently, that a mere summary of them must here suffice. Such a summary, however, is essential to a History of Atlantis, which would be incomplete without some reference to the evidence for the former existence of the island continent in both the Old and New Worlds.
And first of the Atlantean tradition in Europe. We have already seen how living a thing it was in Britain and Ireland, and have reviewed Hellenic and other memories of it. Spain had its legend of Antillia or the Isle of Seven Cities, a rectangular island which appears again and again in the maps of the cartographers of the fourteenth, fifteenth and even the sixteenth century, and which Toscanelli advised Columbus to regard as a halfway house to the Indies. It was thought that Roderick, the last of the Gothic Kings of Spain, had there found a refuge from the conquering Moors, remaining, like Arthur, in his island paradise until Spain needed him once again. Some writers even suggested that Antillia was Atlantis itself, and that its quadrilateral shape resembled that of Atlantis as described by Plato. But Humboldt indicated that Plato had ascribed this form to a particular part of Atlantis only, and not to the whole island.
The Roman historian Timagenes, who flourished in the first century A.D., preserved traditions of the Gauls which spoke of invaders from a sunken island. The Celts of Brittany, like those of Britain, preserved their own version of the Atlantis story in the legend of the sunken city of Ys, or Ker-is, ruled by a prince named Gradlon, who, warned of the approach of the sea, defended his capital from its incursions by constructing an immense basin to receive the overflow of the water at high tide. This basin had a secret outlet, of which Gradlon alone possessed the key, but his malevolent daughter, the Princess Dahut, feasting with her lover, and proceeding from one frivolity to another, stole the key and opened the sluice gate, and the tide rushing in, submerged the city. Ys, which was wealthy in commerce and the arts, was situated where now the Etang de Laval drifts over the desolate Bay of Trespasses, though some think that it now forms the Bay of Douarnenez, and beneath one or other of these watery plains reposes the palace of Gradlon, its marble pillars, cedarn walls and golden roofs for ever hidden from human eyes.
A strange rite preserved the legend of Gradlon in the town of Quimper. Between the towers of the Cathedral there stands a figure of the King mounted on the charger which saved him from the flood. During the French Revolution, however, it was damaged, but restored. The vine, it is said, was introduced into Brittany by Gradlon, and on every Cecilia's Day hymns were sung in his praise, and a golden cup of wine presented to the statue. This was held to its lips and then drunk by the person who offered it. The cup was then cast into the waiting crowd below, and he who caught it received a prize of two hundred crowns.
Behind these ceremonial acts there would seem to have been a background of ancient religious practice. Gradlon is known as Gradlon Meur or "the Great," an appellation reserved only for gods in Celtic mythology. Indeed, he seems to have been Poseidon. Poseidon was the first breaker-in of horses, who taught men to bestride the steed, and was almost invariably represented, like Gradlon, on horseback, or riding in a chariot. His palace closely resembled that of Atlantis. "A strong dike protected it from the ocean." There were gates which opened and closed on the sea-way, as in Atlantis, and his palace was similarly decorated. The people of his city were similarly punished for their wickedness by the submergence of their land. It seems to me that there is little or no difference between the legend of Ys and that of Atlantis. Indeed the very name Ys or Is, as it is frequently spelled, seems merely an abbreviation of that of Atlant-is.
Did land ever exist off the coast of France to such an extent as to give rise to such legends as that of the city of Ys? In the summer of 1925 the world was astonished to learn of the probable existence of land directly off this coast. I give here the best account I can find of this discovery, which appeared in The New York Times:
"France may in a few years find her territory extended considerably, if a report of a tremendous rise in the ocean's bottom made by a French officer commanding the army transport Loiret is confirmed by official investigation.
"In his report Lieutenant Cornet says that when the Loiret was travelling from Cape Ortegal to Rochefort he noted peculiar waves, such as those washing over sandbars, when a hundred miles off shore in the centre of the Gulf of Gascony.
"Consulting his charts and checking his position by the sextant, the Lieutenant found the depths of this area recorded as between 4,000 and 5,000 metres. He decided to make soundings, and over a length of fifty miles found the depths only thirty-four to seventy metres. The ship's pilot also checked the soundings and specimens of the ocean's bottom brought up revealed sand, pebbles and gravel.
"The naval officers are reported as believing this rise, if a rise there is, occurred at the time of the Japanese earthquake in 1923 and of a tidal wave at Penmarch, Brittany, on May 23 last. M. Fichot, Director of the Hydrographic Service of the French Naval Ministry, is more conservative in his statements, and says the lieutenant's observations are worthy of careful study, even though navigation in the Gulf may not be affected by a depth shallower than had been previously thought. He says a naval commission will be sent to the Gulf of Gas cony as soon as possible to check up the data and ascertain the size and location of the submarine plateau.
"He does not believe there will be new land, but a submerged bar, of which the wave effect noted is a customary indication. He says it is difficult to know the exact extent of the modifications which have occurred, as the charts of this area are very old and may have been somewhat incorrect. He finds the existence of such a plateau in the Atlantic as strange, however.
"The location given by Lieutenant Cornet centres about 45 degrees 7 minutes north and 3 degrees 57 minutes west about the same latitude as Bordeaux and longitude as Brest. This is 160 kilometres from the nearest point of the French coast."
Subsequent inquiry has failed to discover the results of the Commission dispatched to the Gulf of Gascony, if any such body was ever sent there.
The legend of Dardanus, whom the Flood overtook in Samothrace, has a close resemblance in certain of its passages to that of Atlantis. The natives of Samothrace, according to Diodorus Siculus, averred that the sea rose and covered a great part of the level country in their island, and that the survivors fled to the high mountainous land beyond. As a memorial of their salvation from the Deluge they raised landmarks all round the island and built altars on which they continued to sacrifice to the gods for many succeeding generations. Centuries later, fishermen drew up in their nets the stone capitals of pillars, the eloquent witnesses of cities deep drowned in the surrounding sea.
The myth of Deucalion and the Flood is interesting to students of Atlantean lore, not only because it is a myth of inundation, but also because it has duplicates in American tradition. According to Lucian, Deucalion was the Noah of the Greek world. "I have heard in Greece," says Lucian, "what the Greeks say of Deucalion. The present race of men, they allege, is not the first, for they totally perished, but a second generation, who, being descended from Deucalion, increased to a great multitude. Of those former men they thus speak they were insolent and addicted to unjust actions ; they neither regarded oaths, nor were they hospitable to strangers, nor listened to suppliants; and this complicated wickedness was the cause of their destruction. On a sudden the earth poured forth a vast quantity of water, great rains fell, the rivers overflowed, and the sea rose to a prodigious height. All things became water, and all men were destroyed. Only Deucalion was left, for a second race of men, on account of his prudence and piety. He was saved in this manner. He went into a large ark or chest, and when he was within, there entered swine, horses, lions, serpents, and all other creatures which live on earth, by pairs. He received them all, and they did him no hurt, for the gods created a friendship among them, so that they all sailed in one chest while the waters prevailed."
Deucalion was saved in a small boat along with his wife Pyrrha. Consulting the oracle, they were told to " throw behind you the bones of your mighty mother" (i.e. the stones of the earth). Obeying the behest, they found the stones turned into men and women.
We come now to the evidence from American tradition. This is indeed so rich as to be almost embarassing, and is probably so full because of its considerably later origin.
The Muskhogee Indians preserved a myth to the effect that out of the primeval waste of waters arose a great hill, Nunne Chaha, on which was the dwelling of Esaugetuh Emissee, "Master of Breath," who made men from clay, and built a great wall, on which he set them to dry. He then directed the waters into the proper channels. The hill mentioned in this myth appears to be the same as that on which Poseidon raised his dwelling in Atlantis, and the disposal of the waters bears a suspicious resemblance to the sea-god's disposition of sea and land into zones.
Of Manibozho or Michabo, the great god of the Algonquins, it is related that he "carved the land and sea to his liking," and of Tawiscara, a god of the Hurons, that he "guided the torrents into smooth seas and lakes."
But even more striking are the analogous legends of certain Indian tribes of South America. The Antis Indians of Bolivia and North-west Brazil say that the world was visited by a great flood, in which men were forced to take refuge in caves. Volcanic upheavals followed, and humanity was ultimately destroyed. The Macusi tribe of Arawaks tell how the only people who survived the deluge repeopled the earth by changing stones into human beings, as did Deucalion and Pyrrha in the Greek myth. The Tamanacs have a similar myth, in which the survivors were said to have thrown over their heads the fruits of the Mauritius palm, from the kernels of which sprang men and women.
Perhaps one of the most "Atlantean" of American myths is that of the Mundruku, who record that the god Raimi created the world by placing it in the shape of a flat stone on the head of another deity. This is, of course, merely another form of the Greek myth in which Atlas attempted to relieve himself of the eternal burden of bearing the globe on his shoulders by asking Hercules to hold it for a space. The Caribs believe that their supernatural ancestor sowed the soil with stones, which grew up into men and women, another variant of the Deucalion myth. A legend of the Okanguas states that a great medicine woman ruled over a "lost island," and the Delaware Indians have legends telling of a mighty inundation and a hasty folk-migration in consequence.
The Aztecs of Mexico possessed many traditions which seem to preserve the memory of early cataclysmic events. According to different authorities these had been either four or five in number. The Codex Vaticanus states that "in the first age or sun, water reigned until it destroyed the world." This age lasted 4,008 years, and men were changed into fishes. The second age lasted 4,010 years, and terminated with the destruction of the world by violent winds, and the transformation of men into apes. The third ended with fire and the fourth with famine.
The Peruvian god, Pariacaca arrived, as Poseidon had done, in a hilly country. But the people reviled him, and he sent a great flood upon them, so that their village was destroyed. Meeting a beautiful maiden, Choque Suso, who was weeping bitterly, he inquired the cause of her grief, and she informed him that the maize crop was dying for lack of water. He assured her that he would revive the maize if she would bestow her affections on him, and when she consented to his suit he irrigated the land by canals. Eventually he turned his wife into a statue.
Another Peruvian myth recounts that the god Thonapa, angered at the people of Yamquisapa, in the province of Alla-suyu, because they were so bent on pleasure, drowned their city in a great lake. The people of this region worshipped a statue in the form of a woman, which stood on the summit of the hill, Cachapucara. Thonapa destroyed both hill and image and disappeared into the sea.
These Peruvian myths bear a close resemblance in detail to that part of Plato's account which deals with the wooing of Cleito, the enclosure of the hill, and the making of an irrigation zone. The statue of the wife of the god is also alluded to, and the god himself is described as disappearing into the sea, as Poseidon might well have done. The flood, too, we see, was brought about by the wickedness or love of pleasure of the human race.
The legends of the Tupi-Guarani of Brazil preserve a similar tradition to that of Plato, so far as its catastrophic part is concerned:
"Monan, the Maker, the Begetter, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him that had made them thus joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them tata, the divine fire, which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains and in others deep valleys. Of all men, one alone, Irin Mage (the One who Sees), was saved, whom Monan carried into heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy all the heavens and their garniture? Alas! henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live since there is none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and, flowing from all sides, formed the ocean which we callpartana, the great waters."
Says Brinton in his Myths of the New World, regarding the American tradition of a deluge:
"How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America there is abundant evidence to show. The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor any family who escaped the waters. . . . Nor did their neighbours, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had escaped. The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguas and the Botocudos of Brazil. . . . The Aschochimi of California told of the drowning of the world so that no man escaped. . . . Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the desolating element. ... by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by Christian teachings, but many of them are so connected with local peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies that no unbiassed student can assign them wholly to that source. . . . There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present great uniformity of out-line, and rather than engage in repetitions of little interest they can more profitably be studied in the aggregate than in detail. By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to have been by water. A few, however . . . attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a deep cave. . . . There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race."
A myth of the Mixtecs, a highly civilised race of South-western Mexico, also appears to have a strong Atlantean connection. It says that: "In the days of obscurity and darkness, when there were as yet no days nor years, the world was a chaos sunk in darkness, while the earth was covered with water, on which slime and scum floated. One day the deer-god and goddess appeared. They had human form, and out of their magic they raised a great mountain out of the water and built on it beautiful palaces for their dwelling. These buildings stood in Upper Mixteca, close to the place Apoala (Accumulation of Water) and the mountain which was called "Place Where the Heavens Stood." These deities had twin sons, and all four were skilled in magic. "The deer gods had more sons and daughters, but there came a flood in which many of these perished. After the catastrophe was over, the god who is called the creator of all things formed the heavens and earth and restored the human race."
Here once again we encounter the mountain, the twins, the "accumulation of water" or canals, and the male and female deity dwelling in an enclosed place in undisturbed peace, as did Poseidon and Cleito.
Another Mexican myth relates how the god Tlaloc, the deity of water, raised the earth out of the waters of the deluge. At the festival of the Quaitleloa children were sacrificed to him by drowning. His wife Chalchihuitlicue is represented in a picture in the Aubin MS. as standing in a torrent down which are borne a man, a woman, and a treasure-chest, intended to portray otocoa, or "loss of property," the verbal significance of the symbol being "all will be carried away by water." The picture may be taken as implying a cataclysmic flood occurring in a civilised region. In the Codex Telleriano-Remensis she is alluded to as "the woman who saved herself in the deluge," "the woman who remained after the deluge." Professor Seler sees in her the goddess of change in human affairs, of speedy ruin. Tlaloc and Chalchihuitlicue seem comparable with Poseidon and his Atlantean spouse Cleito. Tlaloc, like Poseidon, is God of the Sea, and his face, armed with huge tusks, appears to be that of a walrus or similar marine animal. His tunic is the "cloud-garment," and his sandals symbolise the foam of the water. To his paradise after death the drowned and dropsical folk repaired, all, in fact, who perished by the agency of water.
The Mexican myths relating to the god Quetzalcoatl and his people the Toltecs are eloquent of Atlantean reminiscence. Torquemada, in his Monarquia Indiana describes the Toltecs as a race clad in robes of black linen, who entered Mexico by way of Panuco, and who settled at Tollan and Cholula. Their chief was one Quetzalcoatl, a man with a long beard and ruddy complexion. They were able handicraftsmen, architects and agriculturists.
A native Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gives an account of the Toltecs which bears a surprising resemblance to the Platonic story of Atlantis. He tells us that the city of Tollan was a place of magnificent palaces and temples, the kings of which were at first wise and politic, but later gave way to licentious and profligate habits. The provinces rose in revolt, and the gods grew wroth with both King and people because of their selfishness and love of pleasure. Alternate frosts and heats of great severity visited the city, so that the crops perished and the rocks melted, and plagues completed the ruin. It is obvious that no such visitations could have occurred on Mexican soil, where frost is seldom experienced, and it seems probable that the story is a reminiscence of cataclysm in another and more distant sphere, and that the melting rocks are significant of seismic or volcanic outbreaks. This ancient tale, revived from the folk-memory of the Mexicans, appears to have been adapted to explain the political break-up of the Toltec power.
Other myths which have collected round the personality of the god or culture-hero Quetzalcoatl have also an Atlantean bearing. This personage was regarded both as chief of the immigrant Toltecs of Mexico and the Maya of Central America. The most complete account of Quetzalcoatl is that of Sahagun, who describes the prosperity of Tollan in his day. He was a great culture-bringer, his palaces were magnificent, and in his time the maize-crop was immense. But native sorcerers gave him a draught which awoke in him a strong desire to return to the home in the Atlantic whence he had come. The magicians informed him that he must return to Tollan-Tlapallan across the sea, and this he did in a raft of serpents.
The Codex Telleriano-Remensis says of Quetzalcoatl: "Quetzalcoatl, they say, was he who created the world. And they bestowed upon him the appelation of Lord of the Wind, because they say that Tonacatecutli, when it appeared good to him, breathed and begat Quetzalcoatl, . . . They celebrated a festival on the sign of the four earthquakes to the destroyer with reference to the fate which again* waited the world: for they said that it had undergone four destructions and would again be destroyed. He alone had a human body like that of other men. The other gods were of an incorporeal nature. After the deluge the custom of sacrificing commenced. . . . They name him 'One Cane/ which is the star Venus, of which they tell the fable accredited among them. Tlauizcalpan Tecutli is the star Venus, the first created light before the deluge. This star is Quetzalcoatl."
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A., a similar document, says: "He it was, as they say, who caused hurricanes, and in my opinion, was the god who was called Citaladuali, and it was he who destroyed the world by winds. . . . The son of the virgin, Quetzalcoatl, knowing that the vices of men were necessarily the cause of the troubles of the world, determined on asking the goddess Chalchihuitlicue, who is she who remained after the deluge with the man in the tree (ark) and is the mother of the god Tlaloc, whom they have made goddess of water, that they might obtain rain when they stood in need of it. ... Of Quetzalcoatl they relate that, proceeding on his journey, he arrived at the Red Sea, which is here painted, and which they named Tlapallan, and that on entering into it they saw no more of him nor knew what became of him. . . . They say it was he who effected the reformation of the world by penance, since as, according to his account his father had created the world and men had given themselves up to vice, on which account it had frequently been destroyed, Citinatonali sent his son into the world to reform it. . . . They celebrated a great festival on this sign, as we shall see on the sign of four earthquakes, because they feared that the world would be destroyed in that sign (or date) as he had foretold them when he disappeared in the Red Sea, which event occurred on the same sign."
Now these passages are eloquent of Quetzalcoatrs connection with the tradition of Atlantis. He is connected with an oceanic region east of Mexico, with cataclysm or earthquake, with the story of the Flood, and with the archaic legend that the world had been destroyed because of the wickedness of mankind. The Maya legends present even more striking associations with the Atlantean tradition.
An ancient book in the Maya tongue, destroyed by Nunez de la Vega, but quoted by him, tells how Votan (the Quiche name of Quetzalcoatl) was commanded to proceed to Mexico to civilise the country. With this intention he left the land of Valum Chivim, and, coming to Central America, founded the city of Palenque. He made several visits to his ancestral home, and left a record of his travels in a temple near the Huehuetan River, known as "The House of Darkness," which Nunez de la Vega professed to have discovered when he visited Huehuetaji in 1601.
That such a civilised race as these legends speak of actually did arrive in Central America is certain. The Maya appeared in that region about 200 B.C. in possession of a fully-developed civilisation, which it must have taken centuries to evolve. There are no signs of its growth on American soil, so we must assume that it came to fruition elsewhere. This alone gives probability to the tradition of QuetzalcoatPs settlement in Central America. Moreover, the Atlantean significance of Quetzalcoatl's myth is clear, as has been indicated. The architecture of Tollan, as described by Ixtlilxochitl and others, bears a striking resemblance to that of Atlantis as described by Plato, the seismic or cataclysmic circumstances are present in both accounts, and the sinfulness of the denizens of both regions is a significant circumstance.
Quetzalcoatl's father was Citallatonali, to whom his son dedicated a special cult. He is represented by the sign cipactli, the dragon or whale from which the earth was made, and which rose out of the sea. In Maya myth he is alluded to as "the Old Serpent covered with green feathers, who lies in the ocean." Quetzalcoatrs mother was Citlallinicue or Coatlicue, a name which seems to bear a suspicious resemblance to that of Cleito, the maiden whom Poseidon espoused, and who bore him Atlas and other sons.
Quetzalcoatl can readily be compared with Atlas. In several places in Mexican art he is represented as the earth-bearer, especially in a statuette found in Mexico City, at Chichen-Itzjl and elsewhere. In these he is depicted as bearing the world or the sky upon his head, and Dr. J. H. Spinden, a leading authority on Maya archaeology, has described these figures as "Atlantean," because of their resemblance to the Greek caryatids of Atlas. Like Atlas, too, Quetzalcoatl was a twin, the expression coatl, signifying both "snake" and "twin."
The fact that Quetzalcoatl periodically returned to his original home seems to imply that it had not yet been wholly submerged, but that occasional cataclysms had rendered it so unstable that its ruling classes had considered the possibility of settlement elsewhere. A similar condition of things has been recorded by Professor J. Macmillan Brown in his Riddle of the Pacific, in which he alludes to the settlement of Hotu Matua, a culture-hero from a sunken region in the Pacific, upon Easter Island. It seems probable, then, that Quetzalcoatl and his people were immigrants from Antillia, the westward portion of the Atlantean continent, which, I believe, long survived the eastern or Atlantean portion proper. I have, as already mentioned, dealt fully with this aspect of Quetzalcoatls myth elsewhere.
We find, then, that Plato's account of Atlantis by no means stands alone, but has many equivalents in European and American tradition; and that these traditions were drawn from actual colonial settlement in more than one of the regions where they flourished will be seen when we come to deal with the subject of the Atlantean colonies.