Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
If the legend of Cadmus recovering Europa, after she has been carried
away by the white bull, the spotless cloud, means that "the sun must
journey westward until he sees again the beautiful tints which greeted
his eyes in the morning," it is curious to find a story current in North
America to the effect that a man once had a beautiful daughter, 'whom he
forbade to leave the lodge lest she should be carried off by the king of
the buffaloes; and that as she sat, notwithstanding, outside the house
combing her hair, "all of a sudden the king of the buffaloes came
dashing on, with his herd of followers, and, taking her between his
horns, away be cantered over plains, plunged into a river which bounded
his land, and carried her safely to his lodge on the other side," whence
she was finally recovered by her father.
Games.--The same games and sports extended from India to the shores of
Lake Superior. The game of the Hindoos, called pachisi, is played upon a
cross-shaped board or cloth; it is a combination of checkers and
draughts, with the throwing of dice, the dice determining the number of
moves; when the Spaniards entered Mexico they found the Aztecs playing a
game called patolli, identical with the Hindoo pachisi, on a similar
cross-shaped board. The game of ball, which the Indians of America were
in the habit of playing at the time of the discovery of the country,
from California to the Atlantic, was identical with the European chueca,
crosse, or hockey.
One may well pause, after reading this catalogue, and ask himself,
wherein do these peoples differ? It is absurd to pretend that all these
similarities could have been the result of accidental coincidences.
These two peoples, separated by the great ocean, were baptized alike in
infancy with blessed water; they prayed alike to the gods; they
worshipped together the sun, moon, and stars; they confessed their sins
alike; they were instructed alike by an established priesthood; they
were married in the same way and by the joining of hands; they armed
themselves with the same weapons; when children came, the man, on both
continents, went to bed and left his wife to do the honors of the
household; they tattooed and painted themselves in the same fashion;
they became intoxicated on kindred drinks; their dresses were alike;
they cooked in the same manner; they used the same metals; they employed
the same exorcisms and bleedings for disease; they believed alike in
ghosts, demons, and fairies; they listened to the same stories; they
played the same games; they used the same musical instruments; they
danced the same dances, and when they died they were embalmed in the
same way and buried sitting; while over them were erected, on both
continents, the same mounds, pyramids, obelisks, and temples. And yet we
are asked to believe that there was no relationship between them, and
that they had never had any ante-Columbian intercourse with each other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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