Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
A clergyman who visited the Indians north-west of the Ohio in 1764 met,
at a treaty, a party of Indians from the west of the Mississippi.
"They informed him that one of their most ancient traditions was that, a
great while ago, they had a common father, who lived toward the rising
of the sun, and governed the whole world; that all the white people's
heads were under his feet; that he had twelve sons, by whom he
administered the government; that the twelve sons behaved very bad, and
tyrannized over the people, abusing their power; that the Great Spirit,
being thus angry with them, suffered the white people to introduce
spirituous liquors among them, made them drunk, stole the special gift
of the Great Spirit from them, and by this means usurped power over
them; and ever since the Indians' heads were under the white people's
feet." (Boudinot's "Star in the West," p. 111.)
Here we note that they looked "toward the rising sun"--toward
Atlantis--for the original home of their race; that this region governed
"the whole world;" that it contained white people, who were at first a
subject race, but who subsequently rebelled, and acquired dominion over
the darker races. We will see reason hereafter to conclude that Atlantis
had a composite population, and that the 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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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