Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
"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 an 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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