Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/128

128 fall of the powerful and luxurious Xibalban Empire. In this evident clash of races, civilizations and religions, as seen through the shrouding mists of time, the older one was found by Votan of the Snake Totem. He had been deified for many centuries with complicated rituals when, at the fall of magnificent Xibalba, his worship was overthrown and the population converted to the religion of Hurukane. (The story of this deified leader who swept in from the west, is another volume to be written in the future.)

The early epoch of Votan and the fact that he belonged to the Snake Totem are both of help in tracing and sorting out the unwritten fragments. (The snake, as we might guess from its color and its undulating movement, always stands for either rain, water, or the sea.) These unwritten connecting legends are sometimes astoundingly enlightening. Most of them are mere fragments. Many are garbled, while others have been attached to an unrelated fragment. Important parts are sometimes missing altogether, or two personalities have become confused. However, taken in mass, they begin to present a pattern—a much-torn puzzle-picture—and from it begins to emerge the story of Votan.

One of the most interesting and significant facts is that the greatest majority of these legends come from the Atlantic coastline. Not only are these stories more complete along the coast, but they are garbled in ratio to their distance from that coast, which fact should distinguish Votan as an exclusively Atlantic figure.

UR most complete unwritten legend comes from the Chiapas Tribe. Votan, we are told, lived at the time of the great flood. He was known as "The Great Builder" because he began the pyramid which was to reach to heaven. Of course, he was unable to finish it because of the flood. When the sea began to rise in mountainous waves, Votan gathered what remained of his people and hurriedly crowding them upon a fleet of ships, sailed toward the setting sun until he came to this continent. It had been an orderly exodus, however, for he remembered to take not only food and water, but domestic plants, animals, cotton seeds and the entire library of his doomed homeland. With him were seven Totems, the priests of the sun-god, as well as historians and actors skilled in interpreting and dramatizing the pricelespriceless [sic] manuscripts. The first tribe or totem was put ashore at a place variously called Banutla, Panuco or Pantlan. The distant ancestors of the Chiapas were put ashore at a later stop and the fleet continued upon its journey toward the south.

We pick up the second most important Votan legend in Guatemala. Here the story is essentially the same, except for a minor controversy concerning the identity of Votan, the leader. Some believe that "The Clever Builder" was drowned in the flood and that his grandson led the fleet of refugees. Be that as it may, the fleet came carefully down the coast. It dropped another tribe in Guatemala, and after leaving elaborate directions for a system of communication, the remaining tribes continued south, carrying with them their priceless books. From this point the mists of time close about the fleet of Votan. If there are more legends in the jungles of Brazil, no one has ever gathered them. Dare we hope that not only lands exist, but in those tropical mazes where white men (fortunately) have never been able to penetrate, some of the ancient manuscripts may yet be discovered?

Now it remains to us to see what we can add to this outline by fragments. There are many fragments. The Cholulas tell us that they have a legend of Wodon. He began a pyramid which he was unable to finish because the mountains belched forth flaming rocks. After this happened, the people could not understand each other. The Mayas have a legend of Itzamna or Itzamnan. He was the god of the Itzaes who came to Yucatan from the south and settled among the Mayas. Itzamna has taken some of the Votan tradition. He is pictured on the Mayan temples and upon a surviving manuscript as sailing over the sea, carrying plants. It is interesting to note, however, that he is always pictured with a tiny goatee beard—such a beard as archaeologists tell us was once a part of the face of the wind-cut sphinx, and which was as much a part of the costume of the beardless Egyptian pharoahs as were their golden symbols of office.

Other legendary fragments such as that of the Hopis, lend no new feature to our picture. Yet I cannot help but quote from a shrewd old Mohawk story-teller who, when pressed by the present writer for a story, announced that the Tower of Babel was really an Indian legend which the biblical writer had decidedly garbled. The true facts were, he assured me, that the people were unable to finish the tower because they were interrupted by a violent earthquake and a flood which rose out of the sea. The people having been dispersed, planned to meet at a future date, but when they came together, they could no longer understand each other's language. Dare I say that I found his explanation the most reasonable?

Perhaps the most unexpected revelation of these legends is that of the myth of Vulcan, which comes from southern Europe, is seen to be another fragment of Votan lore. He, too, was an artisan. From that source also, the language is bequeathed a word, and one which in Indian eyes is far more appropriate, namely—volcano.

ILL science someday find a connecting link between the Tower of Babel, the Norse god Wotan and the Great Flood? It becomes plausible if we admit that in a legendary Atlantis, the work of the last great emperor upon his pyramid-temple was interrupted by the cataclysmic fury and subsequent tidal waves which heralded that