Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/120

102 where they resemble on the one hand Plato's record, and on the other the Chaldean legend.

The name of the hero of the Aztec story, Nata, pronounced with the broad sound of the a, is not far from the name of Noah or Noe. The Deluge of Genesis is a Phœnician, Semitic, or Hebraic legend, and yet, strange to say, the name of Noah, which occurs in it, bears no appropriate meaning in those tongues, but is derived from Aryan sources; its fundamental root is Na, to which in all the Aryan language is attached the meaning of water—νάειν, to flow; νᾶμα, water; Nympha, Neptunus, water deities. (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 15.) We find the root Na repeated in the name of this Central American Noah, Na-ta, and probably in the word "Na-hui-atl"—the age of water.

But still more striking analogies exist between the Chaldean legend and the story of the Deluge as told in the "Popul Vuh" (the Sacred Book) of the Central Americans:

"Then the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven (Hurakan), and a great inundation came upon the heads of these creatures.… They were ingulfed, and a resinous thickness descended from heaven;… the face of the earth was obscured, and a heavy darkening rain commenced—rain by day and rain by night.… There was heard a great noise above their heads, as if produced by fire. Then were men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair; they wished to climb upon their houses, and the houses, tumbling down, fell to the ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and the trees shook them off; they wished to enter into the grottoes (caves), and the grottoes closed themselves before them.… Water and fire contributed to the universal ruin at the time of the last great cataclysm which preceded the fourth creation."

Observe the similarities here to the Chaldean legend. There is the same graphic description of a terrible event. The "black cloud" is referred to in both instances; also the dreadful noises, the rising water, the earthquake rocking the trees, overthrowing the houses, and crushing even the mountain