Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/124

106 original home of the Nahuatlacas was Aztlan, the location of which has been the subject of much discussion. The causes that led to their exodus from that country can only be conjectured; but they may be supposed to have been driven out by their enemies, for Aztlan is described as a land too fair and beautiful to be left willingly in the mere hope of finding a better." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 306.) The Aztecs also claimed to have come originally from Aztlan. (Ibid., p. 321.) Their very name, Aztecs, was derived from Aztlan. (Ibid., vol. ii., p. 125). They were Atlanteans.

The "Popul Vuh" tells us that after the migration from Aztlan three sons of the King of the Quiches, upon the death of their father, "determined to go as their fathers had ordered to the East, on the shores of the sea whence their fathers had come, to receive the royalty, 'bidding adieu to their brothers and friends, and promising to return.' Doubtless they passed over the sea when they went to the East to receive the royalty. Now this is the name of the lord, of the monarch of the people of the East where they went. And when they arrived before the lord Nacxit, the name of the great lord, the only judge, whose power was without limit, behold he granted them the sign of royalty and all that represents it… and the insignia of royalty… all the things, in fact, which they brought on their return, and which they went to receive from the other side of the sea—the art of painting from Tulan, a system of writing, they said, for the things recorded in their histories." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 553; "Popul Vuh," p. 294.)

This legend not only points to the East as the place of origin of these races, but also proves that this land of the East, this Aztlan, this Atlantis, exercised dominion over the colonies in Central America, and furnished them with the essentials of civilization. How completely does this agree with the statement of Plato that the kings of Atlantis held dominion over parts of "the great opposite continent!"