Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/127

XV.] to speak the same language. These lived together in the same place, but at last they moved, and after 104 years of wanderings they settled in Aztlan. Thence they journeyed to Chiapultepeque, and then returned to the Mount Colhuacan and settled in Mexico.

There was a story of similar description connected with the ancient city of Cholula in the modern province of Puebla. "Before the great flood in the year 4,008 after the creation of the world, the land Anaknac (Mexico) was peopled with giants. All those who did not perish, with the exception of seven, escaped into holes, and were transformed into fish. When the deluge was over, one of these giants, Xelhuaz by name, the builder, went to Cholula, and built a pyramid on Mount Tlalok, to commemorate his having been saved thereon along with his six brothers." The inhabitants of Mechoacan related that, on account of the iniquity of men, a flood was sent to sweep them all away; but a priest, named Tezbi, along with his wife and children, were saved in a box of wood into which they had entered along with all kinds of seeds and animals. After some time Tezbi, wearying of his confinement, sent forth the vulture, which however did not return to him; then he sent forth other birds, but they did not come back; finally, he sent out the Colibri, which returned with a branch in its beak. And of this event they had paintings in their temples which they showed to the white men who arrived amongst them.

The Indians in Cuba told a similar story, so did those at St. Domingo and the Antilles.

Nor is South America without a rich crop of similar legends. Humboldt says, "This belief (in a deluge) is not found merely among the Tamanaks, but is a portion of a whole system of historical traditions of which the scattered accounts are to be gathered from the Maipures of the Great Cataract, the Indians of Rio-Crevato, which pours into the Cauca, and almost from all the races in the Upper Orinoko."

This is the tradition of the Tamanaks. "At the time of our