Page:Myths of Mexico and Peru.djvu/341

 history, or between monarchs and gods, the real and the fabulous. Interminable conflicts are the theme of most of the book, and many migrations are recounted.

Queen Móo

Whilst dealing with Maya pseudo-history it will be well to glance for a moment at the theories of the late Augustus Le Plongeon, who lived and carried on excavations in Yucatan for many years. Dr. Le Plongeon was obsessed with the idea that the ancient Maya spread their civilisation all over the habitable globe, and that they were the originators of the Egyptian, Palestinian, and Hindu civilisations, besides many others. He furthermore believed himself to be the true elucidator of the Maya system of hieroglyphs, which in his estimation were practically identical with the Egyptian. We will not attempt to refute his theories, as they are based on ignorance of the laws which govern philology, anthropology, and mythology. But he possessed a thorough knowledge of the Maya tongue, and his acquaintance with Maya customs was extensive and peculiar. One of his ideas was that a certain hall among the ruins of Chichen-Itza had been built by a Queen Móo, a Maya princess who after the tragic fate of her brother-husband and the catastrophe which ended in the sinking of the continent of Atlantis fled to Egypt, where she founded the ancient Egyptian civilisation. It would be easy to refute this theory. But the tale as told by Dr. Le Plongeon possesses a sufficiency of romantic interest to warrant its being rescued from the little-known volume in which he published it.

We do not learn from Dr. Le Plongeon's book by what course of reasoning he came to discover that the Rh