The Antediluvian World
by
Ignatius Donnelly
Part 7 out of 8
of Bolivia and Peru, precisely as a similar emigration of Aryans went
westward to the shores of the Mediterranean and Caspian, and it is very
likely that these diverse migrations habitually spoke the same language.
Señor Vincente Lopez, a Spanish gentleman of Montevideo, in 1872
published a work entitled "Les Races Aryennes in Pérou," in which he
attempts to prove that the great Quichua language, which the Incas
imposed on their subjects over a vast extent of territory, and which is
still a living tongue in Peru and Bolivia, is really a branch of the
great Aryan or Indo-European speech. I quote Andrew Lang's summary of
the proofs on this point:
OWL-HEADED VASE, TROY
"Señor Lopez's view, that the Peruvians were Aryans who left the parent
stock long before the Teutonic or Hellenic races entered Europe, is
supported by arguments drawn from language, from the traces of
institutions, from religious beliefs, from legendary records, and
artistic remains. The evidence from language is treated scientifically,
and not as a kind of ingenious guessing. Señor Lopez first combats the
idea that the living dialect of Peru is barbarous and fluctuating. It is
not one of the casual and shifting forms of speech produced by nomad
races. To which of the stages of language does this belong--the
agglutinative, in which one root is fastened on to another, and a word
is formed in which the constitutive elements are obviously distinct, or
the inflexional, where the auxiliary roots get worn down and are only
distinguishable by the philologist? As all known Aryan tongues are
inflexional, Señor Lopez may appear to contradict himself when be says
that Quichua is an agglutinative Aryan language. But he quotes Mr. Max
Müller's opinion that there must have been a time when the germs of
Aryan tongues had not yet reached the inflexional stage, and shows that
while the form of Quichua is agglutinative, as in Turanian, the roots of
words are Aryan. If this be so, Quichua may be a linguistic missing link.
"When we first look at Quichua, with its multitude of words, beginning
with hu, and its great preponderance of q's, it seems almost as odd as
Mexican. But many of these forms are due to a scanty alphabet, and
really express familiar sounds; and many, again, result from the casual
spelling of the Spaniards. We must now examine some of the-forms which
Aryan roots are supposed to take in Quichua. In the first place, Quichua
abhors the shock of two consonants. Thus, a word like ple'w in Greek
would be unpleasant to the Peruvian's ear, and he says pillui, 'I sail.'
The plu, again, in pluma, a feather, is said to be found in pillu, 'to
fly.' Quichua has no v, any more than Greek has, and just as the Greeks
had to spell Roman words beginning with V with Ou, like
Valerius--Ou?ale'rios--so, where Sanscrit has v, Quichua has sometimes
hu. Here is a list of words in hu:
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| QUICHUA. | SANSCRIT. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huakia, to call. | Vacc, to speak. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huasi, a house. | Vas, to inhabit. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huayra, air, au?'ra. | Vâ, to breathe. |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
| Huasa, the back. | Vas, to be able (pouvoir). |
+----------------------+----------------------------+
"There is a Sanscrit root, kr, to act, to do: this root is found In more
than three hundred names of peoples and places in Southern America. Thus
there are the Caribs, whose name may have the same origin as that of our
old friends the Carians, and mean the Braves, and their land the home of
the Braves, like Kaleva-la, in Finnish. The same root gives kara, the
hand, the Greek xei'r, and kkalli, brave, which a person of fancy may
connect with kalo's. Again, Quichua has an 'alpha privative'--thus
A-stani means 'I change a thing's place;' for ni or mi is the first
person singular, and, added to the root of a verb, is the sign of the
first person of the present indicative. For instance, can means being,
and Can-mi, or Cani, is, 'I am.' In the same way Munanmi, or Munani, is
'I love,' and Apanmi, or Apani, 'I carry.' So Lord Strangford was wrong
when he supposed that the last verb in mi lived with the last patriot in
Lithuania. Peru has stores of a grammatical form which has happily
perished in Europe. It is impossible to do more than refer to the
supposed Aryan roots contained in the glossary, but it may be noticed
that the future of the Quichuan verb is formed in s-I love, Munani; I
shall love, Munasa--and that the affixes denoting cases in the noun are
curiously like the Greek prepositions."
The resemblance between the Quichua and Mandan words for I or
me--mi--will here be observed.
Very recently Dr. Rudolf Falb has announced (Neue Freie Presse, of
Vienna) that be has discovered that the relation of the Quichua and
Aimara languages to the Aryan and Semitic tongues is very close; that,
in fact, they "exhibit the most astounding affinities with the Semitic
tongue, and particularly the Arabic", in which tongue Dr. Falb has been
skilled from his boyhood. Following, up the lines of this discovery, Dr.
Falb has found (1) a connecting link with the Aryan roots, and (2) has
ultimately arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that "the
Semitic roots are universally Aryan." The common stems of all the
variants are found in their purest condition in Quichua and Aimara, from
which fact Dr. Falb derives the conclusion that the high plains of Peru
and Bolivia must be regarded as the point of exit of the present human
race.
[Since the above was written I have received a letter from Dr. Falb,
dated Leipsic, April 5th, 1881. Scholars will be glad to learn that Dr.
Falb's great work on the relationship of the Aryan and Semitic languages
to the Quichua and Aimara tongues will be published in a year or two;
the manuscript contains over two thousand pages, and Dr. Falb has
devoted to it ten years of study. A work from such a source, upon so
curious and important a subject, will be looked for with great interest.]
But it is impossible that the Quichuas and Aimaras could have passed
across the wide Atlantic to Europe if there had been no stepping-stone
in the shape of Atlantis with its bridge-like ridges connecting the two
continents.
It is, however, more reasonable to suppose that the Quichuas and Aimaras
were a race of emigrants from Plato's island than to think that Atlantis
was populated from South America. The very traditions to which we have
referred as existing among the Peruvians, that the civilized race were
white and bearded, and that they entered or invaded the country, would
show that civilization did not originate in Peru, but was a
transplantation from abroad, and only in the direction of Atlantis can
we look for a white and bearded race.
In fact, kindred races, with the same arts, and speaking the same tongue
in an early age of the world, separated in Atlantis and went east and
west--the one to repeat the civilization of the mother-country along the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which, like a great river, may be said
to flow out from the Black Sea, with the Nile as one of its tributaries,
and along the shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; while the
other emigration advanced up the Amazon, and created mighty nations upon
its head-waters in the valleys of the Andes and on the shores of the
Pacific.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AFRICAN COLONIES.
Africa, like Europe and America, evidences a commingling of different
stocks: the blacks are not all black, nor all woolly-haired; the
Africans pass through all shades, from that of a light Berber, no darker
than the Spaniard, to the deep black of the Iolofs, between Senegal and
Gambia.
The traces of red men or copper-colored races are found in many parts of
the continent. Prichard divides the true negroes into four classes; his
second class is thus described:
"2. Other tribes have forms and features like the European; their
complexion is black, or a deep olive, or a copper color approaching to
black, while their hair, though often crisp and frizzled, is not in the
least woolly. Such are the Bishari and Danekil and Hazorta, and the
darkest of the Abyssinians.
"The complexion and hair of the Abyssinians vary very much, their
complexion ranging from almost white to dark brown or black, and their
hair from straight to crisp, frizzled, and almost woolly." (Nott and
Gliddon, "Types of Mankind," p. 194.)
"Some of the Nubians are copper-colored or black, with a tinge of red."
(Ibid., p. 198.)
Speaking of the Barbary States, these authors further say (Ibid., p.
204):
"On the northern coast of Africa, between the Mediterranean and the
Great Desert, including Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Benzazi,
there is a continuous system of highlands, which have been included
under the general term Atlas--anciently Atlantis, now the Barbary
States. . . . Throughout Barbary we encounter a peculiar group of races,
subdivided into many tribes of various shades, now spread over a vast
area, but which formerly had its principal and perhaps aboriginal abode
along the mountain slopes of Atlas. . . . The real name of the Berbers
is Mazirgh, with the article prefixed or suffixed--T-amazirgh or
Amazirgh-T--meaning free, dominant, or 'noble race.' . . . We have every
reason to believe the Berbers existed in the remotest times, with all
their essential moral and physical peculiarities. . . . They existed in
the time of Menes in the same condition in which they were discovered by
Phœnician navigators previously to the foundation of Carthage. They are
an indomitable, nomadic people, who, since the introduction of camels,
have penetrated in considerable numbers into the Desert, and even as far
as Nigritia. . . . Some of these clans are white, others black, with
woolly hair."
Speaking of the Barbary Moors, Prichard says:
"Their figure and stature are nearly the same as those of the southern
Europeans, and their complexion, if darker, is only so in proportion to
the higher temperature of the country. It displays great varieties."
Jackson says:
"The men of Temsena and Showiah are of a strong, robust make, and of a
copper color; the women are beautiful. The women of Fez are fair as the
Europeans, but hair and eyes always dark. The women of Mequinas are very
beautiful, and have the red-and-white complexion of English women."
Spix and Martins, the German travellers, depict the Moors as follows:
"A high forehead, an oval countenance, large, speaking, black eyes,
shaded by arched and strong eyebrows, a thin, rather long, but not too
pointed nose, rather broad lips, meeting in an acute angle,
brownish-yellow complexion, thick, smooth, and black hair, and a stature
greater than the middle height."
Hodgson states:
"The Tuarycks are a white people, of the Berber race; the Mozabiaks are
a remarkably white people, and mixed with the Bedouin Arabs. The
Wadreagans and Wurgelans are of a dark bronze, with woolly hair."
The Foolahs, Fulbe (sing. Pullo), Fellani, or Fellatah, are a people of
West and Central Africa. It is the opinion of modern travellers that the
Foolahs are destined to become the dominant people of Negro-land. In
language, appearance, and history they present striking differences from
the neighboring tribes, to whom they are superior in intelligence, but
inferior, according to Garth, in physical development. Golbery describes
them as "robust and courageous, of a reddish-black color, with regular
features, hair longer and less woolly than that of the common negroes,
and high mental capacity." Dr. Barth found great local differences in
their physical characteristics, as Bowen describes the Foolahs of Bomba
as being some black, some almost white, and many of a mulatto color,
varying from dark to very bright. Their features and skulls were cast in
the European mould. They have a tradition that their ancestors were
whites, and certain tribes call themselves white men. They came from
Timbuctoo, which lies to the north of their present location.
The Nubians and Foolahs are classed as Mediterraneans. They are not
black, but yellowish-brown, or red-brown. The hair is not woolly but
curly, and sometimes quite straight; it is either dark-brown or black,
with a fuller growth of beard than the negroes. The oval face gives them
a Mediterranean type. Their noses are prominent, their lips not puffy,
and their languages have no connection with the tongues of the negroes
proper. ("American Cyclopædia," art. Ethnology, p. 759.)
"The Cromlechs (dolmens) of Algeria" was the subject of an address made
by General Faidherbe at the Brussels International Congress. He
considers these structures to be simply sepulchral monuments, and, after
examining five or six thousand of them, maintains that the dolmens of
Africa and of Europe were all constructed by the same race, during their
emigration from the shores of the Baltic to the southern coast of the
Mediterranean. The author does not, however, attempt to explain the
existence of these monuments in other countries--Hindostan, for
instance, and America. "In Africa," he says, "cromlechs are called tombs
of the idolaters"--the idolaters being neither Romans, nor Christians,
nor Phœnicians, but some antique race. He regards the Berbers as the
descendants of the primitive dolmen-builders. Certain Egyptian monuments
tell of invasions of Lower Egypt one thousand five hundred years before
our era by blond tribes from the West. The bones found in the cromlechs
are those of a large and dolichocephalous race. General Faidherbe gives
the average stature (including the women) at 1.65 or 1.74 metre, while
the average stature of French carabineers is only 1.65 metre. He did not
find a single brachycephalous skull. The profiles indicated great
intelligence. The Egyptian documents already referred to call the
invaders Tamahu, which must have come from the invaders' own language,
as it is not Egyptian. The Tuaregs of the present day may be regarded as
the best representatives of the Tamahus. They are of lofty stature, have
blue eyes, and cling to the custom of bearing long swords, to be wielded
by both bands. In Soudan, on the banks of the Niger, dwells a negro
tribe ruled by a royal family (Masas), who are of rather fair
complexion, and claim descent from white men. Masas is perhaps the same
as Mashash, which occurs in the Egyptian documents applied to the
Tamahus. The Masas wear the hair in the same fashion as the Tamahus, and
General Faidherbe is inclined to think that they too are the descendants
of the dolmen-builders.
These people, according to my theory, were colonists from
Atlantis--colonists of three different races--white, yellow, and
sunburnt or red.
CHAPTER VII.
THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.
We have seen that beyond question Spain and France owed a great part of
their population to Atlantis. Let us turn now to Ireland.
We would naturally expect, in view of the geographical position of the
country, to find Ireland colonized at an early day by the overflowing
population of Atlantis. And, in fact, the Irish annals tell us that
their island was settled prior to the Flood. In their oldest legends an
account is given of three Spanish fishermen who were driven by contrary
winds on the coast of Ireland before the Deluge. After these came the
Formorians, who were led into the country prior to the Deluge by the
Lady Banbha, or Kesair; her maiden name was h'Erni, or Berba; she was
accompanied by fifty maidens and three men--Bith, Ladhra, and Fintain.
Ladhra was their conductor, who was the first buried in Hibernia. That
ancient book, the "Cin of Drom-Snechta," is quoted in the "Book of
Ballymote" as authority for this legend.
The Irish annals speak of the Formorians as a warlike race, who,
according to the "Annals of Clonmacnois," "were a sept descended from
Cham, the son of Noeh, and lived by pyracie and spoile of other nations,
and were in those days very troublesome to the whole world."
Were not these the inhabitants of Atlantis, who, according to Plato,
carried their arms to Egypt and Athens, and whose subsequent destruction
has been attributed to divine vengeance invoked by their arrogance and
oppressions?
The Formorians were from Atlantis. They were called Fomhoraicc,
F'omoraig Afraic, and Formoragh, which has been rendered into English as
Formorians. They possessed ships, and the uniform representation is that
they came, as the name F'omoraig Afraic indicated, from Africa. But in
that day Africa did not mean the continent of Africa, as we now
understand it. Major Wilford, in the eighth volume of the "Asiatic
Researches," has pointed out that Africa comes from Apar, Aphar, Apara,
or Aparica, terms used to signify "the West," just as we now speak of
the Asiatic world as "the East." When, therefore, the Formorians claimed
to come from Africa, they simply meant that they came from the West--in
other words, from Atlantis--for there was no other country except
America west of them.
They possessed Ireland from so early a period that by some of the
historians they are spoken of as the aborigines of the country.
The first invasion of Ireland, subsequent to the coming of the
Formorians, was led by a chief called Partholan: his people are known in
the Irish annals as "Partholan's people." They were also probably
Atlanteans. They were from Spain. A British prince, Gulguntius, or
Gurmund, encountered off the Hebrides a fleet of thirty ships, filled
with men and women, led by one Partholyan, who told him they were from
Spain, and seeking some place to colonize. The British prince directed
him to Ireland. ("De Antiq. et Orig. Cantab.")
Spain in that day was the land of the Iberians, the Basques; that is to
say, the Atlanteans.
The Formorians defeated Partholan's people, killed Partholan, and drove
the invaders out of the country.
The Formorians were a civilized race; they had "a fleet of sixty ships
and a strong army."
The next invader of their dominions was Neimhidh; he captured one of
their fortifications, but it was retaken by the Formorians under "Morc."
Neimhidh was driven out of the country, and the Atlanteans continued in
undisturbed possession of the island for four hundred years more. Then
came the Fir-Bolgs. They conquered the whole island, and divided it into
five provinces. They held possession of the country for only
thirty-seven years, when they were overthrown by the Tuatha-de-Dananns,
a people more advanced in civilization; so much so that when their king,
Nuadha, lost his hand in battle, "Creidne, the artificer," we are told,
"put a silver hand upon him, the fingers of which were capable of
motion." This great race ruled the country for one hundred and
ninety-seven years: they were overthrown by an immigration from Spain,
probably of Basques, or Iberians, or Atlanteans, "the sons of Milidh,"
or Milesius, who "possessed a large fleet and a strong army." This last
invasion took place about the year 1700 B.C.; so that the invasion of
Neimhidh must have occurred about the year 2334 B.C.; while we will have
to assign a still earlier date for the coming of Partholan's people, and
an earlier still for the occupation of the country by the Formorians
from the West.
In the Irish historic tales called "Catha; or Battles," as given by the
learned O'Curry, a record is preserved of a real battle which was fought
between the Tuatha-de-Dananns and the Fir Bolgs, from which it appears
that these two races spoke the same language, and that they were
intimately connected with the Formorians. As the armies drew near
together the Fir-Bolgs sent out Breas, one of their great chiefs, to
reconnoitre the camp of the strangers; the Tuatha-de-Dananns appointed
one of their champions, named Sreng, to meet the emissary of the enemy;
the two warriors met and talked to one another over the tops of their
shields, and each was delighted to find that the other spoke the same
language. A battle followed, in which Nunda, king of the Fir-Bolgs, was
slain; Breas succeeded him; he encountered the hostility of the bards,
and was compelled to resign the crown. He went to the court of his
father-in-law, Elathe, a Formorian sea-king or pirate; not being well
received, be repaired to the camp of Balor of the Evil Eye, a Formorian
chief. The Formorian head-quarters seem to have been in the Hebrides.
Breas and Balor collected a vast army and navy and invaded Ireland, but
were defeated in a great battle by the Tuatha-de-Dananns.
These particulars would show the race-identity of the Fir-Bolg and
Tuatha-de-Dananns; and also their intimate connection, if not identity
with, the Formorians.
The Tuatha-de-Dananns seem to have been a civilized people; besides
possessing ships and armies and working in the metals, they had an
organized body of surgeons, whose duty it was to attend upon the wounded
in battle; and they had also a bardic or Druid class, to preserve the
history of the country and the deeds of kings and heroes.
According to the ancient books of Ireland the race known as "Partholan's
people," the Nemedians, the Fir-Bolgs, the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and the
Milesians were all descended from two brothers, sons of Magog, son of
Japheth, son of Noah, who escaped from the catastrophe which destroyed
his country. Thus all these races were Atlantean. They were connected
with the African colonies of Atlantis, the Berbers, and with the
Egyptians. The Milesians lived in Egypt: they were expelled thence; they
stopped a while in Crete, then in Scythia, then they settled in Africa
(See MacGeoghegan's "History of Ireland," p. 57), at a place called
Gæthulighe or Getulia, and lived there during eight generations, say two
hundred and fifty years; "then they entered Spain, where they built
Brigantia, or Briganza, named after their king Breogan: they dwelt in
Spain a considerable time. Milesius, a descendant of Breogan, went on an
expedition to Egypt, took part in a war against the Ethiopians, married
the king's daughter, Scota: he died in Spain, but his people soon after
conquered Ireland. On landing on the coast they offered sacrifices to
Neptune or Poseidon"--the god of Atlantis. (Ibid., p. 58.)
The Book of Genesis (chap. x.) gives us the descendants of Noah's three
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We are told that the sons of Japheth were
Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and
Tiras. We are then given the names of the descendants of Gomer and
Javan, but not of Magog. Josephus says the sons of Magog were the
Scythians. The Irish annals take up the genealogy of Magog's family
where the Bible leaves it. The Book of Invasions, the "Cin of
Drom-Snechta," claims that these Scythians were the Phœnicians; and we
are told that a branch of this family were driven out of Egypt in the
time of Moses: "He wandered through Africa for forty-two years, and
passed by the lake of Salivæ to the altars of the Philistines, and
between Rusicada and the mountains Azure, and he came by the river
Monlon, and by the sea to the Pillars of Hercules, and through the
Tuscan sea, and he made for Spain, and dwelt there many years, and he
increased and multiplied, and his people were multiplied."
From all these facts it appears that the population of Ireland came from
the West, and not from Asia--that it was one of the many waves of
population flowing out from the Island of Atlantis-and herein we find
the explanation of that problem which has puzzled the Aryan scholars. As
Ireland is farther from the Punjab than Persia, Greece, Rome, or
Scandinavia, it would follow that the Celtic wave of migration must have
been the earliest sent out from the Sanscrit centre; but it is now
asserted by Professor Schleicher and others that the Celtic tongue shows
that it separated from the Sanscrit original tongue later than the
others, and that it is more closely allied to the Latin than any other
Aryan tongue. This is entirely inexplicable upon any theory of an
Eastern origin of the Indo-European races, but very easily understood if
we recognize the Aryan and Celtic migrations as going out about the same
time from the Atlantean fountain-head.
There are many points confirmatory of this belief. In the first place,
the civilization of the Irish dates back to a vast antiquity. We have
seen their annals laying claim to an immigration from the direction of
Atlantis prior to the Deluge, with no record that the people of Ireland
were subsequently destroyed by the Deluge. From the Formorians, who came
before the Deluge, to the Milesians, who came from Spain in the Historic
Period, the island was continuously inhabited. This demonstrates (1)
that these legends did not come from Christian sources, as the Bible
record was understood in the old time to imply a destruction of all who
lived before the Flood except Noah and his family; (2) it confirms our
view that the Deluge was a local catastrophe, and did not drown the
whole human family; (3) that the coming of the Formorians having been
before the Deluge, that great cataclysm was of comparatively recent
date, to wit, since the settlement of Ireland; and (4) that as the
Deluge was a local catastrophe, it must have occurred somewhere not far
from Ireland to have come to their knowledge. A rude people could
scarcely have heard in that day of a local catastrophe occurring in the
heart of Asia.
There are many evidences that the Old World recognized Ireland as
possessing a very ancient civilization. In the Sanscrit books it is
referred to as Hiranya, the "Island of the Sun," to wit, of sun-worship;
in other words, as pre-eminently the centre of that religion which was
shared by all the ancient races of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. It
is believed that Ireland was the "Garden of Phœbus" of the Western
mythologists.
The Greeks called Ireland the "Sacred Isle" and "Ogygia."
"Nor can any one," says Camden, "conceive why they should call it
Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called
nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient." We have seen that
Ogyges was connected by the Greek legends with a first deluge, and that
Ogyges was "a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages."
It appears, as another confirmation of the theory of the Atlantis origin
of these colonies, that their original religion was sun-worship; this,
as was the case in other countries, became subsequently overlaid with
idol-worship. In the reign of King Tighernmas the worship of idols was
introduced. The priests constituted the Order of Druids. Naturally many
analogies have been found to exist between the beliefs and customs of
the Druids and the other religions which were drawn from Atlantis. We
have seen in the chapter on sun-worship how extensive this form of
religion was in the Atlantean days, both in Europe and America.
It would appear probable that the religion of the Druids passed from
Ireland to England and France. The metempsychosis or transmigration of
souls was one of the articles of their belief long before the time of
Pythagoras; it had probably been drawn from the storehouse of Atlantis,
whence it passed to the Druids, the Greeks, and the Hindoos. The Druids
had a pontifex maximus to whom they yielded entire obedience. Here again
we see a practice which extended to the Phœnicians, Egyptians, Hindoos,
Peruvians, and Mexicans.
The Druids of Gaul and Britain offered human sacrifices, while it is
claimed that the Irish Druids did not. This would appear to have been a
corrupt after-growth imposed upon the earlier and purer sacrifice of
fruits and flowers known in Atlantis, and due in part to greater cruelty
and barbarism in their descendants. Hence we find it practised in
degenerate ages on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Irish Druidical rites manifested themselves principally in sun
worship. Their chief god was Bel or Baal--the same worshipped by the
Phœnicians--the god of the sun. The Irish name for the sun, Grian, is,
according to Virgil, one of the names of Apollo--another sun-god,
Gryneus. Sun-worship continued in Ireland down to the time of St.
Patrick, and some of its customs exist among the peasantry of that
country to this day. We have seen that among the Peruvians, Romans, and
other nations, on a certain day all fires were extinguished throughout
the kingdom. and a new fire kindled at the chief temple by the sun's
rays, from which the people obtained their fire for the coming year. In
Ireland the same practice was found to exist. A piece of land was set
apart, where the four provinces met, in the present county of Meath;
here, at a palace called Tlachta, the divine fire was kindled. Upon the
night of what is now All-Saints-day the Druids assembled at this place
to offer sacrifice, and it was established, under heavy penalties, that
no fire should be kindled except from this source. On the first of May a
convocation of Druids was held in the royal palace of the King of
Connaught, and two fires were lit, between which cattle were driven, as
a preventive of murrain and other pestilential disorders. This was
called Beltinne, or the day of Bel's fire. And unto this day the Irish
call the first day of May "Lha-Beul-tinne," which signifies "the day of
Bel's fire." The celebration in Ireland of St. John's-eve by watch-fires
is a relic of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis. The practice of
driving cattle through the fire continued for a longtime, and Kelly
mentions in his "Folk-lore" that in Northamptonshire, in England, a calf
was sacrificed in one of these fires to "stop the murrain" during the
present century. Fires are still lighted in England and Scotland as well
as Ireland for superstitious purposes; so that the people of Great
Britain, it may be said, are still in some sense in the midst of the
ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.
We find among the Irish of to-day many Oriental customs. The game of
"jacks," or throwing up five pebbles and catching them on the back of
the hand, was known in Rome. "The Irish keen (caoine), or the lament
over the dead, may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as
Herodotus heard it chanted by the Libyan women." The same practice
existed among the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans. The Irish wakes are
identical with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.
(Cusack's "History of Ireland," p. 141.) The Irish custom of saying "God
bless you!" when one sneezes, is a very ancient practice; it was known
to the Romans, and referred, it is said, to a plague in the remote past,
whose first symptom was sneezing.
We find many points of resemblance between the customs of the Irish and
those of the Hindoo. The practice of the creditor fasting at the
door-step of his debtor until be is paid, is known to both countries;
the kindly "God save you!" is the same as the Eastern "God be gracious
to you, my son!" The reverence for the wren in Ireland and Scotland
reminds us of the Oriental and Greek respect for that bird. The practice
of pilgrimages, fasting, bodily macerations, and devotion to holy wells
and particular places, extends from Ireland to India.
All these things speak of a common origin; this fact has been generally
recognized, but it has always been interpreted that the Irish camp, from
the East, and were in fact a migration of Hindoos. There is not the
slightest evidence to sustain this theory. The Hindoos have never within
the knowledge of man sent out colonies or fleets for exploration; but
there is abundant evidence, on the other hand, of migrations from
Atlantis eastward. And how could the Sanscrit writings have preserved
maps of Ireland, England, and Spain, giving the shape and outline of
their coasts, and their very names, and yet have preserved no memory of
the expeditions or colonizations by which they acquired that knowledge?
Another proof of our theory is found in "the round-towers" of Ireland.
Attempts have been made to show, by Dr. Petrie and others, that these
extraordinary structures are of modern origin, and were built by the
Christian priests, in which to keep their church-plate. But it is shown
that the "Annals of Ulster" mention the destruction of fifty-seven of
them by an earthquake in A.D. 448; and Giraldus Cambrensis shows that
Lough Neagh was created by an inundation, or sinking of the laud, in
A.D. 65, and that in his day the fishermen could
"See the round-towers of other days
In the waves beneath them shining."
Moreover, we find Diodorus Siculus, in a well-known passage, referring
to Ireland, and describing it as "an island in the ocean over against
Gaul, to the north, and not inferior in size to Sicily, the soil of
which is so fruitful that they mow there twice in the year." He mentions
the skill of their harpers, their sacred groves, and their singular
temples of round form.
THE BURGH OF MOUSSA, IN THE SHETLANDS
We find similar structures in America, Sardinia, and India. The remains
of similar round-towers are very abundant in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
"They have been supposed by some," says Sir John Lubbock, "to be
Scandinavian, but no similar buildings exist in Norway, Sweden, or
Denmark, so that this style of architecture is no doubt anterior to the
arrival of the Northmen." I give above a picture of the Burgh or Broch
of the little island of Moussa, in the Shetlands. It is circular in
form, forty-one feet in height. Open at the top; the central space is
twenty feet in diameter, the walls about fourteen feet thick at the
base, and eight feet at the top. They contain a staircase, which leads
to the top of the building. Similar structures are found in the Island
of Sardinia.
ROUND-TOWER OF THE CANYON OF THE MANCOS, COLORADO, U.S.
In New Mexico and Colorado the remains of round-towers are very
abundant. The illustration below represents our of these in the valley
of the Mancos, in the south-western corner of Colorado. A model of it is
to be found in the Smithsonian collection at Washington. The tower
stands at present, in its ruined condition, twenty feet high. It will be
seen that it resembles the towers of Ireland, not only in its circular
form but also in the fact that its door-way is situated at some distance
from the ground.
It will not do to say that the resemblance between these prehistoric and
singular towers, in countries so far apart as Sardinia, Ireland,
Colorado, and India, is due to an accidental coincidence. It might as
well be argued that the resemblance between the roots of the various
Indo-European languages was also due to accidental coincidence, and did
not establish any similarity of origin. In fact, we might just as well
go back to the theory of the philosophers of one hundred and fifty years
ago, and say that the resemblance between the fossil forms in the rocks
and the living forms upon them did not indicate relationship, or prove
that the fossils were the remains of creatures that had once lived, but
that it was simply a way nature had of working out extraordinary
coincidences in a kind of joke; a sort of "plastic power in nature," as
it was called.
We find another proof that Ireland was settled by the people of Atlantis
in the fact that traditions long existed among the Irish peasantry of a
land in the "Far West," and that this belief was especially found among
the posterity of the Tuatha-de-Dananns, whose connection with the
Formorians we have shown.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in a note to his translation of the
"Popol Vuh," says:
"There is an abundance of legends and traditions concerning the passage
of the Irish into America, and their habitual communication with that
continent many centuries before the time of Columbus. We should bear in
mind that Ireland was colonized by the Phœnicians (or by people of that
race). An Irish Saint named Vigile, who lived in the eighth century, was
accused to Pope Zachary of having taught heresies on the subject of the
antipodes. At first he wrote to the pope in reply to the charge, but
afterward he went to Rome in person to justify himself, and there be
proved to the pope that the Irish had been accustomed to communicate
with a transatlantic world."
"This fact," says Baldwin, "seems to have been preserved in the records
of the Vatican."
The Irish annals preserve the memory of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and his
remarkable voyage to a land in the West, made A.D. 545. His early youth
was passed under the care of St. Ita, a lady of the princely family of
the Desii. When he was five years old he was placed under the care of
Bishop Ercus. Kerry was his native home; the blue waves of the Atlantic
washed its shores; the coast was full of traditions of a wonderful land
in the West. He went to see the venerable St. Enda, the first abbot of
Arran, for counsel. he was probably encouraged in the plan he had formed
of carrying the Gospel to this distant land. "He proceeded along the
coast of Mayo, inquiring as he went for traditions of the Western
continent. On his return to Kerry he decided to set out on the important
expedition. St. Brendan's Hill still bears his name; and from the bay at
the foot of this lofty eminence be sailed for the 'Far West.' Directing
his course toward the southwest, with a few faithful companions, in a
well-provisioned bark, he came, after some rough and dangerous
navigation, to calm seas, where, without aid of oar or sail, he was
borne along for many weeks." He had probably entered upon the same great
current which Columbus travelled nearly one thousand years later, and
which extends from the shores of Africa and Europe to America. He
finally reached land; he proceeded inland until he came to a large river
flowing from east to west, supposed by some to be the Ohio. "After an
absence of seven years he returned to Ireland, and lived not only to
tell of the marvels he had seen, but to found a college of three
thousand monks at Clonfert." There are eleven Latin MSS. in the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris of this legend, the dates of which vary
from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, but all of them anterior to
the time of Columbus.
The fact that St. Brendan sailed in search of a country in the west
cannot be doubted; and the legends which guided him were probably the
traditions of Atlantis among a people whose ancestors had been derived
directly or at second-hand from that country.
This land was associated in the minds of the peasantry with traditions
of Edenic happiness and beauty. Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, of
Philadelphia, has referred to it in her poem, "The Sleeper's Sail,"
where the starving boy dreams of the pleasant and plentiful land:
"'Mother, I've been on the cliffs out yonder,
Straining my eyes o'er the breakers free
To the lovely spot where the sun was setting,
Setting and sinking into the sea.
"'The sky was full of the fairest colors
Pink and purple and paly green,
With great soft masses of gray and amber,
And great bright rifts of gold between.
"'And all the birds that way were flying,
Heron and curlew overhead,
With a mighty eagle westward floating,
Every plume in their pinions red.
"'And then I saw it, the fairy city,
Far away o'er the waters deep;
Towers and castles and chapels glowing
Like blesséd dreams that we see in sleep.
"'What is its name?' 'Be still, acushla
(Thy hair is wet with the mists, my boy);
Thou hast looked perchance on the Tir-na-n'oge,
Land of eternal youth and joy!
"'Out of the sea, when the sun is setting,
It rises, golden and fair to view;
No trace of ruin, or change of sorrow,
No sign of age where all is new.
"'Forever sunny, forever blooming,
Nor cloud nor frost can touch that spot,
Where the happy people are ever roaming,
The bitter pangs of the past forgot.'
This is the Greek story of Elysion; these are the Elysian Fields of the
Egyptians; these are the Gardens of the Hesperides; this is the region
in the West to which the peasant of Brittany looks from the shores of
Cape Raz; this is Atlantis.
The starving child seeks to reach this blessed land in a boat and is
drowned.
"High on the cliffs the light-house keeper
Caught the sound of a piercing scream;
Low in her hut the lonely widow
Moaned in the maze of a troubled dream;
"And saw in her sleep a seaman ghostly,
With sea-weeds clinging in his hair,
Into her room, all wet and dripping,
A drownéd boy on his bosom bear.
"Over Death Sea on a bridge of silver
The child to his Father's arms had passed!
Heaven was nearer than Tir-na-n'oge,
And the golden city was reached at last."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE OLDEST SON OF NOAH.
That eminent authority, Dr. Max Müller, says, in his "Lectures on the
Science of Religion,"
"If we confine ourselves to the Asiatic continent, with its important
peninsula of Europe, we find that in the vast desert of drifting human
speech three, and only three, oases have been formed in which, before
the beginning of all history, language became permanent and
traditional--assumed, in fact, a new character, a character totally
different from the original character of the floating and constantly
varying speech of human beings. These three oases of language are known
by the name of Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic. In these three centres,
more particularly in the Aryan and Semitic, language ceased to be
natural; its growth was arrested, and it became permanent, solid,
petrified, or, if you like, historical speech. I have always maintained
that this centralization and traditional conservation of language could
only have been the result of religious and political influences, and I
now mean to show that we really have clear evidence of three independent
settlements of religion--the Turanian, the Aryan, and the
Semitic--concomitantly with the three great settlements of language."
There can be no doubt that the Aryan and another branch, which Müller
calls Semitic, but which may more properly be called Hamitic, radiated
from Noah; it is a question yet to be decided whether the Turanian or
Mongolian is also a branch of the Noachic or Atlantean stock.
To quote again from Max Müller:
"If it can only be proved that the religions of the Aryan nations are
united by the same bonds of a real relationship which have enabled us to
treat their languages as so many varieties of the same type--and so also
of the Semitic--the field thus opened is vast enough, and its careful
clearing, and cultivation will occupy several generations of scholars.
And this original relationship, I believe, can be proved. Names of the
principal deities, words also expressive of the most essential elements
of religion, such as prayer, sacrifice, altar, spirit, law, and faith,
have been preserved among the Aryan and among the Semitic nations, and
these relies admit of one explanation only. After that, a comparative
study of the Turanian religions may be approached with better hope of
success; for that there was not only a primitive Aryan and a primitive
Semitic religion, but likewise a primitive Turanian religion, before
each of these primeval races was broken up and became separated in
language, worship and national sentiment, admits, I believe, of little
doubt. . . . There was a period during which the ancestors of the
Semitic family had not yet been divided, whether in language or in
religion. That period transcends the recollection of every one of the
Semitic races, in the same way as neither Hindoos, Greeks, nor Romans
have any recollection of the time when they spoke a common language, and
worshipped their Father in heaven by a name that was as yet neither
Sanscrit, nor Greek, nor Latin. But I do not hesitate to call this
Prehistoric Period historical in the best sense of the word. It was a
real period, because, unless it was real, all the realities of the
Semitic languages and the Semitic religions, such as we find them after
their separation, would be unintelligible. Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic
point to a common source as much as Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin; and
unless we can bring ourselves to doubt that the Hindoos, the Greeks, the
Romans, and the Teutons derived the worship of their principal deity
from their common Aryan sanctuary, we shall not be able to deny that
there was likewise a primitive religion of the whole Semitic race, and
that El, the Strong One in heaven, was invoked by the ancestors of all
the Semitic races before there were Babylonians in Babylon, Phœnicians
in Sidon and Tyrus--before there were Jews in Mesopotamia or Jerusalem.
The evidence of the Semitic is the same as that of the Aryan languages:
the conclusion cannot be different....
"These three classes of religion are not to be mistaken-as little as the
three classes of language, the Turanian, the Semitic, and the Aryan.
They mark three events in the most ancient history of the world, events
which have determined the whole fate of the human race, and of which we
ourselves still feel the consequences in our language, in our thoughts,
and in our religion."
We have seen that all the evidence points to the fact that this original
seat of the Phœnician-Hebrew family was in Atlantis.
The great god of the so-called Semites was El, the Strong One, from
whose name comes the Biblical names Beth-el, the house of God; Ha-el,
the strong one; El-ohim, the gods; El-oah, God; and from the same name
is derived the Arabian name of God, Al-lah.
Another evidence of the connection between the Greeks, Phœnicians,
Hebrews, and Atlanteans is shown in the name of Adonis.
The Greeks tell us that Adonis was the lover of Aphrodite, or Venus, who
was the offspring of Uranus--"she came out of the sea;" Uranus was the
father of Chronos, and the grandfather of Poseidon, king of Atlantis.
Now We find Adonâi in the Old Testament used exclusively as the name of
Jehovah, while among the Phœnicians Adonâi was the supreme deity. In
both cases the root Ad is probably a reminiscence of Ad-lantis.
There seem to exist similar connections between the Egyptian and the
Turanian mythology. The great god of Egypt was Neph or Num; the chief
god of the Samoyedes is Num; and Max Müller established an identity
between the Num of the Samoyedes and the god Yum-ala of the Finns, and
probably with the name of the god Nam of the Thibetians.
That mysterious people, the Etruscans, who inhabited part of Italy, and
whose bronze implements agreed exactly in style and workmanship with
those which we think were derived from Atlantis, were, it is now
claimed, a branch of the Turanian family.
"At a recent meeting of the English Philological Society great interest
was excited by a paper on Etruscan Numerals, by the Rev. Isaac Taylor.
He stated that the long-sought key to the Etruscan language had at last
been discovered. Two dice had been found in a tomb, with their six faces
marked with words instead of pips. He showed that these words were
identical with the first six digits in the Altaic branch of the Turanian
family of speech. Guided by this clew, it was easy to prove that the
grammar and vocabulary of the 3000 Etruscan inscriptions were also
Altaic. The words denoting kindred, the pronouns, the conjugations, and
the declensions, corresponded closely to those of the Tartar tribes of
Siberia. The Etruscan mythology proved to be essentially the same as
that of the Kalevala, the great Finnic epic."
According to Lenormant ("Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p. 62;
vol. ii., p. 23), the early contests between the Aryans and the
Turanians are represented in the Iranian traditions as "contests between
hostile brothers . . . the Ugro-Finnish races must, according to all
appearances, be looked upon as a branch, earlier detached than the
others from the Japhetic stem."
If it be true that the first branch originating from Atlantis was the
Turanian, which includes the Chinese and Japanese, then we have derived
from Atlantis all the building and metalworking races of men who have
proved themselves capable of civilization; and we may, therefore, divide
mankind into two great classes: those capable of civilization, derived
from Atlantis, and those essentially and at all times barbarian, who
hold no blood relationship with the people of Atlantis.
Humboldt is sure "that some connection existed between ancient Ethiopia
and the elevated plain of Central Asia." There were invasions which
reached from the shores of Arabia into China. "An Arabian sovereign,
Schamar-Iarasch (Abou Karib), is described by Hamza, Nuwayri, and others
as a powerful ruler and conqueror, who carried his arms successfully far
into Central Asia; he occupied Samarcand and invaded China. He erected
an edifice at Samarcand, bearing an inscription, in Himyarite or Cushite
characters, 'In the name of God, Schamar-Iarasch has erected this
edifice to the sun, his Lord." (Baldwin's "Prehistoric Nations," p.
110.) These invasions must have been prior to 1518 B.C.
Charles Walcott Brooks read a paper before the California Academy of
Sciences, in which be says:
"According to Chinese annals, Tai-Ko-Fokee, the great stranger king,
ruled the kingdom of China. In pictures he is represented with two small
horns, like those associated with the representations of Moses. He and
his successor are said to have introduced into China 'picture-writing,'
like that in use in Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest.
He taught the motions of the heavenly bodies, and divided time into
years and months; be also introduced many other useful arts and sciences.
"Now, there has been found at Copan, in Central America, a figure
strikingly like the Chinese symbol of Fokee, with his two horns; and, in
like manner, there is a close resemblance between the Central American
and the Chinese figures representing earth and heaven. Either one people
learned from the other, or both acquired these forms from a common
source. Many physico-geographical facts favor the hypothesis that they
were derived in very remote ages from America, and that from China they
passed to Egypt. Chinese records say that the progenitors of the Chinese
race came from across the sea."
The two small horns of Tai-Ko-Fokee and Moses are probably a
reminiscence of Baal. We find the horns of Baal represented in the
remains of the Bronze Age of Europe. Bel sometimes wore a tiara with his
bull's horns; the tiara was the crown subsequently worn by the Persian
kings, and it became, in time, the symbol of Papal authority. The
Atlanteans having domesticated cattle, and discovered their vast
importance to humanity, associated the bull and cow with religious
ideas, as revealed in the oldest hymns of the Aryans and the cow-headed
idols of Troy, a representation of one of which is shown on the
preceding page. Upon the head of their great god Baal they placed the
horns of the bull; and these have descended in popular imagination to
the spirit of evil of our day. Burns says:
"O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie."
"Clootie" is derived from the cleft hoof of a cow; while the Scotch name
for a bull is Bill, a corruption, probably, of Bel. Less than two
hundred years ago it was customary to sacrifice a bull on the 25th of
August to the "God Mowrie" and "his devilans" on the island of Inis
Maree, Scotland. ("The Past in the Present," p. 165.) The trident of
Poseidon has degenerated into the pitchfork of Beelzebub!
And when we cross the Atlantic, we find in America the horns of Baal
reappearing in a singular manner. The first cut on page 429 represents
an idol of the Moquis of New Mexico: the head is very bull-like. In the
next figure we have a representation of the war-god of the Dakotas, with
something like a trident in his hand; while the next illustration is
taken from Zarate's "Peru," and depicts "the god of a degrading
worship." He is very much like the traditional conception of the
European devil-horns, pointed ears, wings, and poker. Compare this last
figure, from Peru, with the representation on page 430 of a Greek siren,
one of those cruel monsters who, according to Grecian mythology, sat in
the midst of bones and blood, tempting men to ruin by their sweet music.
Here we have the same bird-like legs and claws as in the Peruvian demon.
Heeren shows that a great overland commerce extended in ancient times
between the Black Sea and "Great Mongolia;" he mentions a "Temple of the
Sun," and a great caravansary in the desert of Gobi. Arminius Vámbéry,
in his "Travels in Central Asia," describes very important ruins near
the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, at a place called Gömüshtepe; and
connected with these are the remains of a great wall which he followed
"ten geographical miles." He found a vast aqueduct one hundred and fifty
miles long, extending to the Persian mountains. He reports abundant
ruins in all that country, extending even to China.
The early history of China indicates contact with a superior race.
"Fuh-hi, who is regarded as a demi-god, founded the Chinese Empire 2852
B.C. He introduced cattle, taught the people how to raise them, and
taught the art of writing." ("American Cyclopædia," art. China.) He
might have invented his alphabet, but he did not invent the cattle; be
must have got them from some nation who, during many centuries of
civilization, had domesticated them; and from what nation was he more
likely to have obtained them than from the Atlanteans, whose colonies we
have seen reached his borders, and whose armies invaded his territory!
"He instituted the ceremony of marriage." (Ibid.) This also was an
importation from a civilized land. "His successor, Shin-nung, during a
reign of one hundred and forty years, introduced agriculture and medical
science. The next emperor, Hwang-ti, is believed to have invented
weapons, wagons, ships, clocks, and musical instruments, and to have
introduced coins, weights, and measures." (Ibid.) As these various
inventions in all other countries have been the result of slow
development, running through many centuries, or are borrowed from some
other more civilized people, it is certain that no emperor of China ever
invented them all during a period of one hundred and sixty-four years.
These, then, were also importations from the West. In fact, the Chinese
themselves claim to have invaded China in the early days from the
north-west; and their first location is placed by Winchell near Lake
Balkat, a short distance east of the Caspian, where we have already seen
Aryan Atlantean colonies planted at an early day. "The third successor
of Fuh-hi, Ti-ku, established schools, and was the first to practise
polygamy. In 2357 his son Yau ascended the throne, and it is from his
reign that the regular historical records begin. A great flood, which
occurred in his reign, has been considered synchronous and identical
with the Noachic Deluge, and to Yau is attributed the merit of having
successfully battled against the waters."
There can be no question that the Chinese themselves, in their early
legends, connected their origin with a people who were destroyed by
water in a tremendous convulsion of the earth. Associated with this
event was a divine personage called Niu-va (Noah?).
Sir William Jones says:
"The Chinese believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water,
which, in works of undisputed authenticity, they describe as flowing
abundantly, then subsiding and separating the higher from the lower ages
of mankind; that this division of time, from which their poetical
history begins, just preceded the appearance of Fo-hi on the mountains
of Chin." ("Discourse on the Chinese; Asiatic Researches," vol. ii., p.
376.)
The following history of this destruction of their ancestors vividly
recalls to us the convulsion depicted in the Chaldean and American
legends:
"The pillars of heaven were broken; the earth shook to its very
foundations; the heavens sunk lower toward the north; the sun, the moon,
and the stars changed their motions; the earth fell to pieces, and the
waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and
overflowed it. Man having rebelled against Heaven, the system of the
universe was totally disordered. The sun was eclipsed, the planets
altered their course, and the grand harmony of nature was disturbed."
A learned Frenchman, M. Terrien de la Couperie, member of the Asiatic
Society of Paris, has just published a work (1880) in which he
demonstrates the astonishing fact that the Chinese language is clearly
related to the Chaldean, and that both the Chinese characters and the
cuneiform alphabet are degenerate descendants of an original
hieroglyphical alphabet. The same signs exist for many words, while
numerous words are very much alike. M. de la Couperie gives a table of
some of these similarities, from which I quote as follows:
+------------+----------+----------+
| English. | Chinese. | Chaldee. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| To shine | Mut | Mul. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| To die | Mut | Mit. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Book | King | Kin. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Cloth | Sik | Sik. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Right hand | Dzek | Zag. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Hero | Tan | Dun. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Earth | Kien-kai | Kiengi. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Cow | Lub | Lu, lup. |
+------------+----------+----------+
| Brick | Ku | Ku. |
+------------+----------+----------+
This surprising discovery brings the Chinese civilization still nearer
to the Mediterranean head-quarters of the races, and increases the
probability that the arts of China were of Atlantean origin; and that
the name of Nai Hoang-ti, or Nai Korti, the founder of Chinese
civilization, may be a reminiscence of Nakhunta, the chief of the gods,
as recorded in the Susian texts, and this, in turn, a recollection of
the Deva-Nahusha of the Hindoos, the Dionysos of the Greeks, the king of
Atlantis, whose great empire reached to the "farther parts of India,"
and embraced, according to Plato, "parts of the continent of America."
Linguistic science achieved a great discovery when it established the
fact that there was a continuous belt of languages from Iceland to
Ceylon which were the variant forms of one mother-tongue, the
Indo-European; but it must prepare itself for a still wider
generalization. There is abundant proof--proof with which pages might be
filled--that there was a still older mother-tongue, from which Aryan,
Semitic, and Hamitic were all derived--the language of Noah, the
language of Atlantis, the language of the great "aggressive empire" of
Plato, the language of the empire of the Titans.
The Arabic word bin, within, becomes, when it means interval, space,
binnon; this is the German and Dutch binnen and Saxon binnon, signifying
within. The Ethiopian word aorf, to fall asleep, is the root of the word
Morpheus, the god of sleep. The Hebrew word chanah, to dwell, is the
parent of the Anglo-Saxon inne and Icelandic inni, a house, and of our
word inn, a hotel. The Hebrew word naval or nafal signifies to fall;
from it is derived our word fall and fool (one who falls); the Chaldee
word is nabal, to make foul, and the Arabic word nabala means to die,
that is, to fall. From the last syllable of the Chaldee nasar, to saw,
we can derive the Latin serra, the High German sagen, the Danish sauga,
and our word to saw. The Arabic nafida, to fade, is the same as the
Italian fado, the Latin fatuus (foolish, tasteless), the Dutch vadden,
and our to fade. The Ethiopic word gaber, to make, to do, and the Arabic
word jabara, to make strong, becomes the Welsh word goberu, to work, to
operate, the Latin operor, and the English operate. The Arabic word
abara signifies to prick, to sting; we see this root in the Welsh bar, a
summit, and pâr, a spear, and per, a spit; whence our word spear. In the
Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic zug means to join, to couple; from this the
Greeks obtained zugos, the Romans jugum, and we the word yoke; while the
Germans obtained jok or jog, the Dutch juk, the Swedes ok. The Sanscrit
is juga. The Arabic sanna, to be old, reappears in the Latin senex, the
Welsh hen, and our senile. The Hebrew banah, to build, is the Irish bun,
foundation, and the Latin fundo, fundare, to found. The Arabic baraka,
to bend the knee, to fall on the breast, is probably the Saxon brecau,
the Danish bräkke, the Swedish bräcka, Welsh bregu, and our word to
break. The Arabic baraka also signifies to rain violently; and from this
we get the Saxon rœgn, to rain, Dutch regen, to rain, Cimbric rœkia,
rain, Welsh rheg, rain. The Chaldee word braic, a branch, is the Irish
braic or raigh, an arm, the Welsh braic, the Latin brachium, and the
English brace, something which supports like an arm. The Chaldee frak,
to rub, to tread out grain, is the same as the Latin frico, frio, and
our word rake. The Arabic word to rub is fraka. The Chaldee rag, ragag,
means to desire, to long for; it is the same as the Greek oregw, the
Latin porrigere, the Saxon rœccan, the Icelandic rakna, the German
reichen, and our to reach, to rage. The Arabic rauka, to strain or
purify, as wine, is precisely our English word rack, to rack wine. The
Hebrew word bara, to create, is our word to bear, as to bear children: a
great number of words in all the European languages contain this root in
its various modifications. The Hebrew word kafar, to cover, is our word
to cover, and coffer, something which covers, and covert, a secret
place; from this root also comes the Latin cooperio and the French
couvrir, to cover. The Arabic word shakala, to bind under the belly, is
our word to shackle. From the Arabic walada and Ethiopian walad, to
beget, to bring forth, we get the Welsh llawd, a shooting out; and hence
our word lad. Our word matter, or pus, is from the Arabic madda; our
word mature is originally from the Chaldee mita. The Arabic word amida
signifies to end, and from this comes the noun, a limit, a termination,
Latin meta, and our words meet and mete.
I might continue this list, but I have given enough to show that all the
Atlantean races once spoke the same language, and that the dispersion on
the plains of Shinar signifies that breaking up of the tongues of one
people under the operation of vast spaces of time. Philology is yet in
its infancy, and the time is not far distant when the identity of the
languages of all the Noachic races will be as clearly established and as
universally acknowledged as is now the identity, of the languages of the
Aryan family of nations.
And precisely as recent research has demonstrated the relationship
between Pekin and Babylon, so investigation in Central America has
proved that there is a mysterious bond of union connecting the Chinese
and one of the races of Mexico. The resemblances are so great that Mr.
Short ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 494) says, "There is no doubt
that strong analogies exist between the Otomi and the Chinese." Señor
Najera ("Dissertacion Sobre la lingua Othomi, Mexico," pp. 87, 88) gives
a list of words from which I quote the following:
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Chinese. | Othomi. | English. | Chinese. | Othomi | English. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Cho | To | The, that. | Pa | Da | To give. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Y | N-y | A wound. | Tsun | Nsu | Honor. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ten | Gu, mu | Head. | Hu | Hmu | Sir, Lord. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Siao | Sui | Night | Na | Na | That. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tien | Tsi | Tooth | Hu | He | Cold. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ye | Yo | Shining | Ye | He | And. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ky | Hy (ji) | Happiness. | Hoa | Hia | Word. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Ku | Du | Death | Nugo | Nga | I |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Po | Yo | No | Ni | Nuy | Thou. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Na | Ta | Man | Hao | Nho | The good. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Nin | Nsu | Female | Ta | Da | The great. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tseu | Tsi, ti | Son | Li | Ti | Gain. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Tso | Tsa | To perfect | Ho | To | Who. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Kuan | Khuani | True | Pa | Pa | To leave. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
| Siao | Sa | To mock | Mu, mo | Me | Mother. |
+----------+---------+------------+----------+--------+------------+
Recently Herr Forchhammer, of Leipsic, has published a truly scientific
comparison of the grammatical structure of the Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Muscogee, and Seminole languages with the Ural-Altaic tongues, in which
be has developed many interesting points of resemblance.
It has been the custom to ascribe the recognized similarities between
the Indians of America and the Chinese and Japanese to a migration by
way of Behring's Strait from Asia into America; but when we find that
the Chinese themselves only reached the Pacific coast within the
Historical Period, and that they came to it from the direction of the
Mediterranean and Atlantis, and when we find so many and such distinct
recollections of the destruction of Atlantis in the Flood legends of the
American races, it seems more reasonable to conclude that the
resemblances between the Othomi and the Chinese are to be accounted for
by intercourse through Atlantis.
We find a confirmation in all these facts of the order in which Genesis
names the sons of Noah:
"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and
Japheth, and unto them were sons born after the flood."
Can we not suppose that those three sons represent three great races in
the order of their precedence?
The record of Genesis claims that the Phœnicians were descended from
Ham, while the Hebrews were descended from Shem; yet we find the Hebrews
and Phœnicians united by the ties of a common language, common
traditions, and common race characteristics. The Jews are the great
merchants of the world eighteen centuries after Christ, just as the
Phœnicians were the great merchants of the world fifteen centuries
before Christ.
Moreover, the Arabians, who are popularly classed as Semites, or sons of
Shem, admit in their traditions that they are descended from "Ad, the
son of Ham;" and the tenth chapter of Genesis classes them among the
descendants of Ham, calling them Seba, Havilah, Raamah, etc. If the two
great so-called Semitic stocks--the Phœnicians and Arabians--are
Hamites, surely the third member of the group belongs to the same
"sunburnt" race.
If we concede that the Jews were also a branch of the Hamitic stock,
then we have, firstly, a Semitic stock, the Turanian, embracing the
Etruscans, the Finns, the Tartars, the Mongols, the Chinese, and
Japanese; secondly, a Hamitic family, "the sunburnt" race--a red
race--including the Cushites, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Berbers,
etc.; and, thirdly, a Japhetic or whiter stock, embracing the Greeks,
Italians, Celts, Goths, and the men who wrote Sanscrit-in other words,
the entire Aryan family.
If we add to these three races the negro race--which cannot be traced
back to Atlantis, and is not included, according to Genesis, among the
descendants of Noah--we have the four races, the white, red, yellow, and
black, recognized by the Egyptians as embracing all the people known to
them.
There seems to be some confusion in Genesis as to the Semitic stock. It
classes different races as both Semites and Hamites; as, for instance,
Sheba and Havilah; while the race of Mash, or Meshech, is classed among
the sons of Shem and the sons of Japheth. In fact, there seems to be a
confusion of Hamitic and Semitic stocks. "This is shown in the blending
of Hamitic and Semitic in some of the most ancient inscriptions; in the
facility of intercourse between the Semites of Asia and the Hamites of
Egypt; in the peaceful and unobserved absorption of all the Asiatic
Hamites, and the Semitic adoption of the Hamitic gods and religious
system. It is manifest that, at a period not long previous, the two
families had dwelt together and spoken the same language." (Winchell's
"Pre-Adamites," p. 36.) Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the
so-called Semitic races of Genesis were a mere division of the Hamitic
stock, and that we are to look for the third great division of the sons
of Noah among the Turanians?
Francis Lenormant, high authority, is of the opinion that the Turanian
races are descended from Magog, the son of Japheth. He regards the
Turanians as intermediate between the white and yellow races, graduating
insensibly into each. "The Uzbecs, the Osmanli Turks, and the Hungarians
are not to be distinguished in appearance from the most perfect branches
of the white race; on the other hand, the Tchondes almost exactly
resemble the Tongouses, who belong to the yellow race.
The Turanian languages are marked by the same agglutinative character
found in the American races.
The Mongolian and the Indian are alike in the absence of a heavy beard.
The royal color of the Incas was yellow; yellow is the color of the
imperial family in China. The religion of the Peruvians was sun-worship;
"the sun was the peculiar god of the Mongols from the earliest times."
The Peruvians regarded Pachacamac as the sovereign creator. Camac-Hya
was the name of a Hindoo goddess. Haylli was the burden of every verse
of the song composed in praise of the sun and the Incas. Mr. John
Ranking derives the word Allah from the word Haylli, also the word
Halle-lujah. In the city of Cuzco was a portion of land which none were
permitted to cultivate except those of the royal blood. At certain
seasons the Incas turned up the sod here, amid much rejoicing, and many
ceremonies. A similar custom prevails in China: The emperor ploughs a
few furrows, and twelve illustrious persons attend the plough after him.
(Du Halde, "Empire of China," vol. i., p. 275.) The cycle of sixty years
was in use among most of the nations of Eastern Asia, and among the
Muyscas of the elevated plains of Bogota. The "quipu," a knotted
reckoning-cord, was in use in Peru and in China. (Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. v., p. 48.) In Peru and China "both use hieroglyphics,
which are read from above downward." (Ibid.)
"It appears most evident to me," says Humboldt, "that the monuments,
methods of computing time, systems of cosmogony, and many myths of
America, offer striking analogies with the ideas of Eastern
Asia--analogies which indicate an ancient communication, and are not
simply the result of that uniform condition in which all nations are
found in the dawn of civilization." ("Exam. Crit.," tom. ii., p. 68.)
"In the ruined cities of Cambodia, which lies farther to the east of
Burmah, recent research has discovered teocallis like those in Mexico,
and the remains of temples of the same type and pattern as those of
Yucatan. And when we reach the sea we encounter at Suku, in Java, a
teocalli which is absolutely identical with that of Tehuantepec. Mr.
Ferguson said, 'as we advance eastward from the valley of the Euphrates,
at every step we meet with forms of art becoming more and more like
those of Central America.'" ("Builders of Babel," p. 88.)
Prescott says:
The coincidences are sufficiently strong to authorize a belief that the
civilization of Anahuac was in some degree influenced by that of Eastern
Asia; and, secondly, that the discrepancies are such as to carry back
the communication to a very remote period." ("Mexico," vol. iii., p.
418.)
"All appearances," continues Lenormant ("Ancient History of the East,"
vol. i., p. 64), "would lead us to regard the Turanian race as the first
branch of the family of Japheth which went forth into the world; and by
that premature separation, by an isolated and antagonistic existence,
took, or rather preserved, a completely distinct physiognomy. . . . It
is a type of the white race imperfectly developed."
We may regard this yellow race as the first and oldest wave from
Atlantis, and, therefore, reaching farthest away from the common source;
then came the Hamitic race; then the Japhetic.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS.
It may seem like a flight of the imagination to suppose that the
mariner's compass was known to the inhabitants of Atlantis. And yet, if
my readers are satisfied that the Atlantean, were a highly civilized
maritime people, carrying on commerce with regions as far apart as Peru
and Syria, we must conclude that they possessed some means of tracing
their course in the great seas they traversed; and accordingly, when we
proceed to investigate this subject, we find that as far back as we may
go in the study of the ancient races of the world, we find them
possessed of a knowledge of the virtues of the magnetic stone, and in
the habit of utilizing it. The people of Europe, rising a few centuries
since out of a state of semi-barbarism, have been in the habit of
claiming the invention of many things which they simply borrowed from
the older nations. This was the case with the mariner's compass. It was
believed for many years that it was first invented by an Italian named
Amalfi, A.D. 1302. In that interesting work, Goodrich's "Life of
Columbus," we find a curious history of the magnetic compass prior to
that time, from which we collate the following points:
"In A.D. 868 it was employed by the Northmen." ("The Landnamabok," vol.
i., chap. 2.) An Italian poem Of A.D. 1190 refers to it as in use among
the Italian sailors at that date. In the ancient language of the
Hindoos, the Sanscrit--which has been a dead language for twenty-two
hundred years--the magnet was called "the precious stone beloved of
Iron." The Talmud speaks of it as "the stone of attraction;" and it is
alluded to in the early Hebrew prayers as Kalamitah, the same name given
it by the Greeks, from the reed upon which the compass floated. The
Phœnicians were familiar with the use of the magnet. At the prow of
their vessels stood the figure of a woman (Astarte) holding a cross in
one hand and pointing the way with the other; the cross represented the
compass, which was a magnetized needle, floating in water crosswise upon
a piece of reed or wood. The cross became the coat of arms of the
Phœnicians--not only, possibly, as we have shown, as a recollection of
the four rivers of Atlantis, but because it represented the secret of
their great sea-voyages, to which they owed their national greatness.
The hyperborean magician, Abaras, carried "a guiding arrow," which
Pythagoras gave him, "in order that it may be useful to him in all
difficulties in his long journey." ("Herodotus," vol. iv., p. 36.)
The magnet was called the "Stone of Hercules." Hercules was the patron
divinity of the Phœnicians. He was, as we have shown elsewhere, one of
the gods of Atlantis--probably one of its great kings and navigators.
The Atlanteans were, as Plato tells us, a maritime, commercial people,
trading up the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Syria, and across the
Atlantic to "the whole opposite continent that surrounds the sea;" the
Phœnicians, as their successors and descendants, and colonized on the
shores of the Mediterranean, inherited their civilization and their
maritime habits, and with these that invention without which their great
voyages were impossible. From them the magnet passed to the Hindoos, and
from them to the Chinese, who certainly possessed it at an early date.
In the year 2700 B.C. the Emperor Wang-ti placed a magnetic figure with
an extended arm, like the Astarte of the Phœnicians, on the front of
carriages, the arm always turning and pointing to the south, which the
Chinese regarded as the principal pole. (See Goodrich's "Columbus," p.
31, etc.) This illustration represents one of these chariots:
In the seventh century it was used by the navigators of the Baltic Sea
and the German Ocean.
CHINESE MAGNETIC CAR
The ancient Egyptians called the loadstone the bone of Haroeri, and iron
the bone of Typhon. Haroeri was the son of Osiris and grandson of Rhea,
a goddess of the earth, a queen of Atlantis, and mother of Poseidon;
Typhon was a wind-god and an evil genius, but also a son of Rhea, the
earth goddess. Do we find in this curious designation of iron and
loadstone as "bones of the descendants of the earth," an explanation of
that otherwise inexplicable Greek legend about Deucalion "throwing the
bones of the earth behind him, when instantly men rose from the ground,
and the world was repeopled?" Does it mean that by means of the magnet
he sailed, after the Flood, to the European colonies of Atlantis.
already thickly inhabited?
A late writer, speaking upon the subject of the loadstone, tells us:
"Hercules, it was said, being once overpowered by the heat of the sun,
drew his bow against that luminary; whereupon the god Phœbus, admiring
his intrepidity, gave him a golden cup, with which he sailed over the
ocean. This cup was the compass, which old writers have called Lapis
Heracleus. Pisander says Oceanus lent him the cup, and Lucian says it
was a sea-shell. Tradition affirms that the magnet originally was not on
a pivot, but set to float on water in a cup. The old antiquarian is
wildly theoretical on this point, and sees a compass in the Golden
Fleece of Argos, in the oracular needle which Nero worshipped, and in
everything else. Yet undoubtedly there are some curious facts connected
with the matter. Osonius says that Gama and the Portuguese got the
compass from some pirates at the Cape of Good Hope, A.D. 1260. M.
Fauchet, the French antiquarian, finds it plainly alluded to in some old
poem of Brittany belonging to the year A.D. 1180. Paulo Venetus brought
it in the thirteenth century from China, where it was regarded as
oracular. Genebrand says Melvius, a Neapolitan, brought it to Europe in
A.D. 1303. Costa says Gama got it from Mohammedan seamen. But all
nations with whom it was found associate it with regions where Heraclean
myths prevailed. And one of the most curious facts is that the ancient
Britons, as the Welsh do to-day, call a pilot llywydd (lode).
Lodemanage, in Skinner's 'Etymology,' is the word for the price paid to
a pilot. But whether this famous, and afterward deified, mariner
(Hercules) had a compass or not, we can hardly regard the association of
his name with so many Western monuments as accidental."
Hercules was, as we know, a god of Atlantis, and Oceanos, who lent the
magnetic cup to Hercules, was the Dame by which the Greeks designated
the Atlantic Ocean. And this may be the explanation of the recurrence of
a cup in many antique paintings and statues. Hercules is often
represented with a cup in his hand; we even find the cup upon the handle
of the bronze dagger found in Denmark, and represented in the chapter on
the Bronze Age, in this work. (See p. 254 ante.)
So "oracular" an object as this self-moving needle, always pointing to
the north, would doubtless affect vividly the minds of the people, and
appear in their works of art. When Hercules left the coast of Europe to
sail to the island of Erythea in the Atlantic, in the remote west, we
are told, in Greek mythology (Murray, p. 257), that he borrowed "the
cup" of Helios, in (with) which "he was accustomed to sail every night."
Here we seem to have a reference to the magnetic cup used in night
sailing; and this is another proof that the use of the magnetic needle
in sea-voyages was associated with the Atlantean gods.
ANCIENT COINS OF TYRE
Lucian tells us that a sea-shell often took the place of the cup, as a
vessel in which to hold the water where the needle floated, and hence
upon the ancient coins of Tyre we find a sea-shell represented.
Here, too, we have the Pillars of Hercules, supposed to have been placed
at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and the tree of life or knowledge,
with the serpent twined around it, which appears in Genesis; and in the
combination of the two pillars and the serpent we have, it is said, the
original source of our dollar mark [$].
COIN FROM CENTRAL AMERICA
Compare these Phœnician coins with the following representation of a
copper coin, two inches in diameter and three lines thick, found nearly
a century ago by Ordonez, at the city of Guatemala. "M. Dupaix noticed
an indication of the use of the compass in the centre of one of the
sides, the figures on the same side representing a kneeling, bearded,
turbaned man between two fierce heads, perhaps of crocodiles, which
appear to defend the entrance to a mountainous and wooded country. The
reverse presents a serpent coiled around a fruit-tree, and an eagle on a
hill." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iv., p. 118.) The mountain leans
to one side: it is a "culhuacan," or crooked mountain.
We find in Sanchoniathon's "Legends of the Phœnicians" that Ouranus, the
first god of the people of Atlantis, "devised Bætulia, contriving stones
that moved as having life, which were supposed to fall from heaven."
These stones were probably magnetic loadstones; in other words, Ouranus,
the first god of Atlantis, devised the mariner's compass.
I find in the "Report of United States Explorations for a Route for a
Pacific Railroad" a description of a New Mexican Indian priest, who
foretells the result of a proposed war by placing a piece of wood in a
bowl of water, and causing it to turn to the right or left, or sink or
rise, as he directs it. This is incomprehensible, unless the wood, like
the ancient Chinese compass, contained a piece of magnetic iron hidden
in it, which would be attracted or repulsed, or even drawn downward, by
a piece of iron held in the hand of the priest, on the outside of the
bowl. If so, this trick was a remembrance of the mariner's compass
transmitted from age to age by the medicine men. The reclining statue of
Chac-Mol, of Central America, holds a bowl or dish upon its breast.
Divination was the ars Etrusca. The Etruscans set their temples squarely
with the cardinal points of the compass; so did the Egyptians, the
Mexicans, and the Mound Builders of America. Could they have done this
without the magnetic compass?
The Romans and the Persians called the line of the axis of the globe
cardo, and it was to cardo the needle pointed. Now "Cardo was the name
of the mountain on which the human race took refuge from the Deluge . .
. the primitive geographic point for the countries which were the cradle
of the human race." (Urquhart's "Pillars of Hercules," vol. i., p. 145.)
From this comes our word "cardinal," as the cardinal points.
Navigation.--Navigation was not by any means in a rude state in the
earliest times:
"In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aristoricus makes
Menelaus circumnavigate Africa more than 500 years before Neco sailed
from Gadeira to India." ("Cosmos," vol. ii., p. 144.)
"In the tomb of Rameses the Great is a representation of a naval combat
between the Egyptians and some other people, supposed to be the
Phœnicians, whose huge ships are propelled by sails." (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 29.)
The proportions of the fastest sailing-vessels of the present day are
about 300 feet long to 50 wide and 30 high; these were precisely the
proportions of Noah's ark--300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high.
"Hiero of Syracuse built, under the superintendence of Archimedes, a
vessel which consumed in its construction the material for fifty
galleys; it contained galleries, gardens, stables, fish-ponds, mills,
baths, a temple of Venus, and an engine to throw stones three hundred
pounds in weight, and arrows thirty-six feet long. The floors of this
monstrous vessel were inlaid with scenes from Homer's 'Iliad.'" (Ibid.,
p. 30.)
The fleet of Sesostris consisted of four hundred ships; and when
Semiramis invaded India she was opposed by four thousand vessels.
It is probable that in the earliest times the vessels were sheeted with
metal. A Roman ship of the time of Trajan has been recovered from Lake
Ricciole after 1300 years. The outside was covered with sheets of lead
fastened with small copper nails. Even the use of iron chains in place
of ropes for the anchors was known at an early period. Julius Cæsar
tells us that the galleys of the Veneti were thus equipped. (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 31.)
Gunpowder.--It is not impossible that even the invention of gunpowder
may date back to Atlantis. It was certainly known in Europe long before
the time of the German monk, Berthold Schwarz, who is commonly credited
with the invention of it. It was employed in 1257 at the siege of
Niebla, in Spain. It was described in an Arab treatise of the thirteenth
century. In A.D. 811 the Emperor Leo employed fire-arms. "Greek-fire" is
supposed to have been gunpowder mixed with resin or petroleum, and
thrown in the form of fuses and explosive shells. It was introduced from
Egypt A.D. 668. In A.D. 690 the Arabs used fire-arms against Mecca,
bringing the knowledge of them from India. In A.D. 80 the Chinese
obtained from India a knowledge of gunpowder. There is reason to believe
that the Carthaginian (Phœnician) general, Hannibal, used gunpowder in
breaking a way for his army over the Alps. The Romans, who were ignorant
of its use, said that Hannibal made his way by making fires against the
rocks, and pouring vinegar and water over the ashes. It is evident that
fire and vinegar would have no effect on masses of the Alps great enough
to arrest the march of an army. Dr. William Maginn has suggested that
the wood was probably burnt by Hannibal to obtain charcoal; and the word
which has been translated "vinegar" probably signified some preparation
of nitre and sulphur, and that Hannibal made gunpowder and blew up the
rocks. The same author suggests that the story of Hannibal breaking
loose from the mountains where he was surrounded on all sides by the
Romans, and in danger of starvation, by fastening firebrands to the
horns of two thousand oxen, and sending them rushing at night among the
terrified Romans, simply refers to the use of rockets. As Maginn well
asks, how could Hannibal be in danger of starvation when he had two
thousand oxen to spare for such an experiment? And why should the
veteran Roman troops have been so terrified and panic-stricken by a lot
of cattle with firebrands on their horns? At the battle of Lake
Trasymene, between Hannibal and Flaminius, we have another curious piece
of information which goes far to confirm the belief that Hannibal was
familiar with the use of gunpowder. In the midst of the battle there
was, say the Roman historians, an "earthquake;" the earth reeled under
the feet of the soldiers, a tremendous crash was heard, a fog or smoke
covered the scene, the earth broke open, and the rocks fell upon the
beads of the Romans. This reads very much as if the Carthaginians had
decoyed the Romans into a pass where they had already planted a mine,
and had exploded it at the proper moment to throw them into a panic.
Earthquakes do not cast rocks up in the air to fall on men's heads!
And that this is not all surmise is shown by the fact that a city of
India, in the time of Alexander the Great, defended itself by the use of
gunpowder: it was said to be a favorite of the gods, because thunder and
lightning came from its walls to resist the attacks of its assailants.
As the Hebrews were a branch of the Phœnician race, it is not surprising
that we find some things in their history which look very much like
legends of gunpowder.
When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram led a rebellion against Moses, Moses
separated the faithful from the unfaithful, and thereupon "the ground
clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained
unto Korah, and all their goods. . . . And there came out a fire from
the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered
incense. . . . But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed
the people of the Lord." (Numb. xvi., 31-41.)
This looks very much as if Moses had blown up the rebels with gunpowder.
Roger Bacon, who himself rediscovered gunpowder, was of opinion that the
event described in Judges vii., where Gideon captured the camp of the
Midianites with the roar of trumpets, the crash caused by the breaking
of innumerable pitchers, and the flash of a multitude of lanterns, had
reference to the use of gunpowder; that the noise made by the breaking
of the pitchers represented the detonation of an explosion, the flame of
the lights the blaze, and the noise of the trumpets the thunder of the
gunpowder. We can understand, in this wise, the results that followed;
but we cannot otherwise understand how the breaking of pitchers, the
flashing of lamps, and the clangor of trumpets would throw an army into
panic, until "every man's sword was set against his fellow, and the host
fled to Beth-shittah;" and this, too, without any attack upon the part
of the Israelites, for "they stood every man in his place around the
camp; and all the host ran and cried and fled."
If it was a miraculous interposition in behalf of the Jews, the Lord
could have scared the Midianites out of their wits without the smashed
pitchers and lanterns; and certain it is the pitchers, and lanterns
would not have done the work with out a miraculous interposition.
Having traced the knowledge of gunpowder back to the most remote times,
and to the different races which were descended from Atlantis, we are
not surprised to find in the legends of Greek mythology events described
which are only explicable by supposing that the Atlanteans possessed the
secret of this powerful explosive.
A rebellion sprang tip in Atlantis (see Murray's "Manual of Mythology,"
p. .30) against Zeus; it is known in mythology as the "War of the
Titans:"
"The struggle lasted many years, all the might which the Olympians could
bring to bear being useless, until, on the advice of Gæa, Zeus set free
the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires" (that is, brought the ships into
play), "of whom the former fashioned thunder-bolts for him, while the
latter advanced on his side with force equal to the shock of an
earthquake. The earth trembled down to lowest Tartarus as Zeus now
appeared with his terrible weapon and new allies. Old Chaos thought his
hour had come, as from a continuous blaze of thunder-bolts the earth
took fire, and the waters seethed in the sea. The rebels were partly
slain or consumed, and partly hurled into deep chasms, with rocks and
hills reeling after them."
Do not these words picture the explosion of a mine with a "force equal
to the shock of an earthquake?"
We have already shown that the Kyklopes and Hekatoncheires were probably
great war-ships, armed with some explosive material in the nature of
gunpowder.
Zeus, the king of Atlantis, was known as "the thunderer," and was
represented armed with thunder-bolts.
Some ancient nation must, in the most remote ages, have invented
gunpowder; and is it unreasonable to attribute it to that "great
original race" rather than to any one people of their posterity, who
seem to have borrowed all the other arts from them; and who, during many
thousands of years, did not add a single new invention to the list they
received from Atlantis?
Iron.--have seen that the Greek mythological legends asserted that
before the submergence of the great race over whom their gods reigned
there had been not only an Age of Bronze but an Age of Iron. This metal
was known to the Egyptians in the earliest ages; fragments of iron have
been found in the oldest pyramids. The Iron Age in Northern Europe far
antedated intercourse with the Greeks or Romans. In the mounds of the
Mississippi Valley, as I have shown, the remains of iron implements have
been found. In the "Mercurio Peruano" (tom. i., p. 201, 1791) it is
stated that "anciently the Peruvian sovereigns worked magnificent iron
mines at Ancoriames, on the west shore of Lake Titicaca." "It is
remarkable," says Molina, "that iron, which has been thought unknown to
the ancient Americans, had particular names in some of their tongues."
In official Peruvian it was called quillay, and in Chilian panilic. The
Mound Builders fashioned implements out of meteoric iron. (Foster's
"Prehistoric Races," p. 333.)
As we find this metal known to man in the earliest ages on both sides of
the Atlantic, the presumption is very strong that it was borrowed by the
nations, east and west, from Atlantis.
Paper.--The same argument holds good as to paper. The oldest Egyptian
monuments contain pictures of the papyrus roll; while in Mexico, as I
have shown, a beautiful paper was manufactured and formed into books
shaped like our own. In Peru a paper was made of plantain leaves, and
books were common in the earlier ages. Humboldt mentions books of
hieroglyphical writings among the Panoes, which were "bundles of their
paper resembling our volumes in quarto."
Silk Manufacture.--The manufacture of a woven fabric of great beauty out
of the delicate fibre of the egg-cocoon of a worm could only have
originated among a people who had attained the highest degree of
civilization; it implies the art of weaving by delicate instruments, a
dense population, a patient, skilful, artistic people, a sense of the
beautiful, and a wealthy and luxurious class to purchase such costly
fabrics.
We trace it back to the most remote ages. In the introduction to the
"History of Hindostan," or rather of the Mohammedan Dynasties, by
Mohammed Cassim, it is stated that in the year 3870 B.C. an Indian king
sent various silk stuffs as a present to the King of Persia. The art of
making silk was known in China more than two thousand six hundred years
before the Christian era, at the time when we find them first possessed
of civilization. The Phœnicians dealt in silks in the most remote past;
they imported them from India and sold them along the shores of the
Mediterranean. It is probable that the Egyptians understood and
practised the art of manufacturing silk. It was woven in the island of
Cos in the time of Aristotle. The "Babylonish garment" referred to in
Joshua (chap. vii., 21), and for secreting which Achan lost his life,
was probably a garment of silk; it was rated above silver and gold in
value.
It is not a violent presumption to suppose that an art known to the
Hindoos 3870 B.C., and to the Chinese and Phœnicians at the very
beginning of their history--an art so curious, so extraordinary--may
have dated back to Atlantean times.
Civil Government.--Mr. Baldwin shows ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 114)
that the Cushites, the successors of the Atlanteans, whose very ancient
empire extended from Spain to Syria, were the first to establish
independent municipal republics, with the right of the people to govern
themselves; and that this system was perpetuated in the great Phœnician
communities; in "the fierce democracies" of ancient Greece; in the
"village republics" of the African Berbers and the Hindoos; in the "free
cities" of the Middle Ages in Europe; and in the independent governments
of the Basques, which continued down to our own day. The Cushite state
was an aggregation of municipalities, each possessing the right of
self-government, but subject within prescribed limits to a general
authority; in other words, it was precisely the form of government
possessed to-day by the United States. It is a surprising thought that
the perfection of modern government may be another perpetuation of
Atlantean civilization.
Agriculture.--The Greek traditions of "the golden apples of the
Hesperides" and "the golden fleece" point to Atlantis. The allusions to
the golden apples indicate that tradition regarded the "Islands of the
Blessed" in the Atlantic Ocean as a place of orchards. And when we turn
to Egypt we find that in the remotest times many of our modern garden
and field plants were there cultivated. When the Israelites murmured in
the wilderness against Moses, they cried out (Numb., chap. xi., 4, 5),
"Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat
in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the Melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlic." The Egyptians also cultivated wheat, barley,
oats, flax, hemp, etc. In fact, if we were to take away from civilized
man the domestic animals, the cereals, and the field and garden
vegetables possessed by the Egyptians at the very dawn of history, there
would be very little left for the granaries or the tables of the world.
Astronomy.--The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and
accurate. Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon,
sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which
he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and
extending back as far as 2234 B.C. Humboldt says, "The Chaldeans knew
the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek
astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar
theory." The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could
foretell their reappearance. "A lens of considerable power was found in
the ruins of Babylon; it was an inch and a half in diameter and
nine-tenths of an inch thick." (Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon," pp.
16,17.) Nero used optical glasses when be watched the fights of the
gladiators; they are supposed to have come from Egypt and the East.
Plutarch speaks of optical instruments used by Archimedes "to manifest
to the eye the largeness of the sun." "There are actual astronomical
calculations in existence, with calendars formed upon them, which
eminent astronomers of England and France admit to be genuine and true,
and which carry back the antiquity of the science of astronomy, together
with the constellations, to within a few years of the Deluge, even on
the longer chronology of the Septuagint." ("The Miracle in Stone," p.
142.) Josephus attributes the invention of the constellations to the
family of the antediluvian Seth, the son of Adam, while Origen affirms
that it was asserted in the Book of Enoch that in the time of that
patriarch the constellations were already divided and named. The Greeks
associated the origin of astronomy with Atlas and Hercules, Atlantean
kings or heroes. The Egyptians regarded Taut (At?) or Thoth, or
At-hotes, as the originator of both astronomy and the alphabet;
doubtless he represented a civilized people, by whom their country was
originally colonized. Bailly and others assert that astronomy "must have
been established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of
Virgo, and that the solar and lunar zodiacs were of similar antiquity,
which would be about four thousand years before, the Christian era. They
suppose the originators to have lived in about the fortieth degree of
north latitude, and to have been a highly-civilized people." It will be
remembered that the fortieth degree of north latitude passed through
Atlantis. Plato knew (" Dialogues, Phædo," 108) that the earth "is a
body in the centre of the heavens" held in equipoise. He speaks of it as
a "round body," a "globe;" he even understood that it revolved on its
axis, and that these revolutions produced day and night. He
says--"Dialogues, Timæus"--"The earth circling around the pole (which is
extended through the universe) be made to be the artificer of night and
day." All this Greek learning was probably drawn from the Egyptians.
Only among the Atlanteans in Europe and America do we find traditions
preserved as to the origin of all the principal inventions which have
raised man from a savage to a civilized condition. We can give in part
the very names of the inventors.
Starting with the Chippeway legends, and following with the Bible and
Phœnician records, we make a table like the appended:
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The Invention or Discovery. | The Race. | The Inventors. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Fire | Atlantean | Phos, Phur, and Phlox. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The bow and arrow | Chippeway | Manaboshu. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of flint | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of copper | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The manufacture of bricks | Atlantean | Autochthon and Technites. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Agriculture and hunting | " | Argos and Agrotes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Village life, and the | " | Amynos and Magos. |
| rearing of flocks | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of salt | " | Misor and Sydyk. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of letters | " | Taautos, or Taut. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Navigation | " | The Cabiri, or Corybantes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The art of music | Hebrew | Jubal. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Metallurgy, and the use of | " | Tubal-cain. |
| iron | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The syrinx | Greek | Pan. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The lyre | " | Hermes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
We cannot consider all these evidences of the vast antiquity of the
great inventions upon which our civilization mainly rests, including the
art of writing, which, as I have shown, dates back far beyond the
beginning of history; we cannot remember that the origin of all the
great food-plants, such as wheat, oats, barley, rye, and maize, is lost
in the remote past; and that all the domesticated animals, the horse,
the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and the hog had been reduced to
subjection to man in ages long previous to written history, without
having the conclusion forced upon us irresistibly that beyond Egypt and
Greece, beyond Chaldea and China, there existed a mighty civilization,
of which these states were but the broken fragments.
CHAPTER X.
THE ARYAN COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.
We come now to another question: "Did the Aryan or Japhetic race come
from Atlantis?"
If the Aryans are the Japhetic race, and if Japheth was one of the sons
of the patriarch who escaped from the Deluge, then assuredly, if the
tradition of Genesis be true, the Aryans came from the drowned land, to
wit, Atlantis. According to Genesis, the descendants of the Japheth who
escaped out of the Flood with Noah are the Ionians, the inhabitants of
the Morea, the dwellers on the Cilician coast of Asia Minor, the
Cyprians, the Dodoneans of Macedonia, the Iberians, and the Thracians.
These are all now recognized as Aryans, except the Iberians.
"From non-Biblical sources," says Winchell, "we obtain further
information respecting the early dispersion of the Japhethites or
Indo-Europeans--called also Aryans. All determinations confirm the
Biblical account of their primitive residence in the same country with
the Hamites and Semites. Rawlinson informs us that even Aryan roots are
mingled with Presemitic in some of the old inscriptions of Assyria. The
precise region where these three families dwelt in a common home has not
been pointed out." ("Preadamites," p. 43.)
I have shown in the chapter in relation to Peru that all the languages
of the Hamites, Semites, and Japhethites are varieties of one aboriginal
speech.
The centre of the Aryan migrations (according to popular opinion) within
the Historical Period was Armenia. Here too is Mount Ararat, where it is
said the ark rested--another identification with the Flood regions, as
it represents the usual transfer of the Atlantis legend by an Atlantean
people to a high mountain in their new home.
Now turn to a map: Suppose the ships of Atlantis to have reached the
shores of Syria, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where dwelt a
people who, as we have seen, used the Central American Maya alphabet;
the Atlantis ships are then but two hundred miles distant from Armenia.
But these ships need not stop at Syria, they can go by the Dardanelles
and the Black Sea, by uninterrupted water communication, to the shores
of Armenia itself. If we admit, then, that it was from Armenia the
Aryans stocked Europe and India, there is no reason why the original
population of Armenia should not have been themselves colonists from
Atlantis.
But we have seen that in the earliest ages, before the first Armenian
migration of the historical Aryans, a people went from Iberian Spain and
settled in Ireland, and the language of this people, it is now admitted,
is Aryan. And these Iberians were originally, according to tradition,
from the West.
The Mediterranean Aryans are known to have been in Southeastern Europe,
along the shores of the Mediterranean, 2000 B.C. They at that early date
possessed the plough; also wheat, rye, barley, gold, silver, and bronze.
Aryan faces are found depicted upon the monuments of Egypt, painted four
thousand years before the time of Christ. "The conflicts between the
Kelts (an Aryan race) and the Iberians were far anterior in date to the
settlements of the Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Noachites on
the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea." ("American Cyclopædia," art.
Basques.) There is reason to believe that these Kelts were originally
part of the population and Empire of Atlantis. We are told (Rees's
"British Encyclopædia," art. Titans) that "Mercury, one of the Atlantean
gods, was placed as ruler over the Celtæ, and became their great
divinity." F. Pezron, in his "Antiquity of the Celtæ," makes out that
the Celtæ were the same as the Titans, the giant race who rebelled in
Atlantis, and "that their princes were the same with the giants of
Scripture." He adds that the word Titan "is perfect Celtic, and comes
from tit, the earth, and ten or den, man, and hence the Greeks very
properly also called them terriginæ, or earth-born." And it will be
remembered that Plato uses the same phrase when he speaks of the race
into which Poseidon intermarried as "the earth-born primeval men of that
country."
The Greeks, who are Aryans, traced their descent from the people who
were destroyed by the Flood, as did other races clearly Aryan.
"The nations who are comprehended under the common appellation of
Indo-European," says Max Müller--"the Hindoos, the Persians, the Celts,
Germans, Romans, Greeks, and Slavs--do not only share the same words and
the same grammar, slightly modified in each country, but they seem to
have likewise preserved a mass of popular traditions which had grown up
before they left their common home."
"Bonfey, L. Geiger, and other students of the ancient Indo-European
languages, have recently advanced the opinion that the original home of
the Indo-European races must be sought in Europe, because their stock of
words is rich in the names of plants and animals, and contains names of
seasons that are not found in tropical countries or anywhere in Asia."
("American Cyclopædia," art. Ethnology.)
By the study of comparative philology, or the seeking out of the words
common to the various branches of the Aryan race before they separated,
we are able to reconstruct an outline of the civilization of that
ancient people. Max Müller has given this subject great study, and
availing ourselves of his researches we can determine the following
facts as to the progenitors of the Aryan stock: They were a civilized
race; they possessed the institution of marriage; they recognized the
relationship of father, mother, son, daughter, grandson, brother,
sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law,
brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, and had separate words for each of
these relationships, which we are only able to express by adding the
words "in-law." They recognized also the condition of widows, or "the
husbandless." They lived in an organized society, governed by a king.
They possessed houses with doors and solid walls. They had wagons and
carriages. They possessed family names. They dwelt in towns and cities,
on highways. They were not hunters or nomads. They were a peaceful
people; the warlike words in the different Aryan languages cannot be
traced back to this original race. They lived in a country having few
wild beasts; the only wild animals whose names can be assigned to this
parent stock being the bear, the wolf, and the serpent. The name of the
elephant, "the beast with a hand," occurs only twice in the "Rig-Veda;"
a singular omission if the Aryans were from time immemorial an Asiatic
race; and "when it does occur, it is in such a way as to show that he
was still an object of wonder and terror to them." (Whitney's "Oriental
and Linguistic Studies," p. 26.) They possessed nearly all the domestic
animals we now have--the ox and the cow, the horse, the dog, the sheep,
the goat, the hog, the donkey, and the goose. They divided the year into
twelve months. They were farmers; they used the plough; their name as a
race (Aryan) was derived from it; they were, par excellence, ploughmen;
they raised various kinds of grain, including flax, barley, hemp, and
wheat; they had mills and millers, and ground their corn. The presence
of millers shows that they had proceeded beyond the primitive condition
where each family ground its corn in its own mill. They used fire, and
cooked and baked their food; they wove cloth and wore clothing; they
spun wool; they possessed the different metals, even iron: they had
gold. The word for "water" also meant "salt made from water," from which
it might be inferred that the water with which they were familiar was
saltwater. It is evident they manufactured salt by evaporating salt
water. They possessed boats and ships. They had progressed so far as to
perfect "a decimal system of enumeration, in itself," says Max Müller,
"one of the most marvellous achievements of the human mind, based on an
abstract conception of quantity, regulated by a philosophical
classification, and yet conceived, nurtured, and finished before the
soil of Europe was trodden by Greek, Roman, Slav, or Teuton."
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PLOUGH
And herein we find another evidence of relationship between the Aryans
and the people of Atlantis. Although Plato does not tell us that the
Atlanteans possessed the decimal system of numeration, nevertheless
there are many things in his narrative which point to that conclusion
"There were ten kings ruling over ten provinces; the whole country was
divided into military districts or squares ten stadia each way; the
total force of chariots was ten thousand; the great ditch or canal was
one hundred feet deep and ten thousand stadia long; there were one
hundred Nereids," etc. In the Peruvian colony the decimal system clearly
obtained: "The army had heads of ten, fifty, a hundred, five hundred, a
thousand, ten thousand. . . . The community at large was registered in
groups, under the control of officers over tens, fifties, hundreds, and
so on." (Herbert Spencer, "Development of Political Institutions," chap.
x.) The same division into tens and hundreds obtained among the
Anglo-Saxons.
Where, we ask, could this ancient nation, which existed before Greek was
Greek, Celt was Celt, Hindoo was Hindoo, or Goth was Goth, have been
located! The common opinion says, in Armenia or Bactria, in Asia. But
where in Asia could they have found a country so peaceful as to know no
terms for war or bloodshed;--a country so civilized as to possess no
wild beasts save the bear, wolf, and serpent? No people could have been
developed in Asia without bearing in its language traces of century-long
battles for life with the rude and barbarous races around them; no
nation could have fought for ages for existence against "man-eating"
tigers, lions, elephants, and hyenas, without bearing the memory of
these things in their tongue. A tiger, identical with that of Bengal,
still exists around Lake Aral, in Asia; from time to time it is seen in
Siberia. "The last tiger killed in 1828 was on the Lena, in latitude
fifty-two degrees thirty minutes, in a climate colder than that of St.
Petersburg and Stockholm."
The fathers of the Aryan race must have dwelt for many thousand years so
completely protected from barbarians and wild beasts that they at last
lost all memory of them, and all words descriptive of them; and where
could this have been possible save in some great, long-civilized land,
surrounded by the sea, and isolated from the attack of the savage tribes
that occupied the rest of the world? And if such a great civilized
nation had dwelt for centuries in Asia, Europe, or Africa, why have not
their monuments long ago been discovered and identified? Where is the
race who are their natural successors, and who must have continued to
live after them in that sheltered and happy land, where they knew no
human and scarcely any animal enemies? Why would any people have
altogether left such a home? Why, when their civilization had spread to
the ends of the earth, did it cease to exist in the peaceful region
where it originated?
Savage nations cannot usually count beyond five. This people had names
for the numerals up to one hundred, and the power, doubtless, of
combining these to still higher powers, as three hundred, five hundred,
ten hundred, etc. Says a high authority, "If any more proof were wanted
as to the reality of that period which must have preceded the dispersion
of the Aryan race, we might appeal to the Aryan numerals as irrefragable
evidence of that long-continued intellectual life which characterizes
that period." Such a degree of progress implies necessarily an alphabet,
writing, commerce, and trade, even as the existence of words for boats
and ships has already implied navigation.
In what have we added to the civilization of this ancient people? Their
Back to Full Books
|