Following this sixtieth monarch came Cayo-Manco-Capec III., who reigned twenty years. He was followed by Sinchi-Ayar-Manco, who reigned seven years. He, by Huamantaco-Amauta, who reigned five years; which brings us to the year thirty-two A. D., and then follows this statement by our authors, which corroborates the date cited by Bancroft for the cataclysm under consideration, viz:
During his reign [thirty-two or thirty-three A. D.],[[17]] they experienced earthquakes that lasted several months.[[18]]
Brasseur de Bourbourg,[[19]] to whom Bancroft gives high praise as an authority on the languages and traditions of Central America, speaks of physical cataclysms which, according to the native traditions, took place in that part of America, and which are undoubtedly the imperfect accounts of those cataclysms which occurred at the death of Messiah, as recorded in the Book of Mormon. Brasseur became infatuated with the Atlantis theory, and regarded the native American traditions concerning the physical convulsions in nature as describing the submergence of the ancient Atlantis. With the theory of the learned Frenchman I have nothing to do. He may have made a wrong application of the facts of the native traditions. I think he did. But what I am interested in is the fact that so highly commended an authority draws from native sources the tradition of physical cataclysms which so nearly accord with the statements of fact in the Book of Mormon.[[20]] After relating Brasseur's connection with the Atlantis theory, Baldwin says:
In the first place, Brasseur de Bourbourg claims that there is in the old Central American books a constant tradition of an immense catastrophe of the character supposed [i. e., the convulsions which submerged Atlantis]; that this tradition existed every where among the people when they first became known to Europeans; and that recollections of the catastrophe were preserved in some of their festivals, especially in one celebrated in the month of Izcalli, which was instituted to commemorate this frightful destruction of land and people, and in which "princes and people humbled themselves before the divinity, and besought him to withhold a return of such terrible calamities." This tradition affirms that a part of the continent extending into the Atlantic was destroyed in the manner supposed, [submerged] and appear to indicate that the destruction was accomplished by a succession of frightful convulsions. Three are constantly mentioned, and sometimes there is mention of one or two others. "The land was shaken by frightful earthquakes, and the waves of the sea combined with volcanic fires to overwhelm and ingulf it." Each convulsion swept away portions of the land, until the whole disappeared, leaving the line of the coast as it is now. Most of the inhabitants, overtaken amid their regular employments, were destroyed; but some escaped in ships, and some fled for safety to the summits of high mountains, or to portions of the land which, for the time, escaped immediate destruction. Quotations are made from the old books in which this tradition is recorded which appear to verify his report of what is found in them. To criticise intelligently his interpretation of their significance, one needs to have a knowledge of those books and tradition equal at least to his own.[[21]]
Nadaillac also refers to the native traditions collected by Brasseur on this subject and quotes him as follows:
If I may judge from allusions in the documents that I have been fortunate enough to collect, there were in these regions, at that remote date, convulsions of nature, deluges, terrible inundations, followed by the upheaval of mountains, accompanied by volcanic eruptions. These traditions, traces of which are also met with in Mexico, Central America, Peru, and Bolivia, point to the conclusion that man existed in these various countries at the time of the upheaval of the Cordilleras, and that the memory of that upheaval has been preserved:[[22]]
Treating of a number of old Central American traditions on his own account, Nadaillac says:
Other traditions allude to convulsions of nature, to inundations, and profound disturbances, to terrible deluges, in the midst of which mountains and volcanoes suddenly rose up.[[23]]
Nothing, perhaps, connected with the signs of Messiah's death would be more impressive than the awful fact of the three days' darkness, and nothing would be more likely to be preserved in the traditions of the people than this singular fact. From generation to generation it would be remembered with terror. It is beyond question the traditional remembrance of that event which so terrorized the native Americans at every recurrence of an eclipse of the sun. Of this fact Bancroft remarks:
The Mexicans were much troubled and distressed by an eclipse of the sun. They thought that he was much disturbed and tossed about by something, and that he was becoming seriously jaundiced. This was the occasion of a general panic, women weeping aloud, and men howling and shouting and striking the hand upon the mouth. There was an immediate search for men with white hair and white faces, and these were sacrificed to the sun, amid the din and tumult of singing and musical instruments. It was thought that should the eclipse become once total, there would be an end of the light, and that in the darkness the demons would come down to the devouring of the people.[[24]]