Yet another record remains to us of a traditional Mexican deluge, in the following extract from the Chimalpopoca Manuscript. Its words seem to have a familiar sound; but it would hardly be scientific to draw from such a fragment any very sweeping conclusion as to its relationship, whether that be Quiché or Christian:—
When the Sun, or Age, Nahui-Atl came, there had passed already four hundred years; then came two hundred years, then seventy and six, and then mankind were lost and drowned and turned into fishes. The waters and the sky drew near each other; in a single day all was lost; the day Four Flower consumed all that there was of our flesh. And this year was the year Ce-Calli; on the first day, Nahui-Atl, all was lost. The very mountains were swallowed up in the flood and the waters remained, lying tranquil during fifty and two spring-times. But before the flood began, Titlacahuan had warned the man Nata and his wife Nena, saying: Make now no more pulque, but hollow out to yourselves a great cypress, into which you shall enter when, in the month Tozoztli, the waters shall near the sky. Then they entered into it, and when Titlacahuan had shut them in, he said to the man: Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also. And when they had finished eating, each an ear of maize, they prepared to set forth, for the waters remained tranquil and their log moved no longer; and opening it they began to see the fishes. Then they lit a fire, rubbing pieces of wood together, and they roasted fish. And behold the deities Citlallinicué and Citlallatonac looking down from above, cried out: O divine Lord! what is this fire that they make there? wherefore do they so fill the heaven with smoke? And immediately Titlacahuan Tetzcatlipoca came down, and set himself to grumble, saying: What does this fire here? Then he seized the fishes and fashioned them behind and before, and changed them into dogs.[II-26]
We turn now to the traditions of some nations situated on the outskirts of the Mexican Empire, traditions differing from those of Mexico, if not in their elements, at least in the combination of those elements. Following our usual custom, I give the following legend belonging to the Miztecs just as they themselves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls:—[II-27]
THE FLYING HEROES OF MIZTECA.
In the year and in the day of obscurity and darkness, yea even before the days or the years were, when the world was in a great darkness and chaos, when the earth was covered with water and there was nothing but mud and slime on all the face of the earth—behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surname was the Lion-Snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-Snake.[II-28] These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods.
Now when these two gods became visible in the world, they made, in their knowledge and omnipotence, a great rock, upon which they built a very sumptuous palace, a masterpiece of skill, in which they made their abode upon earth. On the highest part of this building there was an axe of copper, the edge being uppermost, and on this axe the heavens rested.
This rock and the palace of the gods were on a mountain in the neighborhood of the town of Apoala in the province of Mizteca Alta. The rock was called The Place of Heaven; there the gods first abode on earth, living many years in great rest and content, as in a happy and delicious land, though the world still lay in obscurity and darkness.
The father and mother of all the gods being here in their place, two sons were born to them, very handsome and very learned in all wisdom and arts. The first was called the Wind of Nine Snakes, after the name of the day on which he was born; and the second was called, in like manner, the Wind of Nine Caves. Very daintily indeed were these youths brought up. When the elder wished to amuse himself, he took the form of an eagle, flying thus far and wide; the younger turned himself into a small beast of a serpent shape, having wings that he used with such agility and sleight that he became invisible, and flew through rocks and walls even as through the air. As they went, the din and clamor of these brethren was heard by those over whom they passed. They took these figures to manifest the power that was in them, both in transforming themselves and in resuming again their original shape. And they abode in great peace in the mansion of their parents, so they agreed to make a sacrifice and an offering to these gods, to their father and to their mother. Then they took each a censer of clay, and put fire therein, and poured in ground beleño for incense; and this offering was the first that had ever been made in the world. Next the brothers made to themselves a garden, in which they put many trees, and fruit-trees, and flowers, and roses, and odorous herbs of different kinds. Joined to this garden they laid out a very beautiful meadow, which they fitted up with all things necessary for offering sacrifice to the gods. In this manner the two brethren left their parents' house, and fixed themselves in this garden to dress it and to keep it, watering the trees and the plants and the odorous herbs, multiplying them, and burning incense of powder of beleño in censers of clay to the gods, their father and mother. They made also vows to these gods, and promises, praying that it might seem good to them to shape the firmament and lighten the darkness of the world, and to establish the foundation of the earth, or rather to gather the waters together so that the earth might appear—as they had no place to rest in save only one little garden. And to make their prayers more obligatory upon the gods, they pierced their ears and tongues with flakes of flint, sprinkling the blood that dropped from the wounds over the trees and plants of the garden with a willow branch, as a sacred and blessed thing. After this sort they employed themselves, postponing pleasure till the time of the granting of their desire, remaining always in subjection to the gods, their father and mother, and attributing to them more power and divinity than they really possessed.
Fray Garcia here makes a break in the relation—that he may not weary his readers with so many absurdities—but it would appear that the firmament was arranged and the earth made fit for mankind, who about that time must also have made their appearance. For there came a great deluge afterwards, wherein perished many of the sons and daughters that had been born to the gods; and it is said that when the deluge was passed the human race was restored as at the first, and the Miztec kingdom populated, and the heavens and the earth established.
This we may suppose to have been the traditional origin of the common people; but the governing family of Mizteca proclaimed themselves the descendants of two youths born from two majestic trees that stood at the entrance of the gorge of Apoala, and that maintained themselves there despite a violent wind continually rising from a cavern in the vicinity.