{p. 216}
first appear in. Some said 'Here,' and some said 'There'; but when the sun rose they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east."
In the long-continued darkness they had lost all knowledge of the cardinal points. The ancient landmarks, too, were changed.
The "Popul Vuh," the national book of the Quiches, tells us of four ages of the world. The man of the first age was made of clay; he was "strengthless, inept, watery; he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was restricted, he could not look behind him," that is, he had no knowledge of the past; "he had been endowed with language, but he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water."[1]
Then followed a higher race of men; they filled the world with their progeny; they had intelligence, but no moral sense"; "they forgot the Heart of Heaven." They were destroyed by fire and pitch from heaven, accompanied by tremendous earthquakes, from which only a few escaped.
Then followed a period when all was dark, save the white light "of the morning-star--sole light as yet of the primeval world"--probably a volcano.
"Once more are the gods in council, in the darkness, in the night of a desolated universe."
Then the people prayed to God for light, evidently for the return of the sun:
"'Hail! O Creator they cried, 'O Former! Thou that hearest and understandest us! abandon us not! forsake us not! O God, thou that art in heaven and on earth; O Heart of Heaven I O Heart of Earth! give us descendants, and a posterity as long as the light endure.'" . . .
In other words, let not the human race cease to be.