[420] The following account is from Franc. Gemelli Carreri’s Voyage Round the World, Churchill’s Voyages, London, 1732, 6 vol. fol. (book iv, cap. iii), p. 485: “The ancient histories of Mexico make mention of a flood, in which all men and beasts perished, and only one man and woman were saved in a boat, which in their language they call Acalle. The man, according to the character by which his name is expressed, was called Cox-cox, and the woman Chichequetzal. This couple coming to the foot of the mountain, which, according to the picture, was named Culhuacan, went ashore, and there they had many children, all born dumb. When they multiplied to a great number, one day a pigeon came, and from the top of a tree gave them their speech, but not one of them understood the others’ language, and therefore they divided and dispersed, every one going to take possession of some country. Among these they reckoned fifteen heads of families who happened to speak the same language, joined together and went about to find some land to inhabit. When they had wandered one hundred and four years they came to the place they call Antlan, and continuing their journey thence, came first to the place called Capultepec, then to Culhuacan, and lastly to the place where Mexico now stands.”
[421] See communication in Garcia y Cubas’ Atlas Geografico, Estadistico e Histórico de la República Mejicana, April 1858, entrega 29, and Bancroft, iii, p. 68, note.
[422] We should be guilty of a fault if we were to convey the idea that no deluge legend other than this was current among the Aztecs. The Codex Chimalpopoca records a flood in which mankind were drowned and turned into fishes. In Mr. Bancroft’s graceful rendering we learn that “the waters and 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 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 by rubbing pieces of wood together and they roasted fish.” The account states that the deities then descended and transformed the fishes into dogs. (Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i, pp. 425–7. Bancroft, vol. iii, pp. 69, 70.) We cannot with gravity give the Tezpi legend preserved in Michoacan. If the reader will refer to the Mosaic account of the flood, he will only need to substitute the name of Tezpi for Noah, a vulture for the raven, and a humming-bird for the dove, and the Tezpi legend substantially will be before him. Of course the detail of the Mosaic account is wanting; nevertheless it is certain that the Tezpi legend is the product of the fancy of some over-zealous priest, who thought he could see a stricter analogy between the Nahua deluge tradition and the Scriptural account than really exists.
[423] Native Races, vol. v, p. 325.
[424] See note 1, page 261, this chapter.
[425] Bancroft, vol. v, p. 325.
[426] E. G. Squier in Notes on Cent. Am., p. 349, makes the following remark: “It is a significant fact, that in the map of their migrations, presented by Gemelli, the place of the origin of the Aztecs is designated by the sign of water (Atl standing for Atzlan), a pyramidal temple with grades, and near these a palm-tree. This circumstance did not escape the attention of the observant Humboldt, who says, ‘I am astonished at finding a palm-tree near this teocalli. This tree certainly does not indicate a northern origin.’” We might add that we are equally surprised that so generally able a writer as Mr. Squier should resort to so absolutely weak an argument. Sr. Ramirez has clearly explained that all the figures and their adjuncts are but hieroglyphic parts of proper names. The palm-tree no doubt plays its part. M. Waldeck (Voyage Pitt., p. 45) makes the same remark as Mr. Squier—that it indicates a southern origin. Gondra (Prescott’s Historia Conq. Mex., cited by Bancroft, vol. v, p. 306, note) replies that this may be a thoughtless insertion of the painter. The possibility that an unskillful artist should unintentionally represent a tree of which he had no knowledge is so great, that any argument dependent upon it hangs upon a slender thread. Over against Mr. Squier’s claim we desire to place the simple inquiry, Does the Elephant Mound of Wisconsin indicate that its constructors were natives of Asia, where the elephant is common, or that they lived in the epoch of the American Mastodon? It is well-known that the latter phase of the question could not be true, since the condition of the mound contradicts such great antiquity.
[427] Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i, p. 245 et seq., states that a band of people came from the north by way of Panuco, dressed in long black robes; that they thence went to Tulla, where they were well received, but that region being already thickly populated, they went to Cholula. They were great artists, were skilled in working metals; with them was Quetzalcoatl, with a fair and ruddy complexion and a long beard. ‘He was their leader.’
[428] Mendieta, Hist. Ecl., pp. 82, 86, 92, 397–8; also cited by Bancroft, vol. iii, pp. 250–2, and Clavigero, Hist. Ant. Del. Messico, pp. 11–13.
[429] Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i, lib. iii, p. 245, and Torquemada, tom. ii, p. 47 et seq., do not agree fully as to the details.