were foreigners. They built it to reach the sun—that is to say, as a sun-temple; while in the Bible record Babel was built to perpetuate the glory of its architects. In the Indian legend the gods stop the work by a great storm, in the Bible account by confounding the speech of the people.
Both legends were probably derived from Atlantis, and referred to some gigantic structure of great height built by that people; and when the story emigrated to the east and west, it was in the one case affixed to the tower of the Chaldeans, and in the other to the pyramid of Cholula, precisely as we find the ark of the Deluge resting upon separate mountain-chains all the way from Greece to Armenia. In one form of the Tower of Babel legend, that of the Toltecs, we are told that the pyramid of Cholula was erected “as a means of escape from a second flood, should another occur.”
But the resemblances between Genesis and the American legends do not stop here.
We are told (Gen. ii., 21) that “the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,” and while he slept God made Eve out of one of his ribs.
According to the Quiche tradition, there were four men from whom the races of the world descended (probably a recollection of the red, black, yellow, and white races); and these men were without wives, and the Creator made wives for them “while they slept.”
Some wicked misanthrope referred to these traditions when he said, “And man’s first sleep became his last repose.”
In Genesis (chap. iii., 22), “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:”
therefore God drove him out of the garden. In the Quiche legends we are told, “The gods feared that they had made men too perfect, and they breathed a cloud of mist over their vision.”
When the ancestors of the Quiches migrated to America the Divinity parted the sea for their passage, as the Red Sea was parted for the Israelites.
The story of Samson is paralleled in the history of a hero named Zipanca, told of in the “Popol Vuh,” who, being captured by his enemies and placed in a pit, pulled down the building in which his captors had assembled, and killed four hundred of them.
“There were giants in those days,” says the Bible. A great deal of the Central American history is taken up with the doings of an ancient race of giants called Quinames.
This parallelism runs through a hundred particulars: Both the Jews and Mexicans worshipped toward the east.
Both called the south “the right hand of the world.”
Both burnt incense toward the four corners of the earth.
Confession of sin and sacrifice of atonement were common to both peoples.
Both were punctilious about washings and ablutions.
Both believed in devils, and both were afflicted with leprosy.
Both considered women who died in childbirth as worthy of honor as soldiers who fell in battle.
Both punished adultery with stoning to death.
As David leaped and danced before the ark of the Lord, so did the Mexican monarchs before their idols.
Both had an ark, the abiding-place of an invisible god.
Both had a species of serpent-worship.
GREAT
SERPENT
MOUND
,
OHIO
.
Compare our representation of the great serpent-mound in Adams County, Ohio, with the following description of a great serpent-mound in Scotland:
“Serpent-worship in the West.—Some additional light appears to have been thrown upon ancient serpent- worship in the West by the recent archaeological explorations of Mr. John S. Phene, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., in Scotland. Mr. Phene has just investigated a curious earthen mound in Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, referred to by him, at the late meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, as being in the form of a serpent or saurian. The mound, says the Scotsman, is a most perfect one. The head is a large cairn, and the body of the earthen reptile 300 feet long; and in the centre of the head there were evidences, when Mr. Phene first visited it, of an altar having been placed there. The position with regard to Ben Cruachan is most remarkable. The three peaks are seen over the length of the reptile when a person is standing on the head, or cairn. The shape can only be seen so as to be understood when looked down upon from an elevation, as the outline cannot be understood unless the whole of it can be seen. This is most perfect when the spectator is on the head of the animal form, or on the lofty rock to the west of it.
This mound corresponds almost entirely with one 700 feet long in America, an account of which was lately published, after careful survey, by Mr. Squier. The altar toward the head in each case agrees. In the American mound three rivers (also objects of worship with the ancients) were evidently identified. The number three was a sacred number in all ancient mythologies. The sinuous winding and articulations of the vertebral spinal arrangement are anatomically perfect in the Argyleshire mound. The gentlemen present with Mr. Phene during his investigation state that beneath the cairn forming the head of the animal was found a megalithic chamber, in which was a quantity of charcoal and burnt earth and charred nutshells, a flint instrument, beautifully and minutely serrated at the edge, and burnt bones. The back or spine of the serpent, which, as already stated, is 300 feet long, was found, beneath the peat moss, to be formed by a careful adjustment of stones, the formation of which probably prevented the structure from being obliterated by time and weather.” (Pall Mall Gazette.)
