to the account preferred by Humboldt, contain collectively
18,028 years, which* as ho observes, is .6000- years more than
the Persian ages in the Zendavesta. The four destructions of
Mexican mythology are brought about by the four .elements*
earth becoming unproductive*' fire,' air, and water. After
each destruction mankind were regenerated. According to the
Egyptians cataclysms alternate with conflagrations. | The five
ages of the Mexicans, correspond, says Humboldt, with the
system of the people of Tibet* according to which the present
is th%* fifth ’ age. It differs from that of the Greeks arid
Hindoos, who admit only four. It is interesting*: as M. de
Humboldt concludes, to see the same traditions .spread from
Etruria and Latium to Tibet* and thence to the ridge of the
Mexican Cordilleras.
Mr. Prescott has remarked that there is much discordance
between different writers on Mexican antiquities as do the
number and duration of cyclical revolutions of nature-.* A
manuscript of Don F. de Alva Ixtlilxochitl states only three
ages of the world to have preceded that which is now present,
and it allows but 4,394 years for the whole' time as.j.yet
elapsed. A late writer, on whose opinion I think we may
safely rely, prefers a still different aeeouUt* which represents
the third age as still in progress, and.he makes the order .of
their succession the reverse of that which Humboldt -seems; tp
have considered the most correct. According to this . account
the first of the four cycles was named Atonatiubgr the Sun of
Water. At this period the world,’which had been inhabited
by giants, was destroyed by an universal deluge. A single
man, Coxcox or Teocipactli, escaped in a bark with his wife
Xochiquetzal. They landed on the mountain of' Colhuacan,
where they had a numerous progeny, who were all mute till
they were taught .by a dove- to speak. Their languages,
however, were so different that they could not understand one
another. The Tlascaltecas, on the other hand, believed that
men who escaped the deluge had been transmuted into monkeys,
but that they recovered by degrees their reason and
speech.
* History of the Conquest of Mexico,
The second period was Eheeatonatiuh, or the Sun of Air,
which had been terminated by tremendous hurricanes of wind.
The human race.-had likewiffesperished, and it was reproduced
by the following means*:—*
Ometeuctli or/Omeei’ticatl, a,god and goddess, dwelt in a
town -situated • in the.,twelfth heaven..- The-goddess brought
forth a flint, which-,*'thrown down* to>,earth, was broken to
pieces:.; &,the«'@e;UssuedKsixt,een thousand heroes. Of these,
one, named Xolotl, wishing to reproduce man, was Ordered to
penetrated© the abode^of Mictlanteuchtli or the god of hell, and
to »obtain the bones of some of the men destroyed:!«., the flood.
These having been procured were- yvatered by the blood of the
heroes from different part&yof tlie body : thence came the
race of; mem Xolotl put thepa to death und^ thert destroyed
hipaselfi This was the second age^Thejthird,,-,aecording to
this relation, was Tlaltonatiuh of;, the Sun ©i& Age« ofu Earth :
it was>ddstiaedp to cease by .-terrible earthquakes. They
believed^sthat this calamity was. destined to happen at the
close of one of their ages of fifty-two-years. In dread ©f:*it
they'.celebrated a solemn festival atthe renewal of .the-cycle,
when all the priests went in theiepstume belonging vto-- their
respective,gqds;to thatop oh. a (high mountain near Mexico*
There with the”1 sacrifice of a human victim they sought to
propitiat-m.the|- gods,-, and avert for another 'period of iifty-two
years the - «destined calamity of the universe. - This festival
was celebrated for the last time in »th'^seventh year of Montezuma’s,
reign, a, d. 1517. To the third age of the world a
fourth, which was that of Tletonatiuh, or the Sum-of Fire, was
diftined to succeed, at the conclusion which the world was
to be, destroyed by a general conflagration.*
The final conclusion of Mr. Gallatin, after a careful investigation
of these singular traditions#; seems to be that they
originated in a real historical recollection of an universal
deluge, which overwhelmed all mankind in early ages of. the
wprld.
| Bradford's American Antiquities. M. Temaux-Compans, Nouvelles
Annales des Voyages.