Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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ALL ROADS LEAD T0 TIIULE. 33 stood to indicate any particular region of actual geography. So the beautiful significance of the passage to one acquainted with the Sacred Ilydrograpliy of the oldest Asiatic and Europe- an tradition, is entirely lost to the advocate of this Caribbean Paradise? Again, our Abbe associates H the primitive Mexico with Atlas's Pillar, with the Navel ofthe Earth, with the Head-spring of all the world's Waters, and with the H Tree of the WVorld. 2 But the primitive connection of all these with the North Pole has been irreiiitably demonstrated in the pages of ff Paradise Found. Many other incidental evidences ofthe naturalness and neces- sity of a north-polar interpretation of the Abb6's traditions could be given g but, for lack of space, three only will be adduced. And, first, the author admits that all the most competent and serious writers, in accord with all the traditions, unanimously locate the traclitionary Paradise, not to the 'F South-east, in the direction of the Antilles, but in a region far to the North of Mexico. To M. Brasseur this is, of course, a somewhat 1 Paxil en Cayal-a, nom de lieu oh fut ddconvert le mais. Ordonez tradult ces inots par Lieu oh les eaum sc dlrriscat an tombant. Dans la langue flllichee, ces mots signifient entre la division, entre Ia. fetidite des eaux. Si cola peut indiqner une region, il n'y en a pas it laqnelle ceei s'applique aussi bien que la region arrosee par les allluents de l'Uzumacinta et du Tabasco, entre la mer et les montagnesg ces deux fieuves se partagent en une multitude de branches et 8lDllOl.1Clllll6lltS flfopol Vuh, p. 194 n. Coin- Pare also the preface, p. cliiij. On the sacred water-system of ancient Asiatic tradition, see next note but one. . 2 Quatre Lettrcs, pp. 187-201, 354, 359, 360, el passim. 3 A veteran Arestan scholar of Germany, generally held to he the high- est living authority in all questions of Iranian antiquities, has lately written to the author of Paradise Found the following unconditional indorsenient of its novel interpretations of Old-Persian and Indian ideas: Soweit der Kreis ineiner Studicn in Betracht kOlIllLll3, kann ich xneine vollkoinniene Uebereinsliinxnung versiehern .... Qlhre Darlegung iiber die Anordnung der indischen Dvipas und eranisehen Kareshvares hat ineine eigenen unklaren Vorstellungen iiher diesen Punkt wesentlieh be1'if.-litigt. Auch von der Riehtigkeit Ihrer Ansicht iiber das altindische und alt- eranische NVassersystein bin ich vollkonnnen iiberzengt. Alles Wasser der Erde konimt vom Hinnnel und fliesst von Norden her. 4 Les ecrivalus les plus sdrieux, d'accord avec l'6llSOIlllll6 des traditions, placent nnanlmement Ilutfhue-Tlupullan dans les regions qui s'etendent au Nord du Mexiqne, a une distance considerable, et que Torquemuda se hasarde it evaluer a six cents ruilles cuviron CQaatre.Lellrcs, p. 1095. In

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32 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. diluvian traditions of all ancient peoplesg while, in the sacred books of the Mexicans, the true history has been preserved with it all the episodes, even to their smallest details. Such is the theory, and fascinating was the enthusiasm with which through hundreds of pages he devoted himself to its elaboration and illustration. ' To a believer in a primeval Arctic Eden the result is full of interest. In a field where the traditions of prehistoric times 'arc so confused, as they confessedly are in the case of the Aztecs, one must not expect too mucl1. Mr. H. H. Bancroft has warned us against that? But, on the other hand, when it is an enthu- siastic advocate of a south-eastern Caribbean Paradise, who, in his descriptions, repeatedly brings out points which evidently and of 'necessity belong to a north-polar one, the force of the evidence is signally enhanced. In H Paradise Found, in the chapter on t' The Quadrifurcate River, striking facts are adduced, sl1owing that many peoples, in their traditions, mark the spot of their earliest home, by connecting it with the spot where the divine river descending from heaven, divides, parting into four earthly rivers for the watering of the whole earth. It is at least an interesting fact, that, in the traditions ofthe prehistoric Americans, the mother- region ofthe human race was also precisely at 'f the place where the waters in falling divide. The strangeness of the expres- sion leads our learned guide to devote a foot-note to itg but he declares himself uncertain as to whether it if can -be under- 1 The migration of the Aztecs is described much more fully than that of the tribes that preceded them: but in the details of this journey, so far as dates, names, and events are concerned, the traditions are inextricably confused .... We have no means of determining in a manner at all satis- factory, whether Aztlan and Chicomoztoc were in Central America, or in the region of Zacatecas and Jaliscog nor indeed of proving that they were not in Alaska, New Mexico, or on the Mississippi . . . The record, as a whole, is exactly what might be expected were the traditions of half a, dozen kindred bands respecting their wanderings about the central plateau, and efforts to establish themselves in permanent homes, united in one con- secutive narrativeg and I have little doubt that such was substantially the process by which the Spanish version of the Aztec migration was formed. . . . It is utterly useless to attempt its clearing np tTlte Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. v. p. 322J. The same suggestion is made by Brassenr de Bourbourg in note 1 to p. 232 of his Popul Vuh. See also his preface, p. lxv.

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34 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. embarrassing fact. If the Toltec and Chichimec Paradise is under the surface of the Caribbean Sea, how could the descend- ants of these peoples ever have come to place it far in the North? The only relief tl1at occurs to the author is to suggest, that possibly, after the great cataclysm which sunk the happy region, the old antediluvian names H might have been given to certain localities in the countries ot' the North? A second fact of striking significance in this conectionis, that the oldest Mexican traditions seem to have preserved the remembrance of that six-months' absence ot' the sun which would have characterized the first abode ot' man, if located at the Pole. In his earlier works, the Abbe has repeatedly referred to the strange story in the creation myths about the long absence of the sun, and about the sacrifices which had to be offered, before he would return and display himself to the vision of the early inhabitants of the earth? And so im- pressed with it was he when translating the, Popol Vuh, that, in one ot' his learned footnotes, he speaks ot' the high antiquity of the mysterious tradition, and says that it seems to refer to 4' a long darkness, perhaps to a night .several months in duration? Where could this primeval experience have been had, save in a polar cradle of the race? Moreover, it' man's first vision of the sunrise was from the standpoint ot' the pole, the true tradition ot' that experience, like that of the Northmcn,' would have associated tl1e grand event, not witl1 the East, as we of lower latitudes do, but with the South. the preface to his translation of the Popol Vuh, he places it in the very highest latitudes: Situ 'e aux latitudes les plus septentrionales du conti- nent Cp. lxiv.J. Moreover, he makes this particular name of the Mexican Paradise etymologically signify Land of the Aurora fQuatr'e Lettres, p. 11115 and, in the most northern latitudes of the continent, this could only mean the eircumpolar home of the Aurora boreali.-1. 1 Bien qu'a la suite du eataclysrne, los noins aient pu etre donnes aux eontrees voisines du Nord tp. 1107. 2 See his Ilistoirc des Nations civilisdes du Mexique et de l'Am61'ique cen- trale durant les siec es antefricur Zz Christophe Colomb. Paris, 1857. Vol. i. p. 182. Also his Popol Vuh, Paris, 1861, pp. 240-245. 3 Les details qui se trouvent uncles it la. tradition dn lover du soleil semhlent appartenir a une epoche reculee, oh le soleil apparnt aux legig. lateurs apres une Iongue obscurite, peut-etre una matt deplusteurs mais. 1'opolVuh, p. 2-10. 4 Paradise Found, p. 197. A