Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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ALL ROADS LEAD T0 TIIULE. 29 each people, like all other ancient nations, had preserved in their traditions indistinct but unmistakable reminiscences of that earlier and happier abode. In no part of his exposition is M. Beauvois any more success- ful in establishing his view. Granting all that he claims as to the long voyages ot' Keltic navigators in thehmiddle agesg granting their discovery and colonization of America, before Columbus was born 5 1 granting that his citations from Irish, Gaelic, Kym- ric, and other Keltic sources, are all correct representations of Keltic ideas, - after every concession, there is not tl1e slightest proof given, or attempted to be given, that these tribes either originally came from America, or that they had even visited America before they formed their Iirst ideas ol' an Earthly Para- dise. On the other hand, a believer in the polar origin of man- kind ean ask no better reading than these elaborate papers present. Everywhere shimmering through the fanciful but transparent adornments of the traditions, he sees the unmistak- able landmarks of that primitive polar Paradise. In page after page he meets the ever-recurring ideas that this enchanting land is at H the extremity of the earth, that it is the navel ot' the seag that there 4' one day is a year or an ageg that it is the land in which is the world-tree, around which the sun- bird circles 3 that it is the region where stands the H colossal Silver Pillar, whose head is lost in the clouds, and which is noth- ing less than that great axis ot' the world which Plato calls the H Spindle of Necessity, 4' brighter than the rainbow, and which Scyrnnos ot' Chios, long before thc Christian era, said was called the ' Bom-:AL Cor.UMN,' and was located at the extremity ot' the country of the Kelts. 2 Evidently all these indices point, not to our American Atlantic coast, but to Plato's Arctic kingdom of Atlas, in the centre of Atlas's Sea, where 1 La decozwerte du. Nouveau-Monde par les Irlandais et les premieres traces du Cltristianismc en Amdrique avant Fan 1,000. Par E. Beauvois. Nancy, 1875. Also Les colonies Em'upe'ennes du Murklund et de l'E.-:cociland Cllomina-i tion Canadiennel au :tive sierle, et les vestiges qui en. subsisterentjusqu am: Mia ct xviiv stecles. Par E. Beauvois. Nancy, 1877. Both may be found in the Compte-rendu du. fhmgres international des Amc'1'ic'anistes. 2Pe1-iegesis, verses 188 E. in Geographt Groeci Mtnores. Ed. Miiller. Paris, 1855. Vol. 1. p. 202. 8 See Paradise Found, pp. 1-15, 182-187, 191-278, 350-358. '

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28 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. land, where, far above the Arctic Circle, in the frozen ocean to the northeast of Iceland, one finds in the small volcanic isle of Jan-Mayen, the very one which in thc belief' of Sylla Qin Plu- tarehj belonged to Saturn? The agitations and labored breath- ings of the god on awakening from his dreams, are a mythological expression of the rumblings of the earth beneath the crater of Hecla or under the intermittent volcano of the Jan-Mayen islc.2 This outcome, so contrary to the demands of his theory, evi- dently troubles M. Beauvois. He admits that he cannot ima- gine how the Kelts should have been led to locate their Paradise, their Fortunate Islands, their Elysium, in islands so frozen and sterile and hyperborean. But, like a good advocate, he draws from the admitted facts such comfort as he can, saying, that, inasmuch as it would never have occurred to more southerly peoples to do so strange a thing, the fact that, according to Pindar and Theopompos, the Greeks also placed their Elysium in the extreme North, must be taken as conclusive proof that the Greeks accepted of Keltie ideas on this subject at a very early period! A far more reasonable inference would have been, that the ancestors of each people once lived in a Pre- Glacial Arctic Eden of more than tropical luxuriance, and that 1 Il fSyllaJ croyait que c'etait au-dela de la mer Cronienne, par conse- quent dans 1' ile Jean Mayen fp. 2795 compare also p. 281 and 278D. 2 Nous croyons comprendre que 1'autre avec son rocher rutilant est simplement le cratere de l'I-lekla. Ce volt-an reste en repos pendant long- temps et semble sommeiller, mais tout a coup il se reveille et ses eruptions entreeoupees rappellent les penibles efforts de respiration et les convulsions titaniques de Saturne. Et meme, si l'on admet avec Sylla. que 1'antre est situe au-dela de la :ner Cronienne, il faudra. le chercher jusque dans 1'ile Jean-Mayen, dont le volcan est aussi intermittent Cp. 2817. B On le devinerait rien qu'en constatant que, pour rapprocher de leur pays le paradis des heros, ils l'ont place dans des iles froides et steriles, n'ayant aucun titre a Pepithete de fortunees 1 p. 282y. 4 Jarnais pareillenidee ne seralt venue aux meridionaux qui, en effet, cherchaieut leur Elysee dans une -z6ne plus temperee et plus favorisee de la. nature. Pour que Pindaro identiflat l'asile des Bienheureux, Paneien pays des Gorgones, avec les contrees iiyperbm-venues, pour que Thdg. pompe regardat les Hyperhoreens comme les heureux des mortels, il fallait que les conceptions celtiques se fussent de bonne heure imposees aux Grecs fp. 2821. The reader will notice the incidental concession of the correctness of the representation of Greek ideas given in Paradise Found, pp. 182-187.

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30 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. stood the polar Pillar, which upheld the world. Roads with such finger-posts, all lead to Thule. Not less striking and significant are the difiiculties encoun- tered by the learned Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his at- tempt to demonstrate the true location of the cradle of the human race from the traditions and literature of' the Mexican and Central American aborigincs. First, a word respecting the man. Even before his life-work was finished, and before the publication of what he considered his crowning literary monument, it was said of him, by as good an authority in his own field as Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., The Abbe is the most learned living writer concerning the ancient things of America. 1 The praise was none too high. In Europe his works were welcomed and reviewed by such schol- ars as Professor Max Miiller, and others of the very first rank. His private collection of books, manuscripts, hieroglyph-copies, maps, relics, etc., relating to Indian mythology, tradition, and 1 From an article on the Abbe, by Dr. Brinton, published in Lryapincotfs Magazine, vol. i., Phil. 1868. Charles Edward Brasseur was born in 1814, in the Flemish village of Bourbourg, near Dunkirk. NVhen a boy of ten a stray copy of the Journal des Savanls fell in his way. In it there was a brief sketch of some of the ruins of Palenque in Central America, with speculations as to their origin. This was to his boyish soul what the lays of Horner were to the youthful Schliemann. He cherished the wild dream that it was for him to unlock the mystery of those wonderful works of an unknown past. Just at this thne all Europe was in joyous excitement over Champollion's success in deciphering.the long battling hieroglyphs of Egypt, and this roused his ambition the more. His powers and scholar- ship attracted the attention of his teachcrsg he was called into the service of the Church, and thoroughly educated. In 1845, after induction into holy orders, he was sent to Quebec, and was allowed to advance himself in English and other studies in Boston. Here, the perusal of l'rescott's new work on the Conquest of Mexico fired his zeal afresh. The next year he returned to Europe, went to Rome, and then gave himself to diligent studies until the outbreak of the revolution in 1848. Then, as alxncner of the French legatlon, he again visited the United States, and commenced those explorations and studies of Mexico and Central America and their antiquities which became his life-work. As administrator of the Indians at Rablnal, he resided for several years in Guatemala, learning meantime, in a. thorough manner, the Nahualt and other aboriginal languages. In the former he was taught by a University professor, who was a descendant of a brother of Montezuma. For fuller details of his active life, the reader is referred to the chatty autobiographic prefaces prefixed to his diffei-eng works. '