Images de page
PDF
ePub

"By his strong will, Homen1 caused the earth to tremble after sunset; and during the night, Mu, the country of the hills of mud, was submerged.

"Mu, the life of the basin, was submerged by Homen during the night.

"The place of the dead ruler is now lifeless; it moves no more, after having twice jumped from its foundations. The king of the deep, while forcing his way out, has shaken it up and down, has killed it, has submerged it.

"Twice Mu jumped from its foundations. It was then sacrificed with fire. It burst while being shaken up and down violently by the earthquake. By kicking it, the wizard that makes all things move like a mass of worms sacrificed it that very night.'

[ocr errors]

From the fact that the Mayas changed their mode of computation, and began, as it were, a new era from the time of the submergence of the Land of Mu, it is evident that in reading their ancient history, in order to establish correct dates, it becomes necessary to know if the events related took place before or after the cataclysm.

The commotion produced by that disaster seems to have been no less great among the populations bordering on the Mediterranean than among those inhabiting the Western Continent. Plato tells us that the Egyptians preserved a relation of it in the archives of their temples, asserting it was the

1 Homen was the overturner of mountains, the god of earthquakes, the wizard who made all things move like a mass of worms, the volcanic forces anthropomorphized and then deified. The Mayas deified all phenomena of nature and their causes, then represented them in the shape of human beings or animals. Their object was to keep for the initiates the secrets of their science.

2

2 Landa, Las Cosas de Yucatan, chap. xxxix., p. 234.

[ocr errors]
[merged small][graphic][ocr errors][subsumed]

Page 147.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]
« PrécédentContinuer »