The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

I >> Ignatius Donnelly >> The Antediluvian World

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

We find among the Irish of to-day many Oriental customs. The game of
"jacks," or throwing up five pebbles and catching them on the back of
the hand, was known in Rome. "The Irish keen (caoine), or the lament
over the dead, may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as
Herodotus heard it chanted by the Libyan women." The same practice
existed among the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans. The Irish wakes are
identical with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.
(Cusack's "History of Ireland," p. 141.) The Irish custom of saying "God
bless you!" when one sneezes, is a very ancient practice; it was known
to the Romans, and referred, it is said, to a plague in the remote past,
whose first symptom was sneezing.

We find many points of resemblance between the customs of the Irish and
those of the Hindoo. The practice of the creditor fasting at the
door-step of his debtor until he is paid, is known to both countries;
the kindly "God save you!" is the same as the Eastern "God be gracious
to you, my son!" The reverence for the wren in Ireland and Scotland
reminds us of the Oriental and Greek respect for that bird. The practice
of pilgrimages, fasting, bodily macerations, and devotion to holy wells
and particular places, extends from Ireland to India.

All these things speak of a common origin; this fact has been generally
recognized, but it has always been interpreted that the Irish camp, from
the East, and were in fact a migration of Hindoos. There is not the
slightest evidence to sustain this theory. The Hindoos have never within
the knowledge of man sent out colonies or fleets for exploration; but
there is abundant evidence, on the other hand, of migrations from
Atlantis eastward. And how could the Sanscrit writings have preserved
maps of Ireland, England, and Spain, giving the shape and outline of
their coasts, and their very names, and yet have preserved no memory of
the expeditions or colonizations by which they acquired that knowledge?

Another proof of our theory is found in "the round-towers" of Ireland.
Attempts have been made to show, by Dr. Petrie and others, that these
extraordinary structures are of modern origin, and were built by the
Christian priests, in which to keep their church-plate. But it is shown
that the "Annals of Ulster" mention the destruction of fifty-seven of
them by an earthquake in A.D. 448; and Giraldus Cambrensis shows that
Lough Neagh was created by an inundation, or sinking of the laud, in
A.D. 65, and that in his day the fishermen could

"See the round-towers of other days
In the waves beneath them shining."

Moreover, we find Diodorus Siculus, in a well-known passage, referring
to Ireland, and describing it as "an island in the ocean over against
Gaul, to the north, and not inferior in size to Sicily, the soil of
which is so fruitful that they mow there twice in the year." He mentions
the skill of their harpers, their sacred groves, and their singular
temples of round form.

THE BURGH OF MOUSSA, IN THE SHETLANDS

We find similar structures in America, Sardinia, and India. The remains
of similar round-towers are very abundant in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
"They have been supposed by some," says Sir John Lubbock, "to be
Scandinavian, but no similar buildings exist in Norway, Sweden, or
Denmark, so that this style of architecture is no doubt anterior to the
arrival of the Northmen." I give above a picture of the Burgh or Broch
of the little island of Moussa, in the Shetlands. It is circular in
form, forty-one feet in height. Open at the top; the central space is
twenty feet in diameter, the walls about fourteen feet thick at the
base, and eight feet at the top. They contain a staircase, which leads
to the top of the building. Similar structures are found in the Island
of Sardinia.

ROUND-TOWER OF THE CANYON OF THE MANCOS, COLORADO, U.S.

In New Mexico and Colorado the remains of round-towers are very
abundant. The illustration below represents our of these in the valley
of the Mancos, in the south-western corner of Colorado. A model of it is
to be found in the Smithsonian collection at Washington. The tower
stands at present, in its ruined condition, twenty feet high. It will be
seen that it resembles the towers of Ireland, not only in its circular
form but also in the fact that its door-way is situated at some distance
from the ground.

It will not do to say that the resemblance between these prehistoric and
singular towers, in countries so far apart as Sardinia, Ireland,
Colorado, and India, is due to an accidental coincidence. It might as
well be argued that the resemblance between the roots of the various
Indo-European languages was also due to accidental coincidence, and did
not establish any similarity of origin. In fact, we might just as well
go back to the theory of the philosophers of one hundred and fifty years
ago, and say that the resemblance between the fossil forms in the rocks
and the living forms upon them did not indicate relationship, or prove
that the fossils were the remains of creatures that had once lived, but
that it was simply a way nature had of working out extraordinary
coincidences in a kind of joke; a sort of "plastic power in nature," as
it was called.

We find another proof that Ireland was settled by the people of Atlantis
in the fact that traditions long existed among the Irish peasantry of a
land in the "Far West," and that this belief was especially found among
the posterity of the Tuatha-de-Dananns, whose connection with the
Formorians we have shown.

The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in a note to his translation of the
"Popol Vuh," says:

"There is an abundance of legends and traditions concerning the passage
of the Irish into America, and their habitual communication with that
continent many centuries before the time of Columbus. We should bear in
mind that Ireland was colonized by the Phœnicians (or by people of that
race). An Irish Saint named Vigile, who lived in the eighth century, was
accused to Pope Zachary of having taught heresies on the subject of the
antipodes. At first he wrote to the pope in reply to the charge, but
afterward he went to Rome in person to justify himself, and there he
proved to the pope that the Irish had been accustomed to communicate
with a transatlantic world."

"This fact," says Baldwin, "seems to have been preserved in the records
of the Vatican."

The Irish annals preserve the memory of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and his
remarkable voyage to a land in the West, made A.D. 545. His early youth
was passed under the care of St. Ita, a lady of the princely family of
the Desii. When he was five years old he was placed under the care of
Bishop Ercus. Kerry was his native home; the blue waves of the Atlantic
washed its shores; the coast was full of traditions of a wonderful land
in the West. He went to see the venerable St. Enda, the first abbot of
Arran, for counsel. He was probably encouraged in the plan he had formed
of carrying the Gospel to this distant land. "He proceeded along the
coast of Mayo, inquiring as he went for traditions of the Western
continent. On his return to Kerry he decided to set out on the important
expedition. St. Brendan's Hill still bears his name; and from the bay at
the foot of this lofty eminence be sailed for the 'Far West.' Directing
his course toward the southwest, with a few faithful companions, in a
well-provisioned bark, he came, after some rough and dangerous
navigation, to calm seas, where, without aid of oar or sail, he was
borne along for many weeks." He had probably entered upon the same great
current which Columbus travelled nearly one thousand years later, and
which extends from the shores of Africa and Europe to America. He
finally reached land; he proceeded inland until he came to a large river
flowing from east to west, supposed by some to be the Ohio. "After an
absence of seven years he returned to Ireland, and lived not only to
tell of the marvels he had seen, but to found a college of three
thousand monks at Clonfert." There are eleven Latin MSS. in the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris of this legend, the dates of which vary
from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, but all of them anterior to
the time of Columbus.

The fact that St. Brendan sailed in search of a country in the west
cannot be doubted; and the legends which guided him were probably the
traditions of Atlantis among a people whose ancestors had been derived
directly or at second-hand from that country.

This land was associated in the minds of the peasantry with traditions
of Edenic happiness and beauty. Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, of
Philadelphia, has referred to it in her poem, "The Sleeper's Sail,"
where the starving boy dreams of the pleasant and plentiful land:

"'Mother, I've been on the cliffs out yonder,
Straining my eyes o'er the breakers free
To the lovely spot where the sun was setting,
Setting and sinking into the sea.

"'The sky was full of the fairest colors
Pink and purple and paly green,
With great soft masses of gray and amber,
And great bright rifts of gold between.

"'And all the birds that way were flying,
Heron and curlew overhead,
With a mighty eagle westward floating,
Every plume in their pinions red.

"'And then I saw it, the fairy city,
Far away o'er the waters deep;
Towers and castles and chapels glowing
Like blesséd dreams that we see in sleep.

"'What is its name?' 'Be still, acushla
(Thy hair is wet with the mists, my boy);
Thou hast looked perchance on the Tir-na-n'oge,
Land of eternal youth and joy!

"'Out of the sea, when the sun is setting,
It rises, golden and fair to view;
No trace of ruin, or change of sorrow,
No sign of age where all is new.

"'Forever sunny, forever blooming,
Nor cloud nor frost can touch that spot,
Where the happy people are ever roaming,
The bitter pangs of the past forgot.'

This is the Greek story of Elysion; these are the Elysian Fields of the
Egyptians; these are the Gardens of the Hesperides; this is the region
in the West to which the peasant of Brittany looks from the shores of
Cape Raz; this is Atlantis.

The starving child seeks to reach this blessed land in a boat and is
drowned.

"High on the cliffs the light-house keeper
Caught the sound of a piercing scream;
Low in her hut the lonely widow
Moaned in the maze of a troubled dream;

"And saw in her sleep a seaman ghostly,
With sea-weeds clinging in his hair,
Into her room, all wet and dripping,
A drownéd boy on his bosom bear.

"Over Death Sea on a bridge of silver
The child to his Father's arms had passed!
Heaven was nearer than Tir-na-n'oge,
And the golden city was reached at last."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE OLDEST SON OF NOAH.

That eminent authority, Dr. Max Müller, says, in his "Lectures on the
Science of Religion,"

"If we confine ourselves to the Asiatic continent, with its important
peninsula of Europe, we find that in the vast desert of drifting human
speech three, and only three, oases have been formed in which, before
the beginning of all history, language became permanent and
traditional--assumed, in fact, a new character, a character totally
different from the original character of the floating and constantly
varying speech of human beings. These three oases of language are known
by the name of Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic. In these three centres,
more particularly in the Aryan and Semitic, language ceased to be
natural; its growth was arrested, and it became permanent, solid,
petrified, or, if you like, historical speech. I have always maintained
that this centralization and traditional conservation of language could
only have been the result of religious and political influences, and I
now mean to show that we really have clear evidence of three independent
settlements of religion--the Turanian, the Aryan, and the
Semitic--concomitantly with the three great settlements of language."

There can be no doubt that the Aryan and another branch, which Müller
calls Semitic, but which may more properly be called Hamitic, radiated
from Noah; it is a question yet to be decided whether the Turanian or
Mongolian is also a branch of the Noachic or Atlantean stock.

To quote again from Max Müller:

"If it can only be proved that the religions of the Aryan nations are
united by the same bonds of a real relationship which have enabled us to
treat their languages as so many varieties of the same type--and so also
of the Semitic--the field thus opened is vast enough, and its careful
clearing, and cultivation will occupy several generations of scholars.
And this original relationship, I believe, can be proved. Names of the
principal deities, words also expressive of the most essential elements
of religion, such as prayer, sacrifice, altar, spirit, law, and faith,
have been preserved among the Aryan and among the Semitic nations, and
these relics admit of one explanation only. After that, a comparative
study of the Turanian religions may be approached with better hope of
success; for that there was not only a primitive Aryan and a primitive
Semitic religion, but likewise a primitive Turanian religion, before
each of these primeval races was broken up and became separated in
language, worship and national sentiment, admits, I believe, of little
doubt. . . . There was a period during which the ancestors of the
Semitic family had not yet been divided, whether in language or in
religion. That period transcends the recollection of every one of the
Semitic races, in the same way as neither Hindoos, Greeks, nor Romans
have any recollection of the time when they spoke a common language, and
worshipped their Father in heaven by a name that was as yet neither
Sanscrit, nor Greek, nor Latin. But I do not hesitate to call this
Prehistoric Period historical in the best sense of the word. It was a
real period, because, unless it was real, all the realities of the
Semitic languages and the Semitic religions, such as we find them after
their separation, would be unintelligible. Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic
point to a common source as much as Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin; and
unless we can bring ourselves to doubt that the Hindoos, the Greeks, the
Romans, and the Teutons derived the worship of their principal deity
from their common Aryan sanctuary, we shall not be able to deny that
there was likewise a primitive religion of the whole Semitic race, and
that El, the Strong One in heaven, was invoked by the ancestors of all
the Semitic races before there were Babylonians in Babylon, Phœnicians
in Sidon and Tyrus--before there were Jews in Mesopotamia or Jerusalem.
The evidence of the Semitic is the same as that of the Aryan languages:
the conclusion cannot be different....

"These three classes of religion are not to be mistaken-as little as the
three classes of language, the Turanian, the Semitic, and the Aryan.
They mark three events in the most ancient history of the world, events
which have determined the whole fate of the human race, and of which we
ourselves still feel the consequences in our language, in our thoughts,
and in our religion."

We have seen that all the evidence points to the fact that this original
seat of the Phœnician-Hebrew family was in Atlantis.

The great god of the so-called Semites was El, the Strong One, from
whose name comes the Biblical names Beth-el, the house of God; Ha-el,
the strong one; El-ohim, the gods; El-oah, God; and from the same name
is derived the Arabian name of God, Al-lah.

Another evidence of the connection between the Greeks, Phœnicians,
Hebrews, and Atlanteans is shown in the name of Adonis.

The Greeks tell us that Adonis was the lover of Aphrodite, or Venus, who
was the offspring of Uranus--"she came out of the sea;" Uranus was the
father of Chronos, and the grandfather of Poseidon, king of Atlantis.

Now We find Adonâi in the Old Testament used exclusively as the name of
Jehovah, while among the Phœnicians Adonâi was the supreme deity. In
both cases the root Ad is probably a reminiscence of Ad-lantis.

There seem to exist similar connections between the Egyptian and the
Turanian mythology. The great god of Egypt was Neph or Num; the chief
god of the Samoyedes is Num; and Max Müller established an identity
between the Num of the Samoyedes and the god Yum-ala of the Finns, and
probably with the name of the god Nam of the Thibetians.

That mysterious people, the Etruscans, who inhabited part of Italy, and
whose bronze implements agreed exactly in style and workmanship with
those which we think were derived from Atlantis, were, it is now
claimed, a branch of the Turanian family.

"At a recent meeting of the English Philological Society great interest
was excited by a paper on Etruscan Numerals, by the Rev. Isaac Taylor.
He stated that the long-sought key to the Etruscan language had at last
been discovered. Two dice had been found in a tomb, with their six faces
marked with words instead of pips. He showed that these words were
identical with the first six digits in the Altaic branch of the Turanian
family of speech. Guided by this clew, it was easy to prove that the
grammar and vocabulary of the 3000 Etruscan inscriptions were also
Altaic. The words denoting kindred, the pronouns, the conjugations, and
the declensions, corresponded closely to those of the Tartar tribes of
Siberia. The Etruscan mythology proved to be essentially the same as
that of the Kalevala, the great Finnic epic."

According to Lenormant ("Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p. 62;
vol. ii., p. 23), the early contests between the Aryans and the
Turanians are represented in the Iranian traditions as "contests between
hostile brothers . . . the Ugro-Finnish races must, according to all
appearances, be looked upon as a branch, earlier detached than the
others from the Japhetic stem."

If it be true that the first branch originating from Atlantis was the
Turanian, which includes the Chinese and Japanese, then we have derived
from Atlantis all the building and metalworking races of men who have
proved themselves capable of civilization; and we may, therefore, divide
mankind into two great classes: those capable of civilization, derived
from Atlantis, and those essentially and at all times barbarian, who
hold no blood relationship with the people of Atlantis.

Humboldt is sure "that some connection existed between ancient Ethiopia
and the elevated plain of Central Asia." There were invasions which
reached from the shores of Arabia into China. "An Arabian sovereign,
Schamar-Iarasch (Abou Karib), is described by Hamza, Nuwayri, and others
as a powerful ruler and conqueror, who carried his arms successfully far
into Central Asia; he occupied Samarcand and invaded China. He erected
an edifice at Samarcand, bearing an inscription, in Himyarite or Cushite
characters, 'In the name of God, Schamar-Iarasch has erected this
edifice to the sun, his Lord." (Baldwin's "Prehistoric Nations," p.
110.) These invasions must have been prior to 1518 B.C.

Charles Walcott Brooks read a paper before the California Academy of
Sciences, in which he says:

"According to Chinese annals, Tai-Ko-Fokee, the great stranger king,
ruled the kingdom of China. In pictures he is represented with two small
horns, like those associated with the representations of Moses. He and
his successor are said to have introduced into China 'picture-writing,'
like that in use in Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest.
He taught the motions of the heavenly bodies, and divided time into
years and months; he also introduced many other useful arts and sciences.

"Now, there has been found at Copan, in Central America, a figure
strikingly like the Chinese symbol of Fokee, with his two horns; and, in
like manner, there is a close resemblance between the Central American
and the Chinese figures representing earth and heaven. Either one people
learned from the other, or both acquired these forms from a common
source. Many physico-geographical facts favor the hypothesis that they
were derived in very remote ages from America, and that from China they
passed to Egypt. Chinese records say that the progenitors of the Chinese
race came from across the sea."

The two small horns of Tai-Ko-Fokee and Moses are probably a
reminiscence of Baal. We find the horns of Baal represented in the
remains of the Bronze Age of Europe. Bel sometimes wore a tiara with his
bull's horns; the tiara was the crown subsequently worn by the Persian
kings, and it became, in time, the symbol of Papal authority. The
Atlanteans having domesticated cattle, and discovered their vast
importance to humanity, associated the bull and cow with religious
ideas, as revealed in the oldest hymns of the Aryans and the cow-headed
idols of Troy, a representation of one of which is shown on the
preceding page. Upon the head of their great god Baal they placed the
horns of the bull; and these have descended in popular imagination to
the spirit of evil of our day. Burns says:

"O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie."

"Clootie" is derived from the cleft hoof of a cow; while the Scotch name
for a bull is Bill, a corruption, probably, of Bel. Less than two
hundred years ago it was customary to sacrifice a bull on the 25th of
August to the "God Mowrie" and "his devilans" on the island of Inis
Maree, Scotland. ("The Past in the Present," p. 165.) The trident of
Poseidon has degenerated into the pitchfork of Beelzebub!

And when we cross the Atlantic, we find in America the horns of Baal
reappearing in a singular manner. The first cut on page 429 represents
an idol of the Moquis of New Mexico: the head is very bull-like. In the
next figure we have a representation of the war-god of the Dakotas, with
something like a trident in his hand; while the next illustration is
taken from Zarate's "Peru," and depicts "the god of a degrading
worship." He is very much like the traditional conception of the
European devil-horns, pointed ears, wings, and poker. Compare this last
figure, from Peru, with the representation on page 430 of a Greek siren,
one of those cruel monsters who, according to Grecian mythology, sat in
the midst of bones and blood, tempting men to ruin by their sweet music.
Here we have the same bird-like legs and claws as in the Peruvian demon.

Heeren shows that a great overland commerce extended in ancient times
between the Black Sea and "Great Mongolia;" he mentions a "Temple of the
Sun," and a great caravansary in the desert of Gobi. Arminius Vámbéry,
in his "Travels in Central Asia," describes very important ruins near
the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, at a place called Gömüshtepe; and
connected with these are the remains of a great wall which he followed
"ten geographical miles." He found a vast aqueduct one hundred and fifty
miles long, extending to the Persian mountains. He reports abundant
ruins in all that country, extending even to China.

The early history of China indicates contact with a superior race.
"Fuh-hi, who is regarded as a demi-god, founded the Chinese Empire 2852
B.C. He introduced cattle, taught the people how to raise them, and
taught the art of writing." ("American Cyclopædia," art. China.) He
might have invented his alphabet, but he did not invent the cattle; he
must have got them from some nation who, during many centuries of
civilization, had domesticated them; and from what nation was he more
likely to have obtained them than from the Atlanteans, whose colonies we
have seen reached his borders, and whose armies invaded his territory!
"He instituted the ceremony of marriage." (Ibid.) This also was an
importation from a civilized land. "His successor, Shin-nung, during a
reign of one hundred and forty years, introduced agriculture and medical
science. The next emperor, Hwang-ti, is believed to have invented
weapons, wagons, ships, clocks, and musical instruments, and to have
introduced coins, weights, and measures." (Ibid.) As these various
inventions in all other countries have been the result of slow
development, running through many centuries, or are borrowed from some
other more civilized people, it is certain that no emperor of China ever
invented them all during a period of one hundred and sixty-four years.
These, then, were also importations from the West. In fact, the Chinese
themselves claim to have invaded China in the early days from the
north-west; and their first location is placed by Winchell near Lake
Balkat, a short distance east of the Caspian, where we have already seen
Aryan Atlantean colonies planted at an early day. "The third successor
of Fuh-hi, Ti-ku, established schools, and was the first to practise
polygamy. In 2357 his son Yau ascended the throne, and it is from his
reign that the regular historical records begin. A great flood, which
occurred in his reign, has been considered synchronous and identical
with the Noachic Deluge, and to Yau is attributed the merit of having
successfully battled against the waters."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33