Page 189 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

note). Scholars argue endlessly about the nature of these resemblances.
What really matters, however, is that in each sphere of influence the same
solemn tradition has been preserved for posterity—a tradition which tells,
in graphic language, of a global catastrophe and of the near-total
annihilation of mankind.

Central America

The identical message was preserved in the Valley of Mexico, far away
across the world from Mounts Ararat and Nisir. There, culturally and
geographically isolated from Judaeo-Christian influences, long ages
before the arrival of the Spaniards, stories were told of a great deluge. As
the reader will recall from Part III, it was believed that this deluge had
swept over the entire earth at the end of the Fourth Sun: ‘Destruction
came in the form of torrential rain and floods. The mountains
disappeared and men were transformed into fish ...’
8
According to Aztec mythology only two human beings survived: a man,
Coxcoxtli, and his wife, Xochiquetzal, who had been forewarned of the
cataclysm by a god. They escaped in a huge boat they had been
instructed to build and came to ground on the peak of a tall mountain.
There they descended and afterwards had many children who were dumb
until the time when a dove on top of a tree gave them the gift of
languages. These languages differed so much that the children could not
understand one another.
9
A related Central American tradition, that of the Mechoacanesecs, is in
even more striking conformity with the story as we have it in Genesis and
in the Mesopotamian sources. According to this tradition, the god
Tezcatlipoca determined to destroy all mankind with a flood, saving only
a certain Tezpi who embarked in a spacious vessel with his wife, his
children and large numbers of animals and birds, as well as supplies of
grains and seeds, the preservation of which were essential to the future
subsistence of the human race. The vessel came to rest on an exposed
mountain top after Tezcatilpoca had decreed that the waters of the flood
should retire. Wishing to find out whether it was now safe for him to
disembark, Tezpi sent out a vulture which, feeding on the carcasses with
which the earth was now strewn, did not return. The man then sent out
other birds, of which only the hummingbird came back, with a leafy
branch in its beak. With this sign that the land had begun to renew itself,

And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf
plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth ... And Noah
went forth ... and builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar. And the Lord smelled the sweet savour ...
Maya History and Religion, p. 332.
8
9 Sir J. G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend
and Law (Abridged Edition), Macmillan, London, 1923, p. 107.

187