Page 191 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

an ascetic. When he ascended to heaven he became a god.
13
Farther south still, the Canarians, an Indian tribe of Ecuador, relate an
ancient story of a flood from which two brothers escaped by going to the
top of a high mountain. As the water rose the mountain grew higher, so
that the two brothers survived the disaster.
14
When they were discovered, the Tupinamba Indians of Brazil venerated
a series of civilizing or creator heroes. The first of these heroes was
Monan (ancient, old) who was said to have been the creator of mankind
but who then destroyed the world with flood and fire ...
15
Peru, as we saw in Part II, is particularly rich in flood legends. A typical
story tells of an Indian who was warned by a llama of a deluge. Together
man and llama fled to a high mountain called Vilca-Coto:

When they reached the top of the mountain they saw that all kinds of birds and
animals had already taken refuge there. The sea began to rise, and covered all the
plains and mountains except the top of Vilca-Coto; and even there the waves
dashed up so high that the animals were forced to crowd into a narrow area ...
Five days later the water ebbed, and the sea returned to its bed. But all human
beings except one were drowned, and from him are descended all the nations on
earth.
16
The Araucnaians of pre-Colombian Chile preserved a tradition that there
was once a flood which very few Indians escaped. The survivors took
refuge on a high mountain called Thegtheg (‘the thundering’ or ‘the
glittering’) which had three peaks and the ability to float on water.
17
In the far south of the continent a Yamana legend from Tierra del Fuego
states: ‘The moon woman caused the flood. This was at the time of the
great upheaval ... Moon was filled with hatred towards human beings ...
At that time everybody drowned with the exception of those few who
were able to escape to the five mountain peaks that the water did not
cover.’
18
Another Tierra del Fuegan tribe, the Pehuenche, associate the flood
with a prolonged period of darkness: ‘The sun and the moon fell from the
sky and the world stayed that way, without light, until finally two giant
condors carried both the sun and the moon back up to the sky.’
19

13 New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, p. 440; Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, p.
105.
14 Folklore in the Old Testament, p. 104.
15 New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, p. 445.
16 Folklore in the Old Testament, p. 105.
17 Ibid., p. 101.
John Bierhorst, The Mythology of South America, William Morrow & Co., New York,
18
1988, p. 165.
19 Ibid., pp. 165-6.

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