In Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Ignatius Donnelly gathers the flood stories of the Americas and reads them as memories of Atlantis. He opens with the French scholar Alfred Maury (https://drumsofatlantis.com/louis-ferdinand-alfred-maury).
Maury finds American flood stories closer to the Bible than any in the Old World, and cannot explain why.
"It is a very remarkable fact," says Alfred Maury, "that we find in America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that of the Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the Old World. It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that certainly took place from Asia into North America by the Kourile and Aleutian Islands, and still does so in our day, should have brought in these memories, since no trace is found of them among those Mongol or Siberian populations which were fused with the natives of the New World.... The attempts that have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia have not as yet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have introduced a myth not found in its own scriptures. The cause of these similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations of the New World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part II, ch. V, "The Deluge Legends of America", quoting Alfred Maury, Project Gutenberg eBook #4032, public domain
Donnelly’s answer is that the legends did not come by the Aleutian Islands or with Buddhists from Asia but from “an actual knowledge of Atlantis possessed by the people of America.” In his view the great nations of America were “simply colonies from Atlantis”.
Mexico and Central America
The Mexican stories come to Donnelly through François Lenormant. The Noah of Mexico is Coxcox, also called Teocipactli or Tezpi, who escapes with his wife Xochiquetzal in a bark or on a raft of cypress wood. In the Mechoacaneses (Donnelly’s spelling) version Tezpi sends out a vulture, which feeds on the dead and stays away, and then other birds, of which only the hummingbird comes back “with a leafy branch in its beak.” Tezpi leaves his bark on the mountain of Colhuacan.
A Toltec account, as Donnelly gives it, says the few survivors escaped in a “toptlipetlocali”, a word that “nearly signifies a close chest”, and later built a high tower, the “zacuali”, before their languages were confused. In the “Popol Vuh” of the Quiché, the Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, sends the flood, and “a resinous thickness descended from heaven”. Donnelly also reads the Aztec homeland Aztlan as Atlantis.
North America
Donnelly cites George Catlin on the Mandans, who kept an image of the ark and held a ceremony that, in Donnelly’s reading, recalls a survivor bringing news of the disaster. From Lynd’s history of the Dakotas he quotes three short traditions: among the Iroquois the waters destroyed all human life, the Chickasaws say one family and two animals of every kind were saved, and the Sioux say there was once no dry land at all.
From Bancroft’s “Native Races” come the rest. The Okanagaus (Donnelly’s spelling) heroine Scomalt breaks off part of a lost island and pushes it out to sea, and only a man and a woman escape in a canoe. The Nicaraguans say most of mankind perished in a flood. In the Apache story Montezuma and the coyote alone escape, and the Great Spirit destroys the house Montezuma builds to reach heaven. Among the Pimas, Szeu-kha, the son of the Creator, survives “by floating on a ball of gum or resin.” Many of these stories are also gathered on https://drumsofatlantis.com/great-flood-stories-world-wide.
Some Considerations of the Deluge Legends
In the next chapter Donnelly sets the legends against volcanic eruptions of his own century, such as Galung Gung in Java, the volcanic island raised near Sicily, and the rain of mud and sulphur on Dominica, and argues that Atlantis went down in the same way. The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program dates the Sicilian island to the 1831 eruption at Ferdinandea, known in English as Graham Island (Global Volcanism Program, “Campi Flegrei del Mar di Sicilia”, https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=211070), and the Dominica event to a phreatic explosion in the Valley of Desolation in 1880 (Global Volcanism Program, “Morne Watt”, https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=360101).
In Donnelly’s reading: Biblical references to “the fountains of the great deep” breaking up during the Deluge likely describe volcanic activity similar to the accounts in Dominica and other historical eruptions. The Chaldean legend’s “terrible water-spout” and the Aramæan tradition’s “enormous volumes of water” issuing from the earth reflect similar events. This volcanic activity, combined with earthquakes, would have contributed to the destruction of Atlantis.
Plato described the mountains of Atlantis as lofty and precipitous, a description that aligns with the Azores’ current elevation. The Chaldean and Hindoo legends also reference significant mountains, like the Mountain of Nizir and the Mountain of the North, respectively.
Plato mentioned that navigation ceased in the area of Atlantis due to the mud left behind after its sinking. This aligns with the Chaldean legend where humanity returned to mud and the “Popol Vuh” describing a “resinous thickness.” Historical volcanic eruptions have shown similar impacts, such as the eruption in Iceland in 1783, which covered the sea with pumice, and the Sumbawa eruption in 1815, which impeded ships with floating cinders.
Donnelly also notes that several traditions keep a record safe from the flood. In Manetho, Thoth inscribes the principles of all knowledge on stelae before the Deluge. In Josephus, Seth raises two columns, one of brick and one of stone. In the Chaldean story, Ea tells Khasisatra to bury the writings “in the City of the Sun at Sippara” (see https://drumsofatlantis.com/the-chaldean-deluge-story).
Following the Central American books translated by De Bourbourg, Donnelly describes a part of America that once reached far into the Atlantic and was destroyed by “a succession of frightful convulsions”. He links this to a festival in the month Izcalli held to remember the destruction, to the “three terrible catastrophes” of the Welsh triads, and to the Greek flood of Ogyges before that of Deucalion. More on Donnelly is at https://drumsofatlantis.com/ignatius-donnelly.
