I have already stated in general terms the hypothesis advanced by
Brasseur de Bourbourg and some other writers. This may be called the
"Atlantic" theory, for it attributes the civilization of Ancient America
to the Atlantides or Atlantic race, who occupied the lost "island of
Atlantis." Brasseur de Bourbourg has studied the monuments, writings,
and traditions left by this civilization more carefully and thoroughly
than any other man living. He has fancies which may be safely rejected,
and he has theories which, doubtless, will always lack confirmation; but
he has much, also, which demands respectful consideration. There is a
great deal in his books to provoke criticism; those well acquainted with
the antiquities and ancient speech of Egypt may reasonably give way to
a smile of incredulity while reading what he says in support of the
notion that the great civilization of Egypt also came originally from
this Atlantic race. Nevertheless, his volumes are important, because
they furnish materials which others can use more carefully, and because
he has learned to decipher some of the Central American writings and
brought to view certain paths of inquiry which others may pursue with a
more rigid method.
As already stated, his Atlantic theory of the old American civilization
is, that it was originated on this continent, but on a portion of the
continent which is now below the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It
supposes the continent extended, anciently, from New Granada, Central
America, and Mexico in a long, irregular peninsula, so far across the
Atlantic that the Canary, Madeira, and Azores or Western Islands may be
remains of this portion of it. High mountains stood where we now find
the West India islands. Beyond these, toward Africa and Europe, was a
great extent of fertile and beautiful land, and here arose the first
civilization of mankind, which flourished many ages, until at length
this extended portion of the continent was ingulfed by a tremendous
convulsion of nature, or by a succession of such convulsions which made
the ruin complete. After the cataclysm, a part of the Atlantic people
who escaped destruction settled in Central America, where perhaps their
civilization had been previously introduced. The reasons urged in
support of this hypothesis make it seem plausible, if not probable, to
imaginative minds.
In the first place, Brasseur de Bourbourg claims that there is in the
old Central American books a constant tradition of an immense
catastrophe of the character supposed; that this tradition existed every
where among the people when they first became known to Europeans; and
that recollections of the catastrophe were preserved in some of their
festivals, especially in one celebrated in the month of _Izcalli_, which
was instituted to commemorate this frightful destruction of land and
people, and in which "princes and people humbled themselves before the
divinity, and besought Him to withhold a return of such terrible
calamities." This tradition affirms that a part of the continent
extending into the Atlantic was destroyed in the manner supposed, and
appears to indicate that the destruction was accomplished by a
succession of frightful convulsions. Three are constantly mentioned, and
sometimes there is mention of one or two others. "The land was shaken by
frightful earthquakes, and the waves of the sea combined with volcanic
fires to overwhelm and ingulf it." Each convulsion swept away portions
of the land, until the whole disappeared, leaving the line of the coast
as it is now. Most of the inhabitants, overtaken amid their regular
employments, were destroyed; but some escaped in ships, and some fled
for safety to the summits of high mountains, or to portions of the land
which, for the time, escaped immediate destruction. Quotations are made
from the old books in which this tradition is recorded which appear to
verify his report of what is found in them. To criticise intelligently
his interpretation of their significance, one needs to have a knowledge
of those books and traditions equal at least to his own.
In the second place, he appeals to the story of Atlantis, preserved in
the annals of Egypt, and related to Solon by the priests of Sais. It is
stated in Plutarch's life of Solon that while in Egypt "he conferred
with the priests of Psenophis, Sonchis, Heliopolis, and Sais, and
learned from them the story of Atlantis." Brasseur de Bourbourg cites
Cousin's translation of Plato's record of this story as follows:
"Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection is preserved in
our books, there is one which should be placed above all others. Our
books tell that the Athenians destroyed an army which came across the
Atlantic Sea, and insolently invaded Europe and Asia; for this sea was
then navigable, and beyond the strait where you place the Pillars of
Hercules there was an island larger than Asia [Minor] and Libya
combined. From this island one could pass easily to the other islands,
and from these to the continent which lies around the interior sea. The
sea on this side of the strait (the Mediterranean) of which we speak
resembles a harbor with a narrow entrance; but there is a genuine sea,
and the land which surrounds it is a veritable continent. In the island
of Atlantis reigned three kings with great and marvelous power. They had
under their dominion the whole of Atlantis, several other islands, and
some parts of the continent. At one time their power extended into
Libya, and into Europe as far as Tyrrhenia; and, uniting their whole
force, they sought to destroy our countries at a blow, but their defeat
stopped the invasion and gave entire independence to all the countries
on this side of the Pillars of Hercules. Afterward, in one day and one
fatal night, there came mighty earthquakes and inundations, which
ingulfed that warlike people; Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea, and
then that sea became inaccessible, so that navigation on it ceased on
account of the quantity of mud which the ingulfed island left in its
place."
This invasion took place many ages before Athens was known as a Greek
city. It is referred to an extremely remote antiquity. The festival
known as the "Lesser Panathenaea," which, as symbolic devices used in it
show, commemorated this triumph over the Atlantes, is said to have been
instituted by the mythical Erichthonius in the earliest times remembered
by Athenian tradition. Solon had knowledge of the Atlantes before he
went to Egypt, but he heard there, for the first time, this account of
their "island" and of its disappearance in a frightful cataclysm. But
Atlantis is mentioned by other ancient writers. An extract preserved in
Proclus, taken from a work now lost, which is quoted by Boeckh in his
commentary on Plato, mentions islands in the exterior sea beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, and says it was known that in one of these islands
"the inhabitants preserved from their ancestors a remembrance of
Atlantis, an extremely large island, which for a long time held dominion
over all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean."
Brasseur de Bourbourg claims that these traditions, on both sides of the
Atlantic, mean the same thing. The "island of Atlantis," larger than
Libya and Asia Minor together, was the extended portion of the American
continent. These concurring traditions can not be devoid of historical
significance. The constant references by ancient Greek writers to the
Atlantes, who are always placed at the extremity of Europe and Africa,
on the ocean which bears their name, may reasonably be regarded as vague
and faded recollections of such a history connected with that ocean as
that implied by what was said of their island in the annals of Egypt. In
support of his view of what is meant by the traditions, he adds this
philological argument:
"The words _Atlas_ and _Atlantic_ have no satisfactory etymology in any
language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and can not be referred to
any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahuatl language we find
immediately the radical _a_, _atl_, which signifies water, war, and the
top of the head. (Molina, _Vocab. en lengua mexicana y castellana_,
etc.) From this comes a series of words, such as _atlan_, on the border
of or amid the water, from which we have the adjective _Atlantic_. We
have also atlaca, to combat or be in agony; it means likewise to hurl or
dart from the water, and in the preterit makes _atlaz_. A city named
_Atlan_ existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the
entrance of the Gulf of Uraba, in Darien, with a good harbor; it is now
reduced to an unimportant pueblo named _Acla_."
In the third place, he quotes opinions expressed without any regard
whatever to his theory to show that scientific men who have considered
the question believe that there was formerly a great extension of the
land into the Atlantic in the manner supposed. The first quotation is
from Moreau de Saint-Mery's "Description topographique et politique de
la Partie Espagnole a l'Isle de Saint-Domingue," published in 1796, as
follows:
"There are those who, in examining the map of America, do not confine
themselves to thinking with the French Pliny that the innumerable
islands situated from the mouth of the Orinoco to the Bahama Channel
(islands which include several _Grenadins_ not always visible in very
high tides or great agitations of the sea) should be considered as
summits of vast mountains whose bases and sides are covered with water,
but who go farther, and suppose these islands to be the tops of the most
elevated of a chain of mountains which crowned a portion of the
continent whose submersion has produced the Gulf of Mexico. But to
sustain this opinion it must be added that another vast surface of land
which united the islands of this archipelago to the continent, from
Yucatan to the mouth of the Orinoco, was submerged in the same way, and
also a third surface which connected them with the peninsula of Florida
and with whatever land may have constituted the northern termination;
for we can not imagine that these mountains whose summits appear above
water stood on the terminating line of the continent."
He quotes, also, another authority which "can not be suspected," namely,
M. Charles Martins, who said, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for March
1, 1867, "Now, hydrography, geology, and botany agree in teaching us
that the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira are the remains of a great
continent which formerly united Europe to North America." He could have
added other quotations in the same strain. Those geologists who believe
that "our continents have long remained in nearly the same relative
position" would probably give the supposed change a much greater
antiquity than Brasseur de Bourbourg would be likely to accept; and the
geological "Uniformitarians" would deny with emphasis that so great a
change in the shape of a continent was ever effected by such means, or
with such rapidity as he supposes. But the latest and most advanced
school of geological speculation does not exclude "Catastrophism," and,
therefore, will not deny the possibility of sudden and great changes by
this method.
Doubtless the antiquity of the human race is much greater than is
usually assumed by those whose views of the past are still regulated by
mediaeval systems of chronology. Archaeology and linguistic science, not
to speak here of geology, make it certain that the period between the
beginning of the human race and the birth of Christ would be more
accurately stated if the centuries counted in the longest estimate of
the rabbinical chronologies should be changed to millenniums. And they
present also another fact, namely, that the antiquity of civilization is
very great, and suggest that in remote ages it may have existed, with
important developments, in regions of the earth now described as
barbarous, and even, as Brasseur de Bourbourg supposes, on ancient
continents or portions of continents now out of sight below the surface
of the oceans. The representation of some speculators that the condition
of the human race since its first appearance on earth has been a
condition of universal and hopeless savagery down to a comparatively
modern date, is an assumption merely, an unwarranted assumption used in
support of an unproved and unprovable theory of man's origin. Its use in
the name of science by advocates of this theory, like the theory itself,
shows that the constructive power of fancy and imagination will
sometimes supersede every thing else, and substitute its ingenious
constructions for legitimate conclusions, even in scientific
speculation.
We may claim reasonably that Brasseur de Bourbourg's Atlantic theory is
not proved, and on this ground refuse to accept it. So far as appears,
it is a fanciful theory which can not be proved. No one is under
obligation to attempt disproving it. It may, in some cases, win
supporters by enlisting in its favor all the forces of imagination, to
which it appeals with seductive plausibility. On the other hand, it will
be rejected without much regard to what can be said in its favor, for it
interferes with current unreasoning beliefs concerning antiquity and
ancient history, and must encounter vehement contradiction from habits
of thought fixed by these beliefs. True, some of the stock views of
antiquity, by which it will be earnestly opposed, are themselves far
more destitute of foundation in either fact or reason; but this will
make no difference, as the habit of never allowing them to be subjected
to the searching power of reason does not permit such persons either to
believe or deny any thing connected with this topic in a reasonable
manner.
Some of the uses made of this theory can not endure criticism. For
instance, when he makes it the basis of an assumption that all the
civilization of the Old World went originally from America, and claims
particularly that the supposed "Atlantic race" created Egypt, he goes
quite beyond reach of the considerations used to give his hypothesis a
certain air of probability. It may be, as he says, that for every
pyramid in Egypt there are a thousand in Mexico and Central America, but
the ruins in Egypt and those in America have nothing in common. The two
countries were entirely different in their language, in their styles of
architecture, in their written characters, and in the physical
characteristics of their earliest people, as they are seen sculptured or
painted on the monuments. An Egyptian pyramid is no more the same thing
as a Mexican pyramid than a Chinese pagoda is the same thing as an
English light-house. It was not made in the same way, nor for the same
uses. The ruined monuments show, in generals and in particulars, that
the original civilizers in America were profoundly different from the
ancient Egyptians. The two peoples can not explain each other.
This, however, does not require us to assert positively that the Central
American "Colhuas" and the legendary Atlantes could not possibly have
been the same people, or people of the same race. Room may be left for
any amount of conjecture not inconsistent with known facts, without
making it necessary to accept a theory of the origin of the old Mexican
race which at present can neither be proved nor disproved.