Note 757 — Chapter XI

The following are the legends, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg: “According to the tradition of the Sacred Book (Popol Vuh), water and fire contributed to the universal ruin, at the time of the last cataclysm which preceded the fourth creation. ‘Then,’ says the author, ‘the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven, and a great inundation came upon the heads of these creatures. * * * They were engulfed, and a resinous thickness descended from heaven. * * * The face of the earth was obscured and a heavy darkening rain commenced, rain by day and rain by night. * * * There was heard a great noise above their heads as if produced by fire. Then were men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair; they wished to climb upon their houses, and the houses tumbling down fell to the ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and the trees shook them off; they wished to enter into the grottoes, and the grottoes closed themselves before them.’ In the Codex Chimalpopoca, the author, speaking of the destruction which took place by fire, says: ‘The third sun is called Quia-Tonatiuh, sun of rain, because there fell a rain of fire; all which existed burned, and there fell a rain of gravel.’ They also narrate that whilst the sandstone which we now see scattered about, and the tetzontli (amygdaloide poreuse) boiled with great tumult, there also rose the rocks of vermillion color. Now this was in the year Ce Tecpactl, One Flint, it was the day Nahui-Quiahuitl, Fourth Rain. Now, in this day, in which men were lost and destroyed in a rain of fire, they were transformed into goslings; the sun itself was on fire, and everything, together with the houses, was consumed.” Brasseur recounts a Haytian legend concerning the origin of the sea and isles: “There was, they say, a powerful man called Iaia, who, having murdered his only son, wished to bury him; but not knowing where to put him, enclosed him in a calabash, which he placed afterwards at the foot of a high mountain, situated a little distance from the place where he lived; on account of his affection for his son he often went to the spot. One day, having opened it (the calabash), there came out whales and other very large fishes, of which Iaia, full of fear, having returned home, told his neighbors what had happened, saying that this calabash was filled with water and innumerable fishes. This news being spread abroad, four twin brothers, desiring to obtain fish, went to the place where the calabash was. Just as they had taken it in their hand to open it, Iaia came, and they seeing him, threw the calabash on the ground, in their fear of him. This (the calabash) having burst, on account of the great weight which was enclosed in it, the waters gushed forth, and the interminable plain, which stretched farther than the eye could reach, was flooded and covered with water. The mountains alone, because of their great height, were not submerged in this great inundation. So they believed that these mountains were the islands and the other divisions of the earth which we see in the world.”—Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa’s Relacion, pp. xxi–iv.