Note 3 — PREFACE.

“Paintings representing the deluge of Tezpi are found among the different nations that inhabit Mexico. He saved himself conjointly with his wife, children, and several animals, on a raft. The painting represents him in the midst of the water lying in a bark. The mountain, the summit of which, crowned by a tree, rises above the waters, is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the Mexicans. The men born after the deluge were dumb: a dove, from the top of the tree distributes among them tongues. When the great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out a vulture. This bird did not return on account of the number of carcases, with which the earth, newly dried up, was strewn. He sent out other birds; one of which, the humming-bird, alone returned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves.—Ought we not to acknowledge the traces of a common origin, wherever cosmogonical ideas, and the first traditions of nations, offer striking analogies, even in the minutest circumstances? Does not the humming-bird of Tezpi remind us of Noah’s dove; that of Deucalion, and the birds, which, according to Berosus, Xisuthrus sent out from his ark, to see whether the waters were run off, and whether he might erect altars to the tutelary deities of Chaldæa?” Humboldt’s Researches, concerning the Institutions and Monuments of ancient America: translated by Helen Maria Williams.