This flood is
represented as the last cataclysm that devastates the earth."
The learned Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg translates from the Aztec
language of the "Codex Chimalpopoca" the following Flood legend:
"This is the sun called Nahui-atl, '4 water.' Now the water was tranquil
for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth
times. When the sun Nahui-atl came there had passed away four hundred
years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years. Then all mankind was lost
and drowned, and found themselves changed into fish. The sky came nearer
the water. In a single day all was lost, and the day Nahui-xochitl, '4
flower,' destroyed all our flesh.
"And that year was that of ce-calli, '1 house,' and the day Nahui-atl
all was lost. Even the mountains sunk into the water, and the water
remained tranquil for fifty-two springs.
"Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his
spouse Nena, saying, 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow
out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month
Tozontli the water approaches the sky.'
"Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door, he said,
'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize, and thy wife one also.
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