'
"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained
calm, for the wood no longer moved, and, on opening it, they began to
see fish.
"Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they
roasted fish.
"The gods Citlallinicue and Citlalatonac, instantly looking down said:
'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there? Why do they thus
smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended. He began to
chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And, seizing hold of the
fish, he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into
dogs (chichime)."
Here we note a remarkable approximation to Plato's account of the
destruction of Atlantis. "In one day and one fatal night," says Plato,
"there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed that
warlike people." "In a single day all was lost," says the Aztec legend.
And, instead of a rainfall of forty days and forty nights, as
represented in the Bible, here we see "in a single day. . . even the
mountains sunk into the water;" not only the land on which the people
dwelt who were turned into fish, but the very mountains of that land
sunk into the water.
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