The name of the hero of the Aztec story, Nata, pronounced with the broad
sound of the a, is not far from the name of Noah or Noe. The Deluge of
Genesis is a Phoenician, Semitic, or Hebraic legend, and yet, strange to
say, the name of Noah, which occurs in it, bears no appropriate meaning
in those tongues, but is derived from Aryan sources; its fundamental
root is Na, to which in all the Aryan language is attached the meaning
of water--{Greek} na'ein, to flow; {Greek} na~ma, water; Nympha,
Neptunus, water deities. (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the
East," vol. i., p. 15.) We find the root Na repeated in the name of this
Central American Noah, Na-ta, and probably in the word "Na-hui-atl"--the
age of water.
But still more striking analogies exist between the Chaldean legend and
the story of the Deluge as told in the "Popul Vuh" (the Sacred Book) of
the Central Americans:
"Then the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven
(Hurakan), and a great inundation came upon the heads of these
creatures. . . . They were ingulfed, 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.
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