Observe the resemblances between this legend and the Bible account of
the building of the Tower of Babel:
"All was a plain without hill or elevation," says the Indian legend.
"They found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there," says
the Bible. They built of brick in both cases. "Let us build us a tower
whose top may reach unto heaven," says the Bible. "They determined to
build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky," says the
Indian legend. "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower
which the children of men had builded. And the Lord said, Behold . . .
nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go
to, let us go down and confound them," says the Bible record. "The Lord
of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, 'Have you
observed,' etc. Come and confound them," says the Indian record. "And
the Lord scattered them abroad from thence on all the face of the
earth," says the Bible. "They scattered its builders to all parts of the
earth," says the Mexican legend.
Can any one doubt that these two legends must have sprung in some way
from one another, or from some common source? There are enough points of
difference to show that the American is not a servile copy of the Hebrew
legend.
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