James M. Beck - "The Case of Edith Cavell"

John Foster - "An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance"

P. G. Wodehouse - "Death At The Excelsior"

Fred W. Ward - "The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's)"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Antediluvian World

I >> Ignatius Donnelly >> The Antediluvian World




One may well pause, after reading this catalogue, and ask himself,
wherein do these peoples differ? It is absurd to pretend that all these
similarities could have been the result of accidental coincidences.

These two peoples, separated by the great ocean, were baptized alike in
infancy with blessed water; they prayed alike to the gods; they
worshipped together the sun, moon, and stars; they confessed their sins
alike; they were instructed alike by an established priesthood; they
were married in the same way and by the joining of hands; they armed
themselves with the same weapons; when children came, the man, on both
continents, went to bed and left his wife to do the honors of the
household; they tattooed and painted themselves in the same fashion;
they became intoxicated on kindred drinks; their dresses were alike;
they cooked in the same manner; they used the same metals; they employed
the same exorcisms and bleedings for disease; they believed alike in
ghosts, demons, and fairies; they listened to the same stories; they
played the same games; they used the same musical instruments; they
danced the same dances, and when they died they were embalmed in the
same way and buried sitting; while over them were erected, on both
continents, the same mounds, pyramids, obelisks, and temples. And yet we
are asked to believe that there was no relationship between them, and
that they had never had any ante-Columbian intercourse with each other.

If our knowledge of Atlantis was more thorough, it would no doubt appear
that, in every instance wherein the people of Europe accord with the
people of America, they were both in accord with the people of Atlantis;
and that Atlantis was the common centre from which both peoples derived
their arts, sciences, customs, and opinions. It will be seen that in
every case where Plato gives us any information in this respect as to
Atlantis, we find this agreement to exist. It existed in architecture,
sculpture, navigation, engraving, writing, an established priesthood,
the mode of worship, agriculture, the construction of roads and canals;
and it is reasonable to suppose that the, same correspondence extended
down to all the minor details treated of in this chapter.

CHAPTER III.

AMERICAN EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPE OR ATLANTIS.

1. ON the monuments of Central America there are representations of
bearded men. How could the beardless American Indians have imagined a
bearded race?

2. All the traditions of the civilized races of Central America point to
an Eastern origin.

The leader and civilizer of the Nahua family was Quetzalcoatl. This is
the legend respecting him:

"From the distant East, from the fabulous Hue Hue Tlapalan, this
mysterious person came to Tula, and became the patron god and
high-priest of the ancestors of the Toltecs. He is described as having
been a white man, with strong formation of body, broad forehead, large
eyes, and flowing beard. He wore a mitre on his head, and was dressed in
a long white robe reaching to his feet, and covered with red crosses. In
his hand he held a sickle. His habits were ascetic, he never married,
was most chaste and pure in life, and is said to have endured penance in
a neighboring mountain, not for its effects upon himself, but as a
warning to others. He condemned sacrifices, except of fruits and
flowers, and was known as the god of peace; for, when addressed on the
subject of war, he is reported to have stopped his ears with his
fingers." ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 268.)

"He was skilled in many arts: he invented" (that is, imported)
"gem-cutting and metal-casting; he originated letters, and invented the
Mexican calendar. He finally returned to the land in the East from which
he came: leaving the American coast at Vera Cruz, he embarked in a canoe
made of serpent-skins, and 'sailed away into the east.'" (Ibid., p. 271.)

Dr. Le Plongeon says of the columns at Chichen:

"The base is formed by the head of Cukulcan, the shaft of the body of
the serpent, with its feathers beautifully carved to the very chapiter.
On the chapiters of the columns that support the portico, at the
entrance of the castle in Chichen Itza, may be seen the carved figures
of long-bearded men, with upraised hands, in the act of worshipping
sacred trees. They forcibly recall to mind the same worship in Assyria."

In the accompanying cut of an ancient vase from Tula, we see a bearded
figure grasping a beardless man.

In the cut given below we see a face that might be duplicated among the
old men of any part of Europe.

The Cakchiquel MS. says: "Four persons came from Tulan, from the
direction of the rising sun--that is one Tulan. There is another Tulan
in Xibalbay, and another where the sun sets, and it is there that we
came; and in the direction of the setting sun there is another, where is
the god; so that there are four Tulans; and it is where the sun sets
that we came to Tulan, from the other side of the sea, where this Tulan
is; and it is there that we were conceived and begotten by our mothers
and fathers."

That is to say, the birthplace of the race was in the East, across the
sea, at a place called Tulan and when they emigrated they called their
first stopping-place on the American continent Tulan also; and besides
this there were two other Tulans.

"Of the Nahua predecessors of the Toltecs in Mexico the Olmecs and
Xicalaucans were the most important. They were the forerunners of the
great races that followed. According to Ixtlilxochitl, these
people-which are conceded to be one occupied the world in the third age;
they came from the East in ships or barks to the land of Potonchan,
which they commenced to populate."

3. The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in one of the notes of the
Introduction of the "Popol Vuh," presents a very remarkable analogy
between the kingdom of Xibalba, described in that work, and Atlantis. He
says:

"Both countries are magnificent, exceedingly fertile, and abound in the
precious metals. The empire of Atlantis was divided into ten kingdoms,
governed by five couples of twin sons of Poseidon, the eldest being
supreme over the others; and the ten constituted a tribunal that managed
the affairs of the empire. Their descendants governed after them. The
ten kings of Xibalba, who reigned (in couples) under Hun-Came and
Vukub-Came (and who together constituted a grand council of the
kingdom), certainly furnish curious points of comparison. And there is
wanting neither a catastrophe--for Xibalba had a terrific
inundation--nor the name of Atlas, of which the etymology is found only
in the Nahuatl tongue: it comes from atl, water; and we know that a city
of Atlan (near the water) still existed on the Atlantic side of the
Isthmus of Panama at the time of the Conquest."

"In Yucatan the traditions all point to an Eastern and foreign origin
for the race. The early writers report that the natives believe their
ancestors to have crossed the sea by a passage which was opened for
them." (Landa's "Relacion," p. 28.)

"It was also believed that part of the population came into the country
from the West. Lizana says that the smaller portion, 'the little
descent,' came from the East, while the greater portion, 'the great
descent,' came from the West. Cogolluda considers the Eastern colony to
have been the larger. . . . The culture-hero Zamna, the author of all
civilization in Yucatan, is described as the teacher of letters, and the
leader of the people from their ancient home. . . . He was the leader of
a colony from the East." ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 229.)

The ancient Mexican legends say that, after the Flood, Coxcox and his
wife, after wandering one hundred and four years, landed at Antlan, and
passed thence to Capultepec, and thence to Culhuacan, and lastly to
Mexico.

Coming from Atlantis, they named their first landing-place Antlan.

All the races that settled Mexico, we are told, traced their origin back
to an Aztlan (Atlan-tis). Duran describes Aztlan as "a most attractive
land." ("North Amer. of Antiq.," p. 257.)

Same, the great name of Brazilian legend, came across the ocean from the
rising sun. He had power over the elements and tempests; the trees of
the forests would recede to make room for him (cutting down the trees);
the animals used to crouch before him (domesticated animals); lakes and
rivers became solid for him (boats and bridges); and he taught the use
of agriculture and magic. Like him, Bochica, the great law-giver of the
Muyscas, and son of the sun--he who invented for them the calendar and
regulated their festivals--had a white beard, a detail in which all the
American culture-heroes agree. The "Same" of Brazil was probably the
"Zamna" of Yucatan.

ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN.

4. We find in America numerous representations of the elephant. We are
forced to one of two conclusions: either the monuments date back to the
time of the mammoth in North America, or these people held intercourse
at some time in the past with races who possessed the elephant, and from
whom they obtained pictures of that singular animal. Plato tells us that
the Atlanteans possessed great numbers of elephants.

There are in Wisconsin a number of mounds of earth representing
different animals-men, birds, and quadrupeds.

ELEPHANT PIPE, LOISA COUNTY, IOWA.

Among the latter is a mound representing an elephant, "so perfect in its
proportions, and complete in its representation of an elephant, that its
builders must have been well acquainted with all the physical
characteristics of the animal which they delineated." We copy the
representation of this mound on page 168.

On a farm in Louisa County, Iowa, a pipe was ploughed up which also
represents an elephant. We are indebted to the valuable work of John T.
Short ("The North Americans of Antiquity," p. 530) for a picture of this
singular object. It was found in a section where the ancient mounds were
very abundant and rich in relics. The pipe is of sandstone, of the
ordinary Mound-Builder's type, and has every appearance of age and
usage. There can be no doubt of its genuineness. The finder had no
conception of its archaeological value.

In the ruined city of Palenque we find, in one of the palaces, a stucco
bass-relief of a priest. His elaborate head-dress or helmet represents
very faithfully the head of an elephant. The cut on page 169 is from a
drawing made by Waldeck.

The decoration known as "elephant-trunks" is found in many parts of the
ancient ruins of Central America, projecting from above the door-ways of
the buildings.

In Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind," p. 313, I
find a remarkable representation of an elephant, taken from an ancient
Mexican manuscript. It is as follows:

MEXICAN REPRESENTATION OF ELEPHANT.

CHAPTER IV.

CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. Lenormant insists that the human race issued from Ups Merou, and adds
that some Greek traditions point to "this locality--particularly the
expression me'ropes a?'newpoi, which can only mean 'the men sprung from
Merou.'" ("Manual," p.21.)

Theopompus tells us that the people who inhabited Atlantis were the
Meropes, the people of Merou.

2. Whence comes the word Atlantic? The dictionaries tell us that the
ocean is named after the mountains of Atlas; but whence did the Atlas
mountains get their name?

"The words Atlas and Atlantic have no satisfactory etymology in any
language known to Europe. They are not Greek, and cannot be referred to
any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahuatl language we find
immediately the radical a, atl, which signifies water, war, and the top
of the head. (Molina, "Vocab. en lengua Mexicana y Castellana.") From
this comes a series of words, such as atlan--on the border of or amid
the water--from which we 'have the adjective Atlantic. We have also
atlaca, to combat, or be in agony; it means likewise to hurl or dart
from the water, and in the preterit makes Atlaz. A city named Atlan
existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the entrance
of the Gulf of Uraba, in Darien. With a good harbor, it is now reduced
to an unimportant pueblo named Acla." (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p.
179.)

Plato tells us that Atlantis and the Atlantic Ocean were named after
Atlas, the eldest son of Poseidon, the founder of the kingdom.

3. Upon that part of the African continent nearest to the site of
Atlantis we find a chain of mountains, known from the most ancient times
as the Atlas Mountains. Whence this name Atlas, if it be not from the
name of the great king of Atlantis? And if this be not its origin, how
comes it that we find it in the most north-western corner of Africa? And
how does it happen that in the time of Herodotus there dwelt near this
mountain-chain a people called the Atlantes, probably a remnant of a
colony from Solon's island? How comes it that the people of the Barbary
States were known to the Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians as the
"Atlantes," this name being especially applied to the inhabitants of
Fezzan and Bilma? Where did they get the name from? There is no
etymology for it east of the Atlantic Ocean. (Lenormants "Anc. Hist. of
the East," p. 253.)

Look at it! An "Atlas" mountain on the shore of Africa; an "Atlan" town
on the shore of America; the "Atlantes" living along the north and west
coast of Africa; an Aztec people from Aztlan, in Central America; an
ocean rolling between the two worlds called the "Atlantic;" a
mythological deity called "Atlas" holding the world on his shoulders;
and an immemorial tradition of an island of Atlantis. Can all these
things be the result of accident?

4. Plato says that there was a "passage west from Atlantis to the rest
of the islands, as well as from these islands to the whole opposite
continent that surrounds that real sea." He calls it a real sea, as
contradistinguished from the Mediterranean, which, as he says, is not a
real sea (or ocean) but a landlocked body of water, like a harbor.

Now, Plato might have created Atlantis out of his imagination; but how
could he have invented the islands beyond (the West India Islands), and
the whole continent (America) enclosing that real sea? If we look at the
map, we see that the continent of America does "surround" the ocean in a
great half-circle. Could Plato have guessed all this? If there had been
no Atlantis, and no series of voyages from it that revealed the
half-circle of the continent from Newfoundland to Cape St. Roche, how
could Plato have guessed it? And how could he have known that the
Mediterranean was only a harbor compared with the magnitude of the great
ocean surrounding Atlantis? Long sea-voyages were necessary to establish
that fact, and the Greeks, who kept close to the shores in their short
journeys, did not make such voyages.

5. How can we, without Atlantis, explain the presence of the Basques in
Europe, who have no lingual affinities with any other race on the
continent of Europe, but whose language is similar to the languages of
America?

Plato tells us that the dominion of Gadeirus, one of the kings of
Atlantis, extended "toward the pillars of Heracles (Hercules) as far as
the country which is still called the region of Gades in that part of
the world." Gades is the Cadiz of today, and the dominion of Gadeirus
embraced the land of the Iberians or Basques, their chief city taking
its name from a king of Atlantis, and they themselves being Atlanteans.

Dr. Farrar, referring to the Basque language, says:

"What is certain about it is, that its structure is polysynthetic, like
the languages of America. Like them, it forms its compounds by the
elimination of certain radicals in the simple words; so that ilhun, the
twilight, is contracted from hill, dead, and egun, day; and belhaur, the
knee, from belhar, front, and oin, leg. . . . The fact is indisputable,
and is eminently noteworthy, that while the affinities of the Basque
roots have never been conclusively elucidated, there has never been any
doubt that this isolated language, preserving its identity in a western
corner of Europe, between two mighty kingdoms, resembles, in its
grammatical structure, the aboriginal languages of the vast opposite
continent (America), and those alone." ("Families of Speech," p. 132.)

If there was an Atlantis, forming, with its connecting ridges, a
continuous bridge of land from America to Africa, we can understand how
the Basques could have passed from one continent to another; but if the
wide Atlantic rolled at all times unbroken between the two continents,
it is difficult to conceive of such an emigration by an uncivilized
people.

6. Without Atlantis, how can we explain the fact that the early
Egyptians were depicted by themselves as red men on their own monuments?
And, on the other hand, how can we account for the representations of
negroes on the monuments of Central America?

Desire Charnay, now engaged in exploring those monuments, has published
in the North American Review for December, 1880, photographs of a number
of idols exhumed at San Juan de Teotihuacan, from which I select the
following strikingly negroid faces:

NEGRO IDOLS FOUND IN MEXICO.

Dr. Le Plongeon says:

"Besides the sculptures of long-bearded men seen by the explorer at
Chichen Itza, there were tall figures of people with small heads, thick
lips, and curly short hair or wool, regarded as negroes. 'We always see
them as standard or parasol bearers, but never engaged in actual
warfare.'" ("Maya Archaeology," p. 62.)

The following cut is from the court of the Palace of Palenque, figured
by Stephens. The face is strongly Ethiopian.

The figure below represents a gigantic granite head, found near the
volcano of Tuxtla, in the Mexican State of Vera Cruz, at Caxapa. The
features are unmistakably negroid.

As the negroes have never been a sea-going race, the presence of these
faces among the antiquities of Central America proves one of two things,
either the existence of a land connection between America and Africa via
Atlantis, as revealed by the deep-sea soundings of the Challenger, or
commercial relations between America and Africa through the ships of the
Atlanteans or some other civilized race, whereby the negroes were
brought to America as slaves at a very remote epoch.

And we find some corroboration of the latter theory in that singular
book of the Quiches, the "Popol Vuh," in which, after describing the
creation of the first men "in the region of the rising sun" (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. v., p. 548), and enumerating their first
generations, we are told, "All seem to have spoken one language, and to
have lived in great peace, black men and white together. Here they
awaited the rising of the sun, and prayed to the Heart of Heaven."
(Bancroft's "Native Races," p. 547.) How did the red men of Central
America know anything about "black men and white men?" The conclusion
seems inevitable that these legends of a primitive, peaceful, and happy
land, an Aztlan in the East, inhabited by black and white men, to which
all the civilized nations of America traced their origin, could only
refer to Atlantis--that bridge of land where the white, dark, and red
races met. The "Popol Vuh" proceeds to tell how this first home of the
race became over-populous, and how the people under Balam-Quitze
migrated; how their language became "confounded," in other words, broken
up into dialects, in consequence of separation; and how some of the
people "went to the East, and many came hither to Guatemala." (Ibid., p.
547.)

M. A. de Quatrefages ("Human Species," p. 200) says, "Black populations
have been found in America in very small numbers only, as isolated
tribes in the midst of very different populations. Such are the
Charruas, of Brazil, the Black Carribees of Saint Vincent, in the Gulf
of Mexico; the Jamassi of Florida, and the dark-complexioned
Californians. . . . Such, again, is the tribe that Balboa saw some
representatives of in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513; . .
. they were true negroes."

7. How comes it that all the civilizations of the Old World radiate from
the shores of the Mediterranean? The Mediterranean is a cul de sac, with
Atlantis opposite its mouth. Every civilization on its shores possesses
traditions that point to Atlantis. We hear of no civilization coming to
the Mediterranean from Asia, Africa, or Europe--from north, south, or
west; but north, south, east, and west we find civilization radiating
from the Mediterranean to other lands. We see the Aryans descending upon
Hindostan from the direction of the Mediterranean; and we find the
Chinese borrowing inventions from Hindostan, and claiming descent from a
region not far from the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean has been the centre of the modern world, because it
lay in the path of the extension of an older civilization, whose ships
colonized its shores, as they did also the shores .of America. Plato
says, "the nations are gathered around the shores of the Mediterranean
like frogs around a marsh."

Dr. McCausland says:

"The obvious conclusion from these facts is, that at some time previous
to these migrations a people speaking a language of a superior and
complicated structure broke up their society, and, under some strong
impulse, poured out in different directions, and gradually established
themselves in all the lands now inhabited by the Caucasian race. Their
territories extend from the Atlantic to the Ganges, and from Iceland to
Ceylon, and are bordered on the north and east by the Asiatic Mongols,
and on the south by the negro tribes of Central Africa. They present all
the appearances of a later race, expanding itself between and into the
territories of two pre-existing neighboring races, and forcibly
appropriating the room required for its increasing population."
(McCausland's "Adam and the Adamites," p. 280.)

Modern civilization is Atlantean. Without the thousands of years of
development which were had in Atlantis modern civilization could not
have existed. The inventive faculty of the present age is taking up the
great delegated work of creation where Atlantis left it thousands of
years ago.

8. How are we to explain the existence of the Semitic race in Europe
without Atlantis? It is an intrusive race; a race colonized on
sea-coasts. Where are its Old World affinities?

9. Why is it that the origin of wheat, barley, oats, maize, and rye--the
essential plants of civilization--is totally lost in the mists of a vast
antiquity? We have in the Greek mythology legends of the introduction of
most of these by Atlantean kings or gods into Europe; but no European
nation claims to have discovered or developed them, and it has been
impossible to trace them to their wild originals. Out of the whole flora
of the world mankind in the last seven thousand years has not developed
a single food-plant to compare in importance to the human family with
these. If a wise and scientific nation should propose nowadays to add to
this list, it would have to form great botanical gardens, and, by
systematic and long-continued experiments, develop useful plants from
the humble productions of the field and forest. Was this done in the
past on the island of Atlantis?

10. Why is it that we find in Ptolemy's "Geography of Asia Minor," in a
list of cities in Armenia Major in A.D. 140, the names of five cities
which have their counterparts in the names of localities in Central
America?

+------------------+------------------------------+
| Armenian Cities. | Central American Localities. |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Chol. | Chol-ula |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Colua. | Colua-can. |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Zuivana. | Zuivan. |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Cholima. | Colima. |
+------------------+------------------------------+
| Zalissa. | Xalisco. |
+------------------+------------------------------+

(Short's "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 497.)

11. How comes it that the sandals upon the feet of the statue of
Chacmol, discovered at Chichen Itza, are "exact representations of those
found on the feet of the Guanches, the early inhabitants of the Canary
Islands, whose mummies are occasionally discovered in the eaves of
Teneriffe?" Dr. Merritt deems the axe or chisel heads dug up at
Chiriqui, Central America, "almost identical in form as well as material
with specimens found in Suffolk County, England." (Bancroft's Native
Races," vol. iv., p. 20.) The rock-carvings of Chiriqui are pronounced
by Mr. Seemann to have a striking resemblance to the ancient incised
characters found on the rocks of Northumberland, England. (Ibid.)

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