1 88 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



he was worshipped in Chaldea, at Erech (" the place of the 

 ark"), as the sacred and intelligent fish-god, the teacher 

 of mankind, the god of science and knowledge. There he 

 was also called Oes, Hoa, Ea, Ana, Ann, Aun, and Oan. 

 Noah was worshipped, also, in Syria and Mesopotamia, 

 and in Egypt, at "populous No,"* or Thebes so named 

 from "Theba,"" the ark." 



The history of the coffin of Osiris is another version of 

 Noah's ark, and the period during which that Egyptian 

 divinity is said to have been shut up in it, after it was set 

 afloat upon the waters, was precisely the same as that 

 during which Noah remained in the ark. 



The Mexican " Coxcox," who was entitled Huehueton- 

 acateo-cateo-cipatli, or " Fish-god of our flesh," also resembled 

 Noah ; for the Mexican tradition related that in a great 

 time of flood, when the earth was covered with water, he 

 preserved himself and his wife Xochiquetzal in a boat made 

 out of the trunk of a cypress tree some say on a raft of 

 cypress wood and peopled the world with wise and in- 

 telligent beings. Paintings representing the deluge of 

 Coxcox have been discovered amongst the Aztecs and 

 other nations. 



In the Aztec legend of the flood, as translated by the 

 Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg from the Codex Chimal- 

 popoca, Nata and his wife Nena were the persons saved, 

 and the deluge took place on the day Nahui-atl. We find 

 in this word and in the $ame of this central-American 

 Noah/ Nata, the root Na, to which, in all the Aryan 

 language, is attached the meaning of water, and which, 

 pronounced with the broad sound of the a, is very like 

 Noah, or Noe. 



The ancient Peruvians also had their semi-fish gods, 

 * Nahum iii. 8. 



