596 



(for every nation regards itself as the root of the 

 other nations), arrived in a bark, at the time of 

 the great inundation, which is called the age of 

 water*, when the billows of the ocean broke 

 against the mountains of Encamarada in the 

 interior of the land. All mankind, or, to ex- 

 press myself better, all the Tamanacs, were 

 drowned, with the exception of one man and 

 one woman, who saved themselves on a moun- 

 tain near the banks of the Asiveru, called Cu- 

 chiveroi)y the Spaniards*^. This mountain is 

 the Ararat of the Aramean or Semitic nations, 

 and the Tlaloc or Colhuacan of the Mexicans. 

 Amalivaca, sailing in his bark, engraved the 

 figures of the Moon and the Sun on the Painted 

 rock (Tepumereme) of Encaramada. Some 

 blocks of granite piled upon one another, and 

 forming a kind of cavern, are still called the 

 house or dwelling of the great forefather of the 

 Tamanacs^;. The natives show also a large 

 stone near this cavern, in the plains of Maita, 

 which they say was an instrument of music, the 

 drum of Amalivaca^. We must here observe, 



* It is the Atonatiuh of the Mexicans, the fourth age, the 

 fourth regeneration of the world. See my Amer. Monum. 

 vol ii (xiv of the present work), p. 63. 



t See vol. iy, p. 472 > } and Gili, vol. ii, p. 234; vol. iii, p. 4, 

 p. 18. 



% Amalivaca-jeutitpe. * 

 § Amalkaca'ChamburaL 



