Many Mesoamerican flood myths have been documented in written form or passed down through in oral tradition. Some clearly have Torah influences, but others are believed by scholars to represent native flood myths of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

origin. One myth documented among the Tlapanec and Huaxtecs has a man and his dog as the sole survivors of the deluge, but the man finds out that the dog takes the shape of a woman during the day when he is away. The man and the dog-woman then repopulate the earth. Another myth found among the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

and

Totonac The Totonac are an indigenous people of Mexico who reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a city ...

peoples relates how a human couple survive by hiding in a hollow vessel and start to cook a fish when the water subsides. When the smoke reaches the heavens the gods become angry and punish them by turning them into dogs or monkeys depending on the version. In

Maya mythology Maya or Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The myths of the era have to be reconstruct ...

as expressed in the

Popol Vuh ''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and ...

the creator gods attempted to create creatures who would worship them three times before finally succeeding in creating a race of humans that would pay proper homage to their creators. The three previous creations were destroyed. The third race of humans carved from wood were destroyed by a flood, mauled by wild animals and smashed by their own tools and utensils. Maya flood myths recorded by

Diego de Landa Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. Many historians criticize his campaign against idolatry. In particular, he burned almost a ...

and in the

Chilam Balam The Books of Chilam Balam () are handwritten, chiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Maya and early ...

of Chumayel holds that the only survivors of the flood were the four Bacabs who took their places as upholders of the four corners of the sky. In

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...

n myth a variety of reasons are given for the occurrence of the flood: either the world was simply very old and needed to be renewed; the humans had neglected their duty to adore the gods; or they were punished for a transgression (cannibalism, for example). Many of the modern myths included obviously Christian references such as the murder of Abel by Cain as the reason. In Mesoamerican myth the flood was but one of several destructions of the creation — usually the first of three or four cataclysmic events, although there is some evidence that the

s considered the flood to be the fourth. In many Mesoamerican flood myths, especially recorded among the Nahua (Aztec), peoples tell that there were no survivors of the flood and creation had to start from scratch, while other accounts relate that current humans are descended from a small number of survivors. In some accounts the survivors transgress against the gods by lighting a fire and consequently are turned into animals. Horcasitas acknowledges that the dog-wife tale and the tale of transgression by fire and subsequent turning into animals of the flood survivors may be of pre-Columbian origin.Horcasitas 1988: 215

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mesoamerican Flood Myths Flood myths

Flood Myths A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primae ...