bute it to a general conflagration which swept over the
earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a
deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to
those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by
travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah.

There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge
myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the
latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This,
though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these
first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the
only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race.[202-2]

Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha
Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates
offspring.[202-3]

A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones
as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah.
Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out
exactly seven individuals as saved in their floods.[203-1] This
coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven,
derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears
by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in
the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the
word Elohim for Jehovah,[203-2] or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha
Brahmana with those in the later Puranas.[203-3] In both instances the
number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is
constantly repeated in those of later dates.

As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with
veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America
heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the
few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On
the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small
natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance
around pay devout homage," according to Dr. Sibley.[203-4] The Cerro
Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuni in New Mexico, that of
Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and
Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations
asserted by the neighboring nations