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.”