In the account in Genesis, Noah “builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, ’I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake.’” In the Chaldean legend we are told that Khasisatra also offered a sacrifice, a burnt offering, “and the gods assembled like flies above the master of the sacrifice.”  But Bel came in a high state of indignation, just as the Aztec god did, and was about to finish the work of the Deluge, when the great god Ea took ’’pity in his heart and interfered to save the remnant of mankind.

These resemblances cannot be accidental; neither can they be the interpolations of Christian missionaries, for it will be observed the Aztec legends differ from the Bible in points where they resemble on the one hand Plato’s record, and on the other the Chaldean legend.

The name of the hero of the Aztec story, Nata, pronounced with the broad sound of the a, is not far from the name of Noah or Noe.  The Deluge of Genesis is a Phoenician, Semitic, or Hebraic legend, and yet, strange to say, the name of Noah, which occurs in it, bears no appropriate meaning in those tongues, but is derived from Aryan sources; its fundamental root is Na, to which in all the Aryan language is attached the meaning of water—­{Greek} na’ein, to flow; {Greek} na~ma, water; Nympha, Neptunus, water deities. (Lenormant and Chevallier, “Anc.  Hist. of the East,” vol. i., p. 15.) We find the root Na repeated in the name of this Central American Noah, Na-ta, and probably in the word “Na-hui-atl”—­the age of water.

But still more striking analogies exist between the Chaldean legend and the story of the Deluge as told in the “Popul Vuh” (the Sacred Book) of the Central Americans: 

“Then the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven (Hurakan), and a great inundation came upon the heads of these creatures. . . .  They were ingulfed, and a resinous thickness descended from heaven; . . . the face of the earth was obscured, and a heavy darkening rain commenced-rain by day and rain by night. . . .  There was heard a great noise above their heads, as if produced by fire.  Then were men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair; they wished to climb upon their houses, and the houses, tumbling down, fell to the ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and the trees shook them off; they wished to enter into the grottoes (eaves), and the grottoes closed themselves before them. . . .  Water and fire contributed to the universal ruin at the time of the last great cataclysm which preceded the fourth creation.”

Observe the similarities here to the Chaldean legend.  There is the same graphic description of a terrible event.  The “black cloud” is referred to in both instances; also the dreadful noises, the rising water, the earthquake rocking the trees, overthrowing the houses, and crushing even the mountain caverns; “the men running and pushing each other, filled with despair,” says the “Popul Vuh;” “the brother no longer saw his brother,” says the Assyrian legend.