Could anything be more evident than the connection of these ceremonies with the destruction of Atlantis?  Here we have the image of the ark; here we have a white man coming with the news that “the waters had overflowed the land,” and that all the people were destroyed except himself; here we have the sacrifice to appease the spirit that caused the Flood, just as we find the Flood terminating, in the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Central American legends, with a sacrifice.  Here, too, we have the image of the tortoise, which we find in other flood legends of the Indians, and which is a very natural symbol for an island.  As one of our own poets has expressed it,

     “Very fair and full of promise
     Lay the island of St. Thomas;
     Like a great green turtle slumbered
     On the sea which it encumbered.”

Here we have, too, the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its four rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a dance, where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four cardinal points of the compass; the dancers are painted to represent the black and red races, while “the first and only man” represents the white race; and the name of the dance is a reminiscence of Baal, the ancient god of the races derived from Atlantis.

But this is not all.  The Mandans were evidently of the race of Atlantis.  They have another singular legend, which we find in the account of Lewis and Clarke: 

“Their belief in a future state is connected with this theory of their origin:  The whole nation resided in one large village, underground, near a subterranean lake.  A grape-vine extended its roots down to their habitation, and gave them a view of the light.  Some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine, and were delighted with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo, and rich with every kind of fruit.  Returning with the grapes they had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper region.  Men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine, but, when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman, who was clambering up the vine, broke it with her weight, and closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light of the sun.”

This curious tradition means that the present nation dwelt in a large settlement underground, that is, beyond the land, in the sea; the sea being represented by “the subterranean lake.”  At one time the people had free intercourse between this “large village” and the American continent, and they founded extensive colonies on this continent; whereupon some mishap cut them off from the mother country.  This explanation is confirmed by the fact that in the legends of the Iowa Indians, who were a branch of the Dakotas, or Sioux Indians, and relatives of the Mandans (according to Major James