[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 to have been places of refuge for
their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth.
One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with
the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one
of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in
its memory.
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