This has been interpreted to mean that after the
deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of
speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of
those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by
terror,[205-3] and the Quiches that the antediluvian race were "puppets,
men of wood, without intelligence or language." These stories, so
closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of
Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. The first is an
entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Senor Ramirez,
director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in
the Aztec tongue was identical with the word _departure_, and this is
its signification in the painting.[206-1]
Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions
looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every
nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their
connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental
and secondary.
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