158 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
men became “perverse, ungrateful and wicked,” he sank it, drowning the sinners.
Only one man and his wife survived by escaping “in a big canoe.”Kleito
Literally “famous,” or “splendid.” According to Plato, she was an early
inhabitant of the Atlantic island that would eventually become Atlantis. After
the death of her parents, Kleito was visited by the sea-god Poseidon. Their
children—five sets of twin boys—formed the royal house that ruled Atlantis
until its destruction. Her home was on a hill not far from the sea and south of a
prominent mountain. It was here that Poseidon encircled her dwelling place,
thereby defining it as a holy precinct, with a concentric canal. Two others were
later added to form three additional land rings, from and around which the city
of Atlantis grew over the centuries.
Kleito represents the pre-civilized natives of the Atlantic island, just as
Poseidon less certainly may signify the arrival of an early sea-people already in
possession of the civilized arts. A shrine dedicated to her was certainly the oldest
structure on Atlantis, and preserved at its central, most sacred island. It might
have been simply an ancestral monument or the chapel for an unknown religion,
one of many cults practiced by the Atlanteans, but certainly its most venerable.Kmukamtch
The Klamath Indians of south-central Oregon and northern California say this
shining demon from the sky endeavored to destroy the Earth with a celestial flame
followed by a worldwide deluge. In mythic traditions among numerous cultures, a
frightening comet is often described as a bright demon or angry god. Among the
California Modoc, Kmukamtch is, literally “the Ancient Old Man from Mu,” the
creator of mankind
(See Hathor, Mu)Kodoyanpe
The ancestral flood hero of California’s Maidu Indians and creator of the first
human beings from wooden images.Krakatoa
A 6,000-foot (above sea-level) volcano on Pulau Rakata Island in the Sunda
Straits of Indonesia. At 10 a.m., on August 27, 1883, Krakatoa exploded, sending
ash clouds to an altitude of 50 miles, and generating shock waves registered around
the Earth several times. The detonation could be heard in Australia, 2,200
miles away. Some 5 cubic miles of rock debris were discharged, and ash fell over
300,000 square miles. The volcanic mountain collapsed into the sea, spawning