A: Aalu to Aztlan 57
most influential cult in Atlantis at the time of its final destruction. At-tit’s name
and character identify her as an important Atlantean visitor to Middle America.
(See Cayce)Atu
In Sumerian myth, a sacred mountain in the Western Sea, from whence the
sky-goddess, Inanna, carried the Tablets of Civilization to Mesopotamia after Atu
was engulfed by the sea.Atua
In Maori, “Altar of the God,” found among various Polynesian islanders. They
regard its memory as a sacred heirloom from their ancestors and a symbol of the
holy mountain, the original homeland of their ancestors who largely perished when
it sank beneath the surface of the ocean. Atua is also the name of a district in
Western Samoa, whose inhabitants speak the oldest language in Polynesia. The
cult of Atua, the chief god worshiped by the Easter Islanders, arrived after he
caused a great people to perish in some oceanic cataclysm.Atuaman
Similar to the Polynesian Atua and the Egyptian Atum, Atuaman was the
most important deity worshiped by the Guanches, the original inhabitants of the
Canary Islands. His name means, literally, “Supporter of the Sky,” precisely
the same description accorded to Atlas. Atuaman is represented in pictographs,
especially at Gran Canaria, as a man supporting the heavens on his shoulders, the
identical characterization of Atlas in Western art. Among archaeological evidence
in the Canaries, the appearance of this unquestionably Atlantean figure—the
leading mythic personality of Atlantis—affirms the former existence of Atlantis
in its next-nearest neighboring islands.Atuf
According to the Tanimbar Austronesian people of southeast Maluku, he
separated the Lesser Sundras from Borneo by wielding his spear, while traveling
eastward with his royal family from a huge natural cataclysm that annihilated their
distant homeland. It supposedly took place at a time when the whole Earth was
unstable. The chief cultural focus of the Tanimbar is concentrated on the story of
Atuf and his heroism in saving their ancestors from disaster. “Thereafter they had
to migrate ever eastward from island refuge to island refuge,” writes Oppenheimer,
and “as if to emphasize this, visitors will find huge symbolic stone boats as ritual
centres of the villages” (278). North of Maluku, a similar account is known to the
islanders of Ceram and Banda. In their version, their ancestors are led to safety by
Boi Ratan, a princess from the sunken kingdom.