200 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
Ne-Mu
Demigods or giants recalled by the Kai of New Guinea, the Ne-Mu are said
to have been much taller and stronger than today’s men, and ruled the world
before the Great Deluge. They introduced agriculture and house-building to
Kai ancestors. When the Flood came, all the Ne-Mu were killed, but their bodies
turned to great blocks of stone. This final feature of the myth betrays the Kai’s
reaction to megalithic structures found occasionally in New Guinea, often com-
posed of prodigious stonework they identify with the pre-Flood Ne-Mu.
(See Mu)Nemquetheba
Also Nemtherqueteba, another name of the Muysca flood hero, who arrived
on the shores of Colombia following a fiery cataclysm in the Atlantic Ocean that
destroyed his homeland.
(See Bochica, Zuhe)Nephilim
Described in the Old Testament as a fallen race of giants, they ruled the world
before the Great Flood, which obliterated their power. Their descendants, the
Emin, “a people great, and many, and tall” (Deuteronomy 2:11), were also known
as the Rephaim or Anakim, who perpetuated pre-deluge religious practices atop a
sacred mountain, Seir. The Nephilim appear to have been late fourth-millennium
B.C. Atlanteans.Neptune
The Roman Poseidon. His name stems from the earlier Etruscan Nefthuns
As the mythic creator of Atlantis, he symbolized either the natural forces which
formed the basis of the city into alternating rings of land and water, or personi-
fied alien, pre-Atlantean culture-bearers who arrived at the island to found a
hybrid civilization with the natives. In Plato’s account, the sea-god mates with
an indigenous woman to sire the first kings of Atlantis.
(See Poseidon)Nereides
Daughters of Nereus and Doris, both oceanic deities. Although fleetingly
mentioned by Plato, they are significant because the Nereides were poetic de-
scriptions of dolphins ridden by very young men. The famous “Boy on a Dolphin”