The Great Flood

It does appear that the continent of Africa is the sole geographical area in the world lacking a recollection of the Great Flood. Such recollections are found in the far reaches of the north among the Eskimo of North America, the Siberian peoples of Russia, and the peoples of Finland and Iceland. To the south we find similar traditions among the Maori of New Zealand, the Australian aborigines, and the Tierra del Fuegians at the very tip of South America. The story is, with this one exception of Africa, truly global.

If this awful tragedy ever happened; if the entire human race perished save one family, and perished by the hand of God in punishment of sin, then that judgment must have cast long shadows. Through generation after generation the story must have lived on. It must have been the most awful and solemn recollection of our race. Many things may have been forgotten, but that could not be forgotten...
                                    -- John Urquhart

If this recollection has a large place among the treasures of learning and the themes of poetry; if it has molded the traditions of every part of the far-sundered family of man; then the conclusion is evident.

There must have been some awful disaster that left its impress upon the minds of men before they scattered abroad upon the earth; and the traditions would, in that case, be a testimony to man's unity as well as to the fact of the Deluge.