Etymologies of Chaho

44. Agustin Chaho, a Basque-French writer, conceived the legend of Aitor, patriarch of the Indo-Atlantis race. Many are the fantastic etymologies which contain said legend, but is to admit the insight with which some questions are treated, among them the affinity of ideas between sun and eye, although Chaho parte of a diametrically opposed principle. It is worth recording his words: ``You must have seen a mountain, severe in the twilight, smiling in the dawn, when its colinas flowers become green and the first rays of the sun convert the drops of dew to diamonds: such is the forehead of man, when he leaves the dream of the night. There the divine will positions the two eyes, Beghiak, that is, the two suns, Bi- Ekhiak; the two corporal intelligences, the two truths, Bi-eghiak; the two mirrors from where the imagination takes its loaned evocations, from where the comprehension calls the tribunal of the interior sun and of the spiritual eye the marvels of the external world. It is by the eyes that man sees: Ikus, Ekhas: it is by this vision reflected in the interior crystal that the intelligence instructs, learns, conceives, Ikhas, that is, Ikhus-as, begins to see the truth. Man acquires science with the eyes of the body and of the spirit, and transmits it by way of the word which paints things to the imagination, and sketches the ideas of the understanding, Erakhats, that is, it shows them, makes them see, teaches them, Ikus-Eras. Thus the eyes of man are the iluminating stars of his thought, in the same way that the sun is the eye of Nature. The vigilant eye signifies a guardian, and the sun is also called Beghiraria, argus or celestial guardian. The eyes, according to the inspired poetry of the language of my people, are the emblem of science and prudence, as the bodies are an emblem of strength, of brilliance, of light and of pride: a lamb that has seven horns and seven eyes has been the myth of the solar truth, the symbol of the Basque civilizations.''

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