Note 271 — APPENDIX

In ancient times, before the moon accompanied the earth (says the mythology of the Muyscas or Mozcas Indians), the inhabitants of the plain of Bogota lived like barbarians, naked, without agriculture, without laws, and without worship. Suddenly there appeared among them an aged man, who came from the plains east of the Cordillera of Chingasa: he seemed to be of a different race from that of the indigenes, for he had a long and tufted beard. He was known by three different names; under that of Bochica, Nemquetheba, and Zuhè. This aged person, after the manner of Manco-Capac, taught men to clothe themselves, to construct dwellings, to cultivate the earth, and to unite in society. He brought with him a woman, to whom tradition gave also the three names of Chia, Yubecayguaya, and Haythaca. This female was of an uncommon beauty, but exceedingly wicked, counteracting her husband in every thing which he undertook for the good of men. By her magic art she swelled the river Funzha to such a degree, that the water inundated the whole valley of Bogota. This deluge destroyed the greatest part of the inhabitants, a few only escaping upon the summits of the neighbouring mountains. The old man, irritated, drove the beautiful Haythaca from the earth; she then became the moon, which, from that period, commenced to enlighten our planet during the night. Afterwards Bochica, son of the sun, taking pity on the men who were dispersed upon the mountains, broke, with his powerful hand, the rocks which close the valley on the side of Canaos and Tequendama. By this opening he carried off the water of the lake of Funzha, reunited again the people of the valley of Bogota, constructed towns, introduced the worship of the sun, nominated two chiefs, between whom he divided the ecclesiastic and secular power, and then retired, under the name of Idacanzas, into the sacred valley of Iraca, near to Tanja, where he devoted himself to exercises of the most austere penance, for the space of two thousand years. Humboldt’s Vues des Cordillères, et Monumens des Peuples indigènes de l’Amérique. Vol. I. pp. 87, 88. (Ed. Octavo.).

The Jouskeka, who destroyed his brother, and the Atahentsic of the Hurons, also, in some measure, resemble the Cihuacohuatl or woman of the serpent, adored by the Mexicans, and figured in their hieroglyphic paintings. This goddess was regarded as the mother of the human race, and in the painting alluded to, published by Humboldt, she is accompanied familiarly by a serpent, and in the same symbolical sketch there are two smaller figures engaged in combat, as if to designate the Cain and Abel of the Hebrews, and which were considered in Mexico as the children of the female deess. Humboldt, vol I. pp. 235, 236.—Nuttall.