Note 93-4 — Chapter III

Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas had other and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points drawn from the positions of the son (Ansichten der Natur, ii. p. 368). But the distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the phrases he quotes for north and south, intip chaututa chayananpata and intip chaupunchau chayananpata, literally, the sun arriving toward the midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently translations of the Spanish hacia la media noche, hacia el medio dia, for they could not have originated among a people under or south of the equatorial line.