42O MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



they were attracted by the not altogether groundless reports of 

 fabulous wealth embodied in the legend of El Dorado, the " Man 

 of Gold," they found it occupied by a cultural zone which extended 

 almost continuously from the present republic of Colombia through 

 Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia right into Chili. In the 



THf* 



chibchas north the dominant people were the semi-civilised 

 Chibchas, already mentioned under the name of 

 Muyscas 1 , who had developed an organized system of government 

 on the Bogota tableland, and had succeeded in extending their some- 

 what more refined social institutions to some of the other aborigines 

 of Colombia, though not to many of the outlying members of their 

 own race. As in Mexico many of the Nahuatlan tribes remained 

 little better than savages to the last, so in Colombia the civilised 

 Muy scans were surrounded by numerous kindred tribes Coyaima,. 

 Natagaima, Tocaima and others, collectively known as Panches 

 who were real savages with scarcely any tribal organisation, wear- 

 ing no clothes, and according to the early accounts still addicted 

 to cannibalism. 



The Muyscas proper had a tradition that they owed their 

 superiority to a certain Bochica, half human, half divine, who 

 came from the east a long time ago, taught them everything, and 

 then became the head of their pantheon, worshipped with solemn 

 rites and even human sacrifices. Amongst the arts thus acquired 

 was that of the goldsmith, in which they surpassed all other 

 peoples of the New World. The precious metal was even said 

 to be minted in the shape of discs, which formed an almost 

 solitary instance of a true metal currency amongst the American 

 aborigines 2 . Many of the European cabinets are enriched with 

 these and other gold objects brooches, pendants, and especially 

 grotesque little figures of men and animals which have been 



1 The national name was Miiysca, "Men," " Human Body," and the number 

 twenty (in reference to the ten fingers and ten toes making up that score). 

 Chibcha was a mimetic name having allusion to the sound ch (as in Charles), 

 which is of frequent recurrence in the Muysca language. With man 20, cf. 

 the Ballacula (British Columbia) 19=1 man- i ; IQ i man, etc. ; and this again 

 with Lat. undeviginti. 



2 W. Bollaert, Antiqtiarian, Ethnological, and other Researches in New 

 Granada, etc. 1860, passim. 



