426 YIEWS, &C. PLATEAU OP CAXAMAUCA. 



the Muyscas should propeily be distinguished by the deno- 

 mination Chibchas; for Muysca, in the Chibcha language, 

 merely signifies men or people. The origin and the elements 

 of civilization, introduced among the Muyscas, were attributed 

 to two mythical beings, Bochica and Nemterequeteba, who 

 are frequently confounded one with another. Bochica was 

 the most mythical of the two; having been in some degree 

 regarded as divine and even equal to the Sun. His fair com- 

 panion Chia or Huythaca occasioned, through her magical art, 

 the submersion of the beautiful valley of Bogota, and for 

 that reason she was banished from the earth by Bochica, and 

 made to revolve round it as the moon. Bochica struck the 

 rocks of Tequendama, and thereby opened a passage through 

 which the waters flowed off, in the neighbourhood of the 

 Giants' Field (Campo de Gigantes), where, at the elevation of 

 8792 feet above the level of the sea, the bones of elephant-like 

 Mastodons have been discovered. It is stated by Captain Coch- 

 rane,* and by Mr. John Ranking,f that animals like the 

 Mastodon still live in the Andes, and that they cast their 

 teeth. Nemterequeteba, surnamed Chinzapogua, (el enviado 

 de Dios, the envoy of God,) was regarded as a human being. 

 He is represented as a bearded man, who came from the 

 East, from Pasca, and who disappeared at Sogamoso. The 

 foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to 

 Nemterequeteba and sometimes to Bochica. The latter, it 

 would appear, also bore the name of Nemterequeteba, and, 

 therefore, that the one should have been confounded with the 

 other, on such unhistoric ground, is a circumstance easily 

 accounted for. 



My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his admirable work en- 

 titled Compendia de la Historia de la Nueva Granada, endea- 

 vours to show, through the evidence of the Quichua language, 

 that New Granada is the native land of the potato plant. In 

 the Compendia (p. 185), he observes, "that as the potato 

 (Solatium tuberosum) is known in Usme by the indigenous 

 name Yomi, and not by the Peruvian name, and as it was 

 found by Quesada, cultivated in the province of Velez in 



Nueva Granada, 1848, pp. 188, 196, 206, and 208; Bulletin de la 

 Societe de Geographic de Paris, 1847, p. 114. 



* Journal of a Residence in Columbia, 1825, vol. ii. p. 390. 



t Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397. 



