FATIVE LEGENDS OT A DELU61. 473 



The Nations of the Tamanac race, the ancient inhabitants 

 of those countries, have a local mythology, and traditions 

 vonnected with these sculptured rocks. Amalivaca, the 

 father of the Tamanacs, that is, the creator of the human 

 race (for every nation regards itself as the root of all other 

 nations), arrived in a bark, at the time of the great inunda- 

 tion, which is called 'the age of water,'* when the billows 

 of the ocean broke against the mountains of Encamarada in 

 the interior of the land. All mankind, or, to speak more 

 correctly, all the Tamanacs, were drowned, with the exception 

 of one man and one woman, who saved themselves on a 

 mountain near the banks of the Asiveru, called Cuchivero 

 by the Spaniards. This mountain is the Ararat of the 

 Aram can or Semitic nations, and the Tlaloc or Colhuacan of 

 the Mexicans. Amalivaca, sailing in his bark, engraved the 

 figures of the moon and the sun on the Painted Eock 

 (Tepimereme) of Encaramada. Some blocks of granite 

 piled upon one another, and forming a kind of cavern, are 

 still called the house or dwelling of the great forefather of 

 the Tamanacs. The natives show also a large stone near 

 this cavern, in the plains of Maita, which they say was an 

 instrument of music, the drum of Amalivaca. AVe must 

 here observe, that this heroic personage had a brother, 

 Vochi, who helped him to give the surface of the earth its 

 present form. The Tamanacs relate, that the two brothers, 

 in their system of perfectibility, sought, at first, to arrange 

 the Orinoco in such a manner, that the current of the water 

 could always be followed either going down or going up the 

 river. They hoped by this means to spare men trouble 

 in navigating rivers ; but, however great the power of these 

 regenerators of the world, they could never contrive to give 

 a double slope to the Orinoco, and were compelled to 

 relinquish this singular plan. Amalivaca had daughters, 

 who had a decided taste for travelling. The tradition 

 states, doubtless with a figurative meaning, that he broke 

 their legs, to render them sedentary, and force them to 

 people the land of the Tamanacs. After having regulated 

 everything in America, on that side of the * great water,' 

 Amalivaca again embarked, and "returned to the other 



f The Atonal ink of the Mexicans, the fourth age, the fourth rcgcacrm* 

 don jf the world. 



