422 VIEWS, 8CC. PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



Oriente. ' (Commentaries Reales, p. i. pp. 47, 122.)* Later 

 writers have supposed the name of the Andes chain to be 

 derived from the word Anta, which, in the Quichua lan- 

 guage, signifies copper. That metal was indeed of the 

 highest importance to a people who for their edged- 

 tools or cutting instruments, employed not iron, but a sort 

 of copper mixed with tin ; but still the name of copper 

 mountains would scarcely have been extended over so vast a 

 chain. Professor Buschmann has justly observed, that the 

 final " a " is retained in the word anta when it forms part of a 

 compound ; and Garcilaso expressly adduces as an example 

 anta, copper, and antamarca, province of copper. Moreover 

 in the ancient language of the Inca empire (the Quichua), 

 words and their compounds are so simple in formation that 

 the conversion of "a" into "t" is out of the question; so 

 that Anta, copper, and Anti or Ante (the countiy or an 

 inhabitant of the Andes or the mountain-chain itself) must be 

 regarded as words totally distinct from each other. In dic- 

 tionaries of the Quichua language, with explanations in 

 Spanish, the word Anti or Ante has the following interpreta- 

 tions : la (terra de los Andes ; el Indio, hombre de los 

 Andes ; la iSierra de los Andes. The original signification 

 or derivation of the word is buried in the darkness of past 

 ages. Besides Antisuyu, some other compounds of which 

 Anti or Ante forms a part, are, Anteruna (the native inhabitant 

 of the Andes), Anteunccuy or Antionccoy (the sickness of the 

 Andes; mal de los Andes pestifero.) 



(2) p. 390" The Countess de Chinchon." 



This lady was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fer- 

 nandez de Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, 

 who governed Peru from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the 

 Vice-Queen took place in the year 1638. A tradition which 

 is current in Spain, but which I have frequently heard con- 

 tradicted in Loxa, names Juan Lopez de Cafiizares, Corre- 

 gidor of the Cabildo de Loxa, as the person by whom the 



* Translation. " From the Province Anti the Mon tanas of the Antia 

 received their name. Antisuyu signified the eastern direction, and for 

 that reason the name Anti was given to all that part of the great Cor- 

 dillera of Sierra Nevada which runs along the east of Peru, to denote 

 that it was situated in the east." (Commentarios Reale?, pt. i. pp. 47, 

 122.) ED 



