16 METHODS OF BODY-PAINTIXG. 



infinitely rich in mines." It seems probable that there was 

 something in the ceremonies of the worship introduced by 

 Boehica, which gave rise to a tradition so generally spread. 

 The strangest customs are found in the New World. In 

 Mexico the sacrificers painted their bodies, and wore a kind 

 of cope, with hanging sleeves of tanned human skin. 



On the banks of the Caura, and in other wild parts of 

 Guiana, where painting the body is used instead of tattoo- 

 ing, the nations anoint themselves with turtle-fat, and stick 

 spangles of mica with a metallic lustre, white as silver and 

 red as copper, on their skin, so that at a distance they seem 

 to wear laced clothes. The fable of ' the gilded man' is, 

 perhaps, founded on a similar custom ; and, as there were 

 two sovereign princes in New Granada, the lama of Iraca, 

 and the secular chief or zaque of Tunja, we cannot be sur- 

 prised that the same ceremony was attributed sometimes to 

 the prince, and sometimes to the high-priest. It is more 

 extraordinary that, as early as the year 1535, the country of 

 El Dorado was sought for on the east of the Andes. 

 Robertson is mistaken in admitting that Orellana received 

 the first notions of it (1540) on the banks of the Amazon. 

 The history of Eray Piedro Simon, founded on the memoirs 

 of Queseda, the conqueror of Cundirumarca, proves directly 

 the contrary ; and Gonzalo Diaz de Pineda, as early as 1536, 

 sought for ' the gilded man' beyond the plains of the pro- 

 vince of Quixos. The ambassador of Bogota, whom Daza 

 met with in the kingdom of Quito, had spoken of a country 

 situate toward the east. Was this because the table-land 

 of New Granada is not on the north, but on the north-east 

 of Quito ? We may venture to say, that the tradition of a 

 naked man covered with powdered gold must have belonged 

 originally to a hot region, and not to the cold table-lands of 

 Cundirumarca, where I often saw the thermometer sink 

 below four or five degrees; however, on account of the 

 extraordinary configuration of the country, the climate differa 

 greatly at Guatavita, Tunja, Iraca, and on the banks of the 

 Sogamozo. Sometimes, also, religious ceremonies are pre- 

 served which took rise in another zone ; and the Muyscas, 

 according to ancient traditions, made Bochica, their first 

 legislator and the founder of their worship, arrive from the 

 nlains situate to the east of the Cordilleras. I shall not 



