310 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



The origin and elements of the civilisation introduced are 

 attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Botschica) and 

 Nemterequeteba which are often confounded together. The 

 first of these is still more mythical than the second ; for it 

 was only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and mad? 

 almost equal to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or 

 Huythaca occasioned by her magical arts the overflowing of 

 the valley of Bogota, and for so doing was banished by Bots- 

 chica from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the 

 first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Te- 

 quendama, and gave a passage for the waters to flow off 

 near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes) in which 

 the bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried at an eleva- 

 tion of 8250 (8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. 

 Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Residence in Colombia, 1825, 

 Vol. ii. p. 390) and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches 

 on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397), state that animals 

 of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their 

 teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado 

 de Dios) is a human .person, a bearded man, who came 

 from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso. 

 The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes 

 ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and as the 

 latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba, 

 the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is 

 easily accounted for. 



My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work 

 entitled Compendio de la Hist, dela Nueva Granada, p. 185, 

 endeavours to prove by means of the Chibcha language that 



