Historians of authority assure us that the
Mixes, Zoques and Zapotecs united in the expectation, founded on their
ancient myths and prophecies, of the arrival, some time, of men from the
East, fair of hue and mighty in power, masters of the lightning, who would
occupy the land.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 94, _note_, quoting from the works of Las Casas and
Francisco Burgoa.]
On the lofty plateau of the Andes, in New Granada, where, though nearly
under the equator, the temperature is that of a perpetual spring, was the
fortunate home of the Muyscas. It is the true El Dorado of America; every
mountain stream a Pactolus, and every hill a mine of gold. The natives
were peaceful in disposition, skilled in smelting and beating the precious
metal that was everywhere at hand, lovers of agriculture, and versed in
the arts of spinning, weaving and dying cotton. Their remaining sculptures
prove them to have been of no mean ability in designing, and it is
asserted that they had a form of writing, of which their signs for the
numerals have alone been preserved.
The knowledge of these various arts they attributed to the instructions of
a wise stranger who dwelt among them many cycles before the arrival of the
Spaniards. He came from the East, from the llanos of Venezuela or beyond
them, and it was said that the path he made was broad and long, a hundred
leagues in length, and led directly to the holy temple at his shrine at
Sogamoso.
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