[1]
[Footnote 1: "Afirman que fue trasladado al cielo, y que al tiempo de su
partida dexo al Cacique de aquella Provincia por heredero de su santidad i
poderio." Lucas Fernaudez Piedrahita, _Historia General de las Conquistas
del Nueoo Reyno de Granada_, Lib. i, cap. iii (Amberes, 1688).]
What led the Spanish missionaries to suspect that this was one of the
twelve apostles, was not only these doctrines, but the undoubted fact that
they found the symbol of the cross already a religious emblem among this
people. It appeared in their sacred paintings, and especially, they
erected one over the grave of a person who had died from the bite of a
serpent.
A little careful investigation will permit us to accept these statements
as quite true, and yet give them a very different interpretation.
That this culture-hero arrives from the East and returns to the East are
points that at once excite the suspicion that he was the personification
of the Light. But when we come to his names, no doubt can remain. These
were various, but one of the most usual was _Chimizapagua_, which, we are
told, means "a messenger from _Chiminigagua_." In the cosmogonical myths
of the Muyscas this was the home or source of Light, and was a name
applied to the demiurgic force. In that mysterious dwelling, so their
account ran, light was shut up, and the world lay in primeval gloom.
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