chua, the two other languages of importance
being the Yunca, spoken by the coast tribes, and the Aymara, around Lake
Titicaca and south of it. The latter, in phonetics and in many root-words,
betrays a relationship to the Qquichua, but a remote one.

The Qquichuas were a race of considerable cultivation. They had a
developed metrical system, and were especially fond of the drama. Several
specimens of their poetical and dramatic compositions have been preserved,
and indicate a correct taste. Although they did not possess a method of
writing, they had various mnemonic aids, by which they were enabled to
recall their verses and their historical traditions.

In the mythology of the Qquichuas, and apparently also of the Aymaras, the
leading figure is _Viracocha_. His august presence is in one cycle of
legends that of Infinite Creator, the Primal Cause; in another he is the
beneficent teacher and wise ruler; in other words, he too, like
Quetzalcoatl and the others whom I have told about, is at one time God, at
others the incarnation of God.

As the first cause and ground of all things, Viracocha's distinctive
epithet was _Ticci_, the Cause, the Beginning, or _Illa ticci_, the
Ancient Cause[1], the First Beginning, an endeavor in words to express the
absolute priority of his essence and existence. He it was who had made and
moulded the Sun and endowed it with a portion of his own divinity, to wit,
the glory of its far-shining rays; he had formed the Moon and given her
light, and set her in the heavens to rule over the waters and the winds,
over the queens of the earth and the parturition of women; and it was
still he, the great Viracocha, who had created the beautiful Chasca, the
Aurora, the Dawn, goddess of all unspotted maidens like herself, her who
in turn decked the fields and woods with flowers, whose time was the
gloaming and the twilight, whose messengers were the fleecy clouds which
sail through the sky, and who, when she shakes her clustering hair, drops
noiselessly pearls of dew on the green grass fields.[2]

[Footnote 1: "_Ticci_, origen, principio, fundamento, cimiento, causa.
_Ylla_; todo lo que es antiguo." Holguin, _Vocabulario de la Lengua
Qquichua o del Inga_ (Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). _Ticci_ is not to be
confounded with _aticsi_, he conquers, from _atini_, I conquer, a term
also occasionally applied to Viracocha.]

[Footnote 2: _Relacion Anonyma, de los Costumbres Antiguos de los
Naturales del Piru_, p