ds the
chronicler, "the name was given to him, _Viracocha_, which means Foam of
the Sea, though afterwards it changed in signification."[2]

[Footnote 1: This incident is also related by Pachacuti and Betanzos. All
three locate the scene of the event at Carcha, eighteen leagues from
Cuzco, where the Canas tribe lived at the Conquest. Pachacuti states that
the cause of the anger of Viracocha was that upon the Sierra there was the
statue of a woman to whom human victims were sacrificed. If this was the
tradition, it would offer another point of identity with that of
Quetzalcoatl, who was also said to have forbidden human sacrifices.]

[Footnote 2: Herrera, _Historia de las Indias Occidentales_, Dec. v, Lib.
iii, cap. vi.]

This leads me to the etymology of the name. It is confessedly obscure. The
translation which Herrera gives, is that generally offered by the Spanish
writers, but it is not literal. The word _uira_ means fat, and _cocha_,
lake, sea, or other large body of water; therefore, as the genitive must
be prefixed in the Qquichua tongue, the translation must be "Lake or Sea
of Fat." This was shown by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his _Royal
Commentaries_, and as he could see no sense or propriety in applying such
a term as "Lake of Grease" to the Supreme Divinity, he rejected this
derivation, and contented himself by saying that the meaning of the name
was totally unknown.[1] In this Mr. Clements R. Markham, who is an
authority on Peruvian matters, coincides, though acknowledging that no
other meaning suggests itself.[2] I shall not say anything about the
derivations of this name from the Sanskrit,[3] or the ancient Egyptian;[4]
these are etymological amusements with which serious studies have nothing
to do.

[Footnote 1: "Donde consta claro no ser nombre compuesto, sino proprio de
aquella fantasma que dijo llamarse Viracocha y que era hijo del Sol."
_Com, Reales_, Lib. v, cap. xxi.]

[Footnote 2: Introduction to _Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the
Incas_, p. xi.]

[Footnote 3: "Le nom de Viracocha dont la physionomie sanskrite est si
frappante," etc. Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conquete Espagnole_, p.
180 (Paris 1858).]

[Footnote 4: Viracocha "is the Il or Ra of the Babylonian monuments, and
thus the Ra of Egypt," etc. Professor John Campbell, _Compte-Rendu du
Congres International des Americanistes_, Vol. i, p. 362 (1875).]

The first and accepted derivation has been ably and to my mind
successfu