h are the same. Many of the remaining words are related to the
Zapotec, and there are very few and faint resemblances to Maya dialects.
One of them may possibly be in this name, Votan (_uotan_), heart, however.
In Mixe the word for heart is _hot_. I note this merely to complete my
observations on the Votan myth.]

We have but faint traces of the early mythology of these tribes; but they
preserved some legends which show that they also partook of the belief, so
general among their neighbors, of a beneficent culture-god.

This myth relates that their first father, who was also their Supreme God,
came forth from a cave in a lofty mountain in their country, to govern and
direct them. He covered the soil with forests, located the springs and
streams, peopled them with fish and the woods with game and birds, and
taught the tribe how to catch them. They did not believe that he had died,
but that after a certain length of time, he, with his servants and
captives, all laden with bright gleaming gold, retired into the cave and
closed its mouth, not to remain there, but to reappear at some other part
of the world and confer similar favors on other nations.

The name, or one of the names, of this benefactor was Condoy, the meaning
of which my facilities do not enable me to ascertain.[1]

[Footnote 1: Juan B. Carriedo, _Estudios Historicos y Estadisticos del
Estado Libre de Oaxaca_, p. 3 (Oaxaca, 1847).]

There is scarcely enough of this to reveal the exact lineaments of their
hero; but if we may judge from these fragments as given by Carriedo, it
appears to be of precisely the same class as the other hero-myths I have
collected in this volume. 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 agricult