gs. At last he disappeared in
the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely
connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else
were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of
Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the
Lodgings of the Dawn.[179-1] To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one
the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the
west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already
been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration
here.[179-2] Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca
Garcilasso de la Vega,[179-3] transferred a portion of the story of
Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco,
however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning
family, and flourished about the eleventh century.

There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo.
Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming
opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four
winds, both were the fathers, gods, and teachers of their nations. Nor
does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the
Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate "the fat or foam of the sea."
The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from its
color.[180-1] So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are called
_viracochas_, and the early explorers constantly received the same
epithet.[180-2] The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon
as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of
the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early
Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the
first four brothers, _viracochas_, white men.[180-3] It is the ancient
story how

"Light
Sprang from the deep, and from her native east
To journey through the airy gloom began."

The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on
ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he
ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of
the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the
pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist
that he was at first a man, some deified king. There we