[180-1] It is compounded of vira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to yurac, white), and cocha, a pond or lake.
[180-2] See Desjardins, Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 67.
[180-3] Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 119, in Müller.
[181-1] Brasseur, Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 302.
[181-2] There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Müller quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them long and full (Amer. Urreligionen, p. 429). Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion—white indeed—but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, 612: Berlin, 1852).
[182-1] Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109.
[183-1] The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 24. It must be remembered that the Quiché legends identify him positively with the Tohil of Central America (Le Livre Sacré, p. 247).
[183-2] Padilla Davila, Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 89.
[183-3] Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8.
[184-1] He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are Piedrahita, Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, Noticias de Tierra Firme, Parte ii., in Kingsborough’s Mexico.