It is clearly visible in the earlier
portions of the legends of the Quiches, and is the more surely of native
origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators.
Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was
attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to
take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These
mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called _Pacari
tampu_, which may mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the
four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from
Tonacatepec, the mountain of our subsistence; or again it may mean--for
like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly
chosen to bear a double construction--the Lodgings of the Dawn,
recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the
race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the
classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which
the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.
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