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.
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