A parallel to this southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the
north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic,
looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in the State of
New York, as the locality where their forefathers first saw the light of
day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the
Stone, would seem to testify.
The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, was five leagues
distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with
temples of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the mythical
civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, and in it during the time
of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the
waves.[227-1] Viracocha himself is said to have dwelt there, though it
hardly needed this evidence to render it certain that this consecrated
cavern is but a localization of the general myth of the dawn rising from
the deep. It refers us for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the
morning light flinging its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves
of Lake Titicaca.
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