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Tradition, indeed, records that Bochica, the legislator of New Granada and high-priest of Iraca, had gone up from the plains of the east to the table-land of Bogota. But Bochica being at once the offspring and the symbol of the sun, his history may contain allegories that are merely astrological.
The worship of the sun introduced by Bochica, and the celebrity of the sanctuary of Iraca, or Sogamozo, gave rise to those confused reports of temples and idols of massy gold; but on the mountains as in the plains, the traveller believed himself to be always at a distance from them, because the reality never corresponded with the chimerical dreams of the imagination.
The fable of the gilded man is, perhaps, founded on a similar custom; and, as there were two sovereign princes in New Granada, the lama of Iraca and the secular chief or zaque of Tunja, we cannot be surprised that the same ceremony was attributed sometimes to the prince and sometimes to the high-priest.
These were the Chibchas, Muyscas, or Mozcas, divided into two kingdoms, with capitals at Bogota and Tunja, but united apparently in spiritual allegiance to the high pontiff of Sogamozo or Iraca. By a long and ascetic novitiate, this ghostly ruler was reputed to have acquired such sanctity that the waters and the rain obeyed him, and the weather depended on his will.
The intermediary, or central chain, runs east of Popayan, by the high plains of Mabasa, the Paramos of Guanacas, Huila, Savelillo, Iraca, Baraguan, Tolima, Ruiz and Herveo, towards the province of Antioquia.
We may venture to say that the tradition of a naked man covered with powdered gold must have belonged originally to a hot region, and not to the cold table-lands of Cundirumarca, where I often saw the thermometer sink below four or five degrees; however, on account of the extraordinary configuration of the country, the climate differs greatly at Guatavita, Tunja, Iraca, and on the banks of the Sogamozo.
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