Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Lake May Have
Been The Laguna De Totta, A Little To The East Of Sogamozo (Iraca) And
Of Tunja
(Hunca, the town of Huncahua), where two chiefs,
ecclesiastical and secular, of the empire of Cundinamarca, or
Cundirumarca, resided; but
No historical remembrance being attached to
this mountain lake, I rather suppose that it was the sacred lake of
Guatavita, on the east of the mines of rock-salt of Zipaquira, into
which the gilded lord was made to enter. I saw on its banks the
remains of a staircase hewn in the rock, and serving for the
ceremonies of ablution. The Indians said that powder of gold and
golden vessels were thrown into this lake, as a sacrifice to the
adoratorio de Guatavita. Vestiges are still found of a breach which
was made by the Spaniards for the purpose of draining the lake. The
temple of the sun at Sogamozo being pretty near the northern coasts of
Terra Firma, the notions of the gilded man were soon applied to a
high-priest of the sect of Bochica, or Indacanzas, who every morning,
before he performed his sacrifice, caused powder of gold to be stuck
upon his hands and face, after they had been smeared with grease.
Other accounts, preserved in a letter of Oviedo addressed to the
celebrated cardinal Bembo, say that Gonzalo Pizarro, when he
discovered the province of cinnamon-trees, "sought at the same time a
great prince, noised in those countries, who was always covered with
powdered gold, so that from head to foot he resembled an image of gold
fashioned by the hand of a skilful workman (a una figura d'oro
lavorato di mano d'un buonissimo orefice). The powdered gold is fixed
to the body by means of an odoriferous resin; but, as this kind of
garment would be uneasy to him while he slept, the prince washes
himself every evening, and is gilded anew in the morning, which proves
that the empire of El Dorado is infinitely rich in mines." It seems
probable that there was something in the ceremonies of the worship
introduced by Bochica which gave rise to a tradition so generally
spread.
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