Muysca (Chibcha)

(map)

The Cundinamarca plateau, on which Bogotá, Columbia, is situated, is surrounded by mountains. The Bogotá River drains the plateau, flowing through a narrow gorge in the mountains and dropping over the spectacular Tequendama Falls on its way to the Magdalena River to the west. The Chibcha flood myth accounts for this geography.

In olden times before the moon existed, the people of the Cundinamarca plateau lived as savages. One day there came a bearded old man, Bochica, who taught them agriculture, crafts, religion, and government. But Chia, his beautiful wife, delighted in thwarting her husband's efforts to civilize the people. She magically caused the river Funza (Rio Bogotá) to rise and flood the whole plateau. Only a few people escaped to the mountain tops.

Bochica, in anger, banished her from earth, changing her into the moon to light the night. Then he opened a pass to drain the water, leaving Lake Guatavita as a remnant of the flood. The country dried and was cultivated by the survivors.

Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita, Historia General del Nuevo Reino de Granada, vol. 1, Biblioteca Popular de Cultura Colombiana ([1688]; reprint, [Bogotá]: Editorial A B C, 1942), 32-34; Max Fauconnet, "Mythology of the Two Americas," in New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1959; new edition, 1968), 440-441; Vitaliano, 1973, 173-174.

Offended by people's wickedness, Chibchachun, the tutelary god, sent the torrents of Sopo and Tibito down from the hills, flooding the plain. This made cultivation impossible and threatened to submerge the people, who had fled to the mountains. The people appealed to the culture-hero Bocicha. Appearing as a rainbow, he struck the mountain with his staff and provided an outlet for the waters, creating the waterfall of Tequendama. Chibchachun was driven under the ground and made to hold it up (replacing the lignum-vitae trees which had held it before). His restlessness causes earthquakes. The rainbow, Chuchaviva, was thence honored as a god, but Chibchachum, in revenge, proclaimed that many would die when it appears.

Frazer, 1919, 267; Alexander, Hartley Burr, Latin-America, Gray, 1920, v. XI, 203.