It appeared in their sacred paintings, and especially, they erected one over the grave of a person who had died from the bite of a serpent.
A little careful investigation will permit us to accept these statements as quite true, and yet give them a very different interpretation.
That this culture-hero arrives from the East and returns to the East are points that at once excite the suspicion that he was the personification of the Light.

But when we come to his names, no doubt can remain.

These were various, but one of the most usual was _Chimizapagua_, which, we are told, means "a messenger from _Chiminigagua_." In the cosmogonical myths of the Muyscas this was the home or source of Light, and was a name applied to the demiurgic force.

In that mysterious dwelling, so their account ran, light was shut up, and the world lay in primeval gloom.

At a certain time the light manifested itself, and the dawn of the first morning appeared, the light being carried to the four quarters of the earth by great black birds, who blew the air and winds from their beaks.
Modern grammarians profess themselves unable to explain the exact meaning of the name _Chiminigagua_, but it is a compound, in which, evidently, appear the words _chie_, light, and _gagua_, Sun.[1] [Footnote 1: Uricoechea says, "al principio del mundo la luz estaba encerrada en una cosa que no podian describir i que llamaban _Chiminigague_, o El Criador." _Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha_, Introd., p.xix._Chie_ in this tongue means light, moon, month, honor, and is also the first person plural of the personal pronoun._Ibid_., p.94.