_Canapeis_, sub-tribe of Colimas (Herrera).
_Colimas_, on the right bank of Magdalena, adjacent to the Musos.
_Manipos_, adjacent to the Pijoas.
_Musos_, on right bank of the Magdalena, adjacent and north of the
Muyscas.
_Nauras_, on the Rio Carari.
_Paezes_, on the central Cordillera.
_Panches_, on the east bank of Magdalena, near Tocayma.
_Paniquitas_, between upper waters of the Magdalena and Cauca.
_Pantagoros_, on both shores of the Magdalena and in province of
Quimbaya.
_Pijaos_, in Popayan, on the Cauca and Neyva.
My reasons for identifying the modern Paniquitas and Paezes with the
ancient tribes named are, first, the identity of the location, and
secondly, the presence of the initial syllable _pan_ in the names of
two of the principal extinct peoples, a word which in Paniquita means
“mountain,” and clearly refers to the position of their villages in the
sierra, between the head-waters of the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers.
Among the references in the older writers, I may mention that Herrera
states that the language of the Panches was one of the most extended
in that part of the country, and that the tribes speaking it almost
surrounded the Muyscas;[252] and Piedrahita specifically adds that the
Pijaos, the most powerful tribe in Popayan, whose territory extended from
Cartago to the city of Popayan, along the valley of the Neyva, and quite
to San Juan de los Llanos, belonged to the same stock as the Pantagoros.
Some fragments have been preserved from the mythology of the Musos, who
lived about 24 leagues northwest of Santa Fé, on the right bank of the
Magdalena. Their legends pointed for the home of their ancestors to the
left or western side of the river. Here dwelt, lying in a position of
eternal repose, the Creator, a shadow whose name was _Are_. Ages ago he
carved for his amusement two figures in wood, a man and a woman, and
threw them into the river. They rose from its waters as living beings,
and marrying, became the ancestors of the human species.[253]
Most of these tribes are reported to have flattened artificially their
heads, and to have burned the bodies of their dead, or, in Popoyan, to
have mummified them by long exposure to a slow fire.
The Paezes live on both slopes of the central Cordillera, across the
valley of the Magdalena from Bogota, some two thousand in number, in
twenty-one villages. They prefer the high altitudes, and are a hardy
set of hunters and mountaineers. In spite of the cold they go nearly
naked, but what is rare among native Americans, they wear a hat of reeds
or bark, resembling in this some Peruvian tribes. Nor are they devoid
of skill in hammering gold into ornaments, and weaving fibres of the
maguey into mats and cloths. One of their peculiar customs is to burn
down a house whenever a birth or a death takes place in it. The harsh
dialect they speak has been rendered accessible by a publication of Señor
Uricoechea. Its practical identity with the Panequita is obvious from the
following comparison:[254]