The first and accepted derivation has been ably and to my mind successfully defended by probably the most accomplished Qquichua scholar of our age, Senor Gavino Pacheco Zegarra, who, in the introduction to his most excellent edition of the Drama of Ollantai, maintains that Viracocha, literally “Lake of Fat,” was a simile applied to the frothing, foaming sea, and adds that as a personal name in this signification it is in entire conformity with the genius of the Qquichua tongue[1].

[Footnote 1:  Ollantai, Drame en vers Quechuas, Introd., p. xxxvi (Paris, 1878).  There was a class of diviners in Peru who foretold the future by inspecting the fat of animals; they were called Vira-piricuc.  Molina, Fables and Rites, p. 13.]

To quote his words:—­“The tradition was that Viracocha’s face was extremely white and bearded.  From this his name was derived, which means, taken literally, ‘Lake of Fat;’ by extension, however, the word means ‘Sea-Foam,’ as in the Qquichua language the foam is called fat, no doubt on account of its whiteness.”

It had a double appropriateness in its application to the hero-god.  Not only was he supposed in the one myth to have risen from the waves of Lake Titicaca, and in another to have appeared when the primeval ocean left the land dry, but he was universally described as of fair complexion, a white man.  Strange, indeed, it is that these people who had never seen a member of the white race, should so persistently have represented their highest gods as of this hue, and what is more, with the flowing beard and abundant light hair which is their characteristic.

There is no denying, however, that such is the fact.  Did it depend on legend alone we might, however strong the consensus of testimony, harbor some doubt about it.  But it does not.  The monuments themselves attest it.  There is, indeed, a singular uniformity of statement in the myths.  Viracocha, under any and all his surnames, is always described as white and bearded, dressed in flowing robes and of imposing mien.  His robes were also white, and thus he was figured at the entrance of one of his most celebrated temples, that of Urcos.  His image at that place was of a man with a white robe falling to his waist, and thence to his feet; by him, cut in stone, were his birds, the eagle and the falcon.[1] So, also, on a certain occasion when he was said to have appeared in a dream to one of the Incas who afterwards adopted his name, he was said to have come with beard more than a span in length, and clothed in a large and loose mantle, which fell to his feet, while with his hand he held, by a cord to its neck, some unknown animal.  And thus in after times he was represented in painting and statue, by order of that Inca.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Christoval de Molina, ubi supra, p. 29.]

[Footnote 2:  Garcilasso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales, Lib. iv, cap. xxi.]