Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/312

 *[Footnote: *longed to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as by their religious wars the Incas extended still more widely the prevalence of their faith, their language, and their absolute form of government, these Suyus also acquired larger and unequally increased dimensions. Thus the names of provinces came to be used to express the different quarters of the heavens; "Nombrar aquellos Partidos era lo mismo," says Garcilaso, "que decir al Oriente, ó al Poniente." The Snow Chain of the Antis was thus looked upon as an East chain. "La Provincia Anti da nombre á las Montañas de los Antis. Llamaron la parte á del Oriente Antisuyu, por la qual tambien llaman Anti á toda aquella gran Cordillera de Sierra Nevada que pasa al Oriente del Peru, por dar á entender, que está al Oriente." (Commentarios Reales, P. I. p. 47 and 122.) Later writers have tried to deduce the name of the Chain of the Andes from "anta," which signifies "copper" in the Quichua language. This metal was indeed of the greatest importance to a nation whose tools and cutting instruments were made not of iron but of copper mixed with tin; but the name of the "Copper Mountains" can hardly have been extended to so great a chain; and besides, as Professor Buschmann very justly remarks, the word anta retains its terminal a when making part of a compound word: anta, cobre, y antamarca Provincia de Cobre. Moreover, the form and composition of words in the ancient Peruvian language are so simple that there can be no question of the passage of an a into an i; and thus "anta" (copper) and "Anti or Ante" (meaning as dictionaries of the country explain "la tierra de los Andes,]*