The legends of the ancient Quitus have been preserved in the work of Juan de Velasco, and although they are dismissed with small respect by Markham, I am myself of the opinion that there is both external and internal evidence to justify us in accepting them as at least genuine native productions. They relate that at a remote epoch two Kechua-speaking tribes, the Mantas on the south, and the Caras on the north, occupied the coast from the Gulf of Guayaquil to the Esmeraldas River. The Caras were the elder, and its ancestors had reached that part of the coast in rafts and canoes from some more northern home. For many generations they remained a maritime people, but at length followed up the Esmeraldas and its affluents until they reached the vicinity of Quito, where they developed into a powerful nation under the rule of their _scyri_, or chiefs. Of these they claimed a dynasty of nineteen previous to the conquest of their territory by the Inca Huayna Capac. They inherited in the male line, and were monogamous to the extent that the issue of only one of their wives could be regarded as legal heirs.[288] They did not bury their dead, as did the southern Kechuas, but placed them on the surface of the soil and constructed a stone mound or tomb, called _tola_, over the remains, resembling in this the Aymaras. The extent of the Kechua tongue to the north has not been accurately defined. Under the name _Yumbos_, or _Yumbos de Guerra_, the old Relations included various tribes in the Quito region who had not been reduced by the Spanish Conquistadores.[289] A recent traveler, M. André, states that the Yumbos belong to the family of the Quitus, and include the tribes of the Cayapas, Colorados and Mangaches.[290] Of these, the Cayapas and Colorados, as I have shown, belong to the Barbacoa stock, though the term _Colorados_ “painted,” is applied to so many tribes that it is not clear which is meant. The geographer Villavicencio observes that “the Napos, Canelos, Intags, Nanegales and Gualeas, collectively called Yumbos, all speak dialects of the Kechua.” The modern Canelos he describes as a cross between the ancient Yumbos and the Jivaros, to whom they are now neighbors, while the modern Quitos adjoin the Zaparos. Their language, however, he asserts, has retained its purity.[291]