THE MYTH OF THE LAKE OF COPALA AND LAND OF TEGUAYO BY S. LYMAN TYLER*
J.HERE was always a mythical destination just over the horizon that lured the Spanish explorer onward. W h e n this destination was reached the Indian inhabitants usually pushed back the horizon and led the Spaniard ever deeper into the interior. Of the same genus as myriad other purportedly wealthy regions in North America was that of Copala and Teguayo. In the region north of New Mexico and west of Quivira was a great lake. All the banks of the lake were inhabited. Here were great cities, and a "dignified and ostentatious" king who did not speak to or look at anyone, except momentarily, so great was his severity. Some early Spanish writers, in recording the history of the people of Mexico and Central America, state that the Indians believed their ancestors came from seven caves near the Lake of Copala, which was later associated with the Land of Teguayo. It is suggested in various writings, and indicated on miscellaneous early maps, that the Lake of Copala or Teguayo may be identical to Lake Timpanogos, present Utah Lake. The Land of Teguayo is identified as that area including and extending north of the country of the Yutas. It is interesting that the early Spanish maps show Lake Timpanogos and the Great Salt Lake as one body of water, the Jordan River being transposed into a narrow neck connecting the two lakes. The historian, Clavijero, in recording the early Spanish belief concerning the origin of the Mexican Indians, writes that the history of the first people to populate Anahuac, the Valley of Mexico, is so obscure, fabulous, and incredible that it is not only difficult, but almost impossible, to arrive at the truth amid such an accumulation of errors. Through the testimony of the holy books and through the universal tradition of the Mexican peoples, however, it seemed evident to him that the first in*Research Fellow in the Department of History, University of Utah, 1949-51, and of die Social Science Research Council 1951-52. Presently assistant professor of history at the Brigham Young University.