In this quote the beard is represented as a dressing of feathers, fitting comfortably with academic impressions of Mesoamerican art. The story, however, does not mention whether Viracocha had facial hair or not with the point of outfitting him with a mask and symbolic feathered beard being to cover his unsightly appearance because as Viracocha said "If ever my subjects were to see me, they would run away!" While descriptions of Viracocha's physical appearance are open to interpretation, men with beards were frequently depicted by the Peruvian Moche culture in its famous pottery, long before the arrival of the Spanish. Modern advocates of theories such as a pre-Columbian European migration to Peru cite these bearded ceramics and Viracocha's beard as being evidence for an early presence of non-Amerindians in Peru. Although most Indians do not have heavy beards, there are groups reported to have included bearded individuals, such as the Aché people of Paraguay, who also have light skin but who are not known to have any admixture with Europeans and Africans. When the Southern Paiute were first contacted by Europeans in 1776, the report by fathers Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez noted that "Some of the men had thick beards and were thought to look more in appearance like Spanish men than native Americans".