Chachapoya is a mysterious Indian civilization.
An archaeological exhibition of Andean peoples has opened in the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. The exhibition presents exhibits that belonged to the mysterious Chachapoya Indians, whom the Incas called “those who live beyond the clouds” because they lived in villages located on the slopes of the mountains.
Recently, a local resident in a cave, a former settlement built by the Chachapoya, discovered a mummy that had been there for more than six hundred years, with a face distorted in a grimace of horror, an open mouth and hands covering its head. Next to the Chachapoya mummy, the remains of a child were found, as well as all kinds of precious items, fabrics, ceramics and other valuables. The walls of the mysterious cave were decorated with drawings.
Archaeologists were puzzled by the grimace on the face of the Chachapoya woman. Some experts suggested that it could have appeared during the process of natural mummification. Others agree that the reason for the woman's horror is the changes that occurred directly during mummification. The name of the tribe to which the mummy discovered by the peasant once belonged is Chachapoya. These were tall people, blond and light-skinned, which is not typical not only for the Andean peoples, but also for the inhabitants of Mesoamerica in general.
The Chachapoya are one of the most developed tribes of the Amazon. From the 8th to the 15th centuries AD, their empire spanned the entire Andes until they were conquered by the more warlike Incas. It is unknown for what reason the conflict arose between the Indians and the Chachapoyas, only one thing is clear - the aggression came from both the Incas and the blond inhabitants of the settlements hidden in the clouds. The Chachapoyas were skilled farmers, cultivating their own fields located on mountain terraces. The climate of the Andean ridges forced the Chachapoyas to develop craft skills, in particular weaving. The mountain inhabitants were also distinguished by their religious aspirations; they worshiped and were wary of local ideologists and shamans.
The Chachapoya tribe - the story of the blond Indians.
Ancient civilizations are full of secrets and riddles. The history of Chachapoya is a closed book for researchers. Almost all written sources indicating the existence of the Chachapoyas were lost during the Spanish Conquest and the enslavement of the Incas in 1512. The first evidence pointing to the Chachapoya culture dates back to the 4th century AD, that is, 500 years before the appearance of the Incas and during the dawn of another equally great nation, the Mayan civilization. The Chachapoya tribe, unlike the Mayans, occupied lands almost completely covered with mountains, between the stormy Marañon and Huayaga rivers. Their territories are mountain plateaus with a total area of 30 thousand square kilometers.
The Chachapoya tribe built multiple settlements on inaccessible mountain peaks. Some towns and villages consisted of only a dozen houses, while others numbered about a thousand of various structures. All Chachapoya settlements, regardless of their size, were fortified with powerful defensive structures that served as protection from neighboring Indian tribes. Researchers still know something about the Chachapoya tribe. So it was possible to find out that the Chachapoyas people in their traditions and way of life go back to the more ancient Peruvian tribes. This is evidenced by the burials of mummies, traditional clothes and stone buildings of similar style. Today, the legacy left by the Chachapoya tribe is limited only to rare archaeological finds, including an ancient citadel called Kuelap.
The Chachapoya structure is located at an altitude of three thousand meters above sea level and consists of four hundred buildings for various purposes and defensive towers, and most of them are rather decorative in nature. At one time, the researcher from Norway, traveler Thor Heyerdahl, was interested in the Chachapoya Indians, the mysterious inhabitants of the Andes. He turned his attention to the fair-haired and light-skinned Chachapoya people, who by all appearances did not correspond to any of the known racial groups living in South America. Researchers were able to discover that the Chachapoya tribe built their boats based on models of ancient Egyptian boats. Heyerdahl set up a fascinating experiment: on a papyrus ship called “Ra” he managed to cross Atlantic Ocean, having reached the coastal areas South America, thereby proving that the Chachapoya tribe could have come to Mesoamerica from the Mediterranean. It is curious that the traveler’s first attempt, when he used shipbuilding techniques preserved in Africa, was not crowned with success. The second ship in the style of the Chachapoya, which nevertheless managed to sail across the Atlantic, was built according to the methods of the Andean peoples and materials obtained there.
The Chachapoya Indians are in search of clues.
The era of the main geographical discoveries is already behind us, and today it seems that literally every corner of the planet has been explored. However, the planet still keeps its secrets. One of them, the Chachapoya Indians, is hidden deep in the Amazon jungle, in the north of modern Peru. World-famous traveler and Discovery Channel presenter Josh Bernstein visited these mysterious and inaccessible places to learn everything possible about the Chachapoya Indians, about the cloud people who disappeared many centuries ago. Oddly enough, the Incas are a people known throughout the world, but their neighbors, the Chachapoyas, are a poorly studied civilization, known, perhaps, only among researchers and archaeologists. This is partly due to the fact that the territory where the Chachapoya tribe lived was almost completely isolated from the outside world.
The state of the blond Chachapoya Indians was located in a triangle, two sides of which are the stormy Marañon and Utcubamba rivers, which are extremely difficult to cross even by boat, and the third side is mountain ranges and the impenetrable jungle that hid the Chachapoyas from outside aggression in the person of neighboring Indian tribes. Josh Bernstein, going to the Kuelap settlement, a stronghold of the Chachapoyas, like any reasonable person, decided to swim across the obstinate and unyielding waters of the Marañon and Utcubamba rivers.
Bernstein did not go on his journey for the sake of extreme sports or new sensations. The traveler is driven by the desire to unravel secrets and uncover mysteries. And if it were possible to reach the cradle in which the Chachapoya Indians developed by car, he would have taken advantage of this opportunity. But this was not to be, and the researcher had to overcome most of the path through the dense thickets of the Peruvian Amazon jungle.
Together with guides who had first-hand knowledge of Chachapoya, Josh fought the jungle, cutting his way with a machete, without which such areas are insurmountable. However, if at a time when mountain lands While the Chachapoya Indians dominated, the local jungle was truly impassable, but today the forest is gradually retreating in the face of man. On the way, the traveler encountered a few paths trampled by the Chachapoya, along which a horse or cart led by a mule could easily pass.
Having covered a small part of the path on horseback and a large part on foot, Bernstein finally reached the slope, having climbed to a height of almost three kilometers, he found himself in Kuelapa, near the ancient stone city of Chachapoya. The territory of the city is six hectares, on which five hundred buildings for various purposes are located. The largest of them are the fortress and the tower. The city of Chachapoya is surrounded by a massive wall twenty-five meters high, in which there are three small openings through which a person can pass. Despite the fact that the ruins of a fortress belonging to the Chachapoya tribes were discovered back in 1843, the opportunity to get to it and explore it only appeared in our time.
The Chachapoya tribe erected noticeable and bulky structures, however, the scientists who discovered the ruins ancient city, they discovered not the remains of a once majestic settlement built by the Chachapoya Indians, but buildings protruding one and a half meters from the ground. The fact is that the fortress, and the entire city, were covered with rock. In order to get to the very essence, it was necessary to free the fortress that the Chachapoyas built from stone captivity. Tons of rocks were removed from the ruins for decades, and only by the end of 2007 did archaeologists, led by Alfred Narvaez, the leader of a group involved in restoring the heritage of the Chachapoya tribe, see buildings, and not the roofs of houses covered with stones. Narvaez is one of those scientists who are confident that the Chachapoyas disappeared under the military oppression of the Incas.
The archaeologist witnessed firsthand the consequences of the aggression that the Chachapoya Indians directed at their blond neighbors. All the inhabitants of the fortress were killed, and the structure itself was burned. Experts came to this conclusion after studying the Chachapoya mummies preserved in Kuelapa. All of them were scorched by fire, and their poses expressed despair and horror. Josh Bernstein became one of those who joined the archaeologists led by Narves, studying the heritage of the Chachapoya Indians. However, in order to get to the excavation site, he still had to overcome the descent down the narrow, cold and dark Chachapoya well.
Bernstein is nothing new to such adventures; he has already made difficult descents, for example in the gold mines near Timbuktu. The picture of the massacre carried out by the Incas that revealed itself to the scientist was terrifying. The mummies were well preserved in the impenetrable jungle. Among the dead Chachapoya Indians, women, children and old people were found hiding their faces and frozen in absurd poses in which they were caught in a terrible death.
The Chachapoya Indians are the revealed truths of a vanished civilization.
Researchers literally live in South and Central America, despite this, the Peruvian Chachapoya culture remains a big mystery. Before the discoveries made in 2007 and subsequent years, the existence of the Chachapoya people was generally questioned, and references left by the Incas about the light-skinned and tall Chachapoya Indians were considered legends in the scientific community. Today, thanks to the works of Narves and his colleagues, it was possible to obtain, albeit meager, more or less reliable knowledge.
By 800 AD, the blond Chachapoya Indians had formed a fairly advanced civilization, and the triangle of their state was populated almost to capacity. Despite the isolation of the territories of the Chachapoya state, there are facts indicating their communication with other tribes living in the Andes. In addition, the finds prove that the Chachapoya Indians were enviable artisans, in particular skillfully handling metals and stone. The Chachapoya were good builders, engineers and architects, but in general their culture was based on agriculture.
The blond Chachapoya Indians were also quite good warriors. This, at least, is evidenced by the references left by the Incas. For four centuries the Incas could not conquer the inaccessible state of Chachapoya. War between neighbors continued from approximately 1000 to 1450 AD, until Kuelap fell. After which, the surviving representatives of the Chachapoya tribe were forcibly resettled from their native places to various parts of the once great empire of the Inca Indians, stretching from Chile to the borders of Ecuador. However, the confrontation between the former neighbors did not end there.
Blonde-haired and white-skinned aborigines, the Chachapoya Indians, took revenge on their sworn enemies when the Spaniards came to the lands of Mesoamerica, acting on the side of the invaders. However, even this did not stop them from disappearing. In the 200 years since the destruction of the Chachapoya empire, the population of this nation has decreased by almost 90 percent. Most of died from diseases brought by Europeans, the other part fell from spears, swords and arrows. The surviving white Chachapoya Indians failed to maintain their identity; gradually, step by step, they merged with other peoples who settled throughout America.
Josh Bernstein, studying the Chachapoyas mummies discovered by researchers, discovered that some of the skulls had holes left by firearms. This has baffled archaeologists: battles took place in the Chachapoya territory long before Europeans came to America, and the Indians themselves did not discover the gunpowder necessary for firearms. It later turned out that the mysterious wounds were inflicted not by bullets, but by stones fired from a sling. The Chachapoya Indians were skilled shooters; a projectile fired by them could fly 300 meters without losing speed or destructive power. From a distance of 70 meters, the Incas could easily hit their enemies in the head, which is clearly proven by the mummies found in the Chachapoya fortress.
Josh was not satisfied with the hypothesis proposed to him by his colleagues. He decided to personally test the chacha belt sling in practice to make sure. The traveler used pumpkins, watermelons and skulls as targets; stones of various shapes and sizes served as projectiles. Tests at the test site confirmed the theory about the sling and the Chachapoya Indians, in addition, Josh Bernstein was able to understand for himself that the skills of the Incas or their neighbors, the Chachapoyas, were as close to the moon as he could walk to the moon. The first shots fired by the researcher did not reach their targets. The third salvo was more accurate, hitting the skull; True, the force of the shot was not enough to pierce the bone or cause any visible damage. The Chachapoya Indians would have laughed, as would their neighbors: the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas - all of them were experts in military affairs.
The Chachapoya culture is an unexpected discovery.
While Bernstein was operating at the test site, archaeologists were not idle and made another significant discovery on the land of the Chachapoya. They discovered the third highest waterfall in the world, hiding in a remote area near the Chachapoya fortress. A waterfall called Gokta, 771 meters high, is located in the heart of the former state, which was built by the Chachapoya culture.
To look at this miracle of nature in all its glory, the researchers had to overcome a difficult journey: the road passed through virgin jungle and difficult rocky areas, however, the result was worth it. The waterfall, like the entire empire that belonged to the Chachapoya tribe, was hidden from the eyes of the curious for a long time. It is for this reason that we learned about them only in the 21st century. In addition, local residents, seemingly aware of the presence of such a miracle of nature in their lands, simply keep their secrets to themselves. Returning to the topic ancient empire, created by the Chachapoya culture, the long-debunked assumption that white-skinned Chachapoya Indians were among the first tribes to settle in Mesoamerica was finally confirmed finally, thanks to finds discovered in the Paracas region of Peru.
What did the indigenous people of North and South America really look like? What basis did the legends about the White Gods have in Indian civilizations?
South America
An unknown Indian tribe was discovered by an expedition of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) in the state of Pará in northern Brazil. The white-skinned, blue-eyed Indians of this tribe, living in dense tropical forest, are skilled fishermen and fearless hunters. To further study the way of life of the new tribe, the expedition members, led by Raimundo Alves, a specialist in the problems of Brazilian Indians, intend to conduct a detailed study of the life of this tribe.
In 1976 famous traveler Thor Heyerdahl wrote: “The question of white and bearded people in pre-Columbian America has not yet been resolved, and it is on this that I am now concentrating my attention. To clarify this problem, I crossed the Atlantic on the papyrus boat “Ra-II”. I believe that here we are dealing with one of the early cultural impulses from the African-Asian region of the Mediterranean. I consider the mysterious “peoples of the sea” to be the most likely candidate for this role.
Certificate Percival Harrison Fawcett(1867 - 1925) - British topographer and traveler, lieutenant colonel. Fawcett disappeared under unknown circumstances along with his son in 1925 during an expedition to discover a lost city in the Brazilian countryside.
White Indians live on Kari,” the manager told me. “My brother once went on a longboat up the Tauman, and at the very upper reaches of the river he was told that white Indians lived nearby. He did not believe it and only laughed at the people who said this, but still went on a boat and found unmistakable traces of their presence. Then he and his men were attacked by tall, handsome, well-built savages, they had pure white skin, red hair and blue eyes. They fought like devils, and when my brother killed one of them, the rest took the body and ran away." Another fragment: “I knew a man who met such an Indian,” the British consul told me. - These Indians are completely wild, and it is believed that they only come out at night. That's why they are called "bats." “Where do they live? - I asked. - Somewhere in the area of the lost gold mines, either north or northwest of the Diamantinu River. No one knows their exact location. Mato Grosso is a very poorly explored country; no one has yet penetrated the mountainous regions in the north. Perhaps in a hundred years flying cars will be able to do this, who knows?
My messengers report that after a long march they have found a village with a thousand inhabitants. The locals greeted them with honors, settled them in the most beautiful houses, took care of their weapons, kissed their hands and feet, trying to make them understand in any way that they (the Spaniards) were white people who came from God. About fifty residents asked my messengers to take them with them to heaven to the star gods.
This is the first mention of the worship of white gods among the American Indians. “They (the Spaniards) could do whatever they wanted and no one stopped them; they cut jade, smelted gold, and behind all this was Quetzalcoatl,” one Spanish chronicler wrote after Columbus.
In both Americas, there are countless legends that have survived virtually unchanged to this day, which tell of the landing of white bearded people on the shores of the Indians in ancient times. They brought the Indians the basics of knowledge, laws, civilization... They arrived on large strange ships with swan wings and a luminous hull. Approaching the shore, the ships landed people - blue-eyed and fair-haired - in robes of coarse black material and short gloves. They had snake-shaped ornaments on their foreheads. The Aztecs and Toltecs called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas - Kon-Tiki Viracocha, the Mayans - Kukulkai, the Chibcha Indians - Bochica.
Francisco Pizarro about the Incas: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was light-skinned, the color of ripe wheat. Most of the nobles were surprisingly similar to the Spaniards. In this country I met an Indian woman so light-skinned that I was amazed. Neighbors call these people “children of the gods.” By the time the Spaniards arrived, there were about five hundred such representatives of the elite of Peruvian society and they spoke a special language. Chroniclers also report that the eight rulers of the Incan dynasty were white and bearded, and their wives were “white as an egg.” One of the chroniclers, Garcillaso de la Vega, spoke of a burial in which he saw a mummy with hair as white as snow. But the man died young, so it wasn't gray hair. De la Vega was told that this was the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the Sun.
In 1926, the American ethnographer Harris studied the Indians of San Blas and wrote that they had hair the color of flax and straw and the build of a white man.
The French explorer Homais described an encounter with the Waika Indian tribe, whose hair was chestnut. “The so-called white race,” he wrote, “has, even with a superficial examination, a mass of representatives among the Amazonian Indians.”
On Easter Island there are legends that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing sixty days towards the setting sun. Today's islanders claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while others had dark skin and hair. This was also witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When in 1722 Fr. Easter was first visited by a Dutch frigate, then a white man climbed on board, among other inhabitants, and the Dutch wrote the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some have even red skin, like as if the sun was burning her.”
Thompson's notes (1880) are also very curious in this regard, which speaks of a country located, according to legend, sixty days' journey east of Fr. Easter. It was also called the “country of burials”: the climate there was so hot that people died and plants withered. From Fr. Easter to the west along the entire vast stretch to the South- East Asia there is nothing that could correspond to this description: the shores of all the islands are covered with tropical forest. But in the east lie the coastal deserts of Pery, and nowhere else in the region Pacific Ocean There is no area that better matches the descriptions of the legend than the Peruvian coast - both in name and in climate. There, along the deserted Pacific coast, there are numerous burial sites. Because The climate is very dry, it allowed modern scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there, which turned practically into mummies.
In theory, these mummies should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of ancient pre-Inca population of Peru? But the mummies only posed new mysteries: the types of buried people were identified by anthropologists as never before encountered in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two more large necropolises on the Paracas Peninsula (south of the Peruvian coast). There were hundreds of mummies there. Radiocarbon analysis determined their age - 2200 years. Near the graves, large quantities of fragments of hardwood trees, which were usually used to build rafts, were found. These bodies also differed in structure from the basic physical type of the ancient Peruvian population. The American anthropologist Stewart then wrote about this: “This was a selected group of large people, absolutely not typical for the population of Peru.”
While Stewart was studying the bones, M. Trotter was analyzing the hair of nine mummies. Their color is mostly red-brown, but in some cases it is very light, almost golden. The hair of two mummies was generally different from the rest - it was curly. The shape of the hair cut is different for different mummies, and almost all shapes are found in the burial. As for the thickness, “it is smaller here than in other Indians, but not as small as in the average European population (for example, the Dutch),” Trotter wrote in her conclusion. As you know, human hair does not change after death. They may become brittle, but neither the color nor the structure changes.
A superficial acquaintance with the vast and varied literature on the history of Peru is enough to find many references to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods.
Images of these deities stood in Inca temples. In the temple of Cuzco, razed to the ground, there was a huge statue depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as what the Spanish artists painted at home,” wrote the Spanish conquistador Pizarro. In the temple built in honor of Viracocha, there also stood the great god Kon-Tiki Viracocha - a man with a long beard and proud posture, wearing a long robe. The chronicler wrote that when the Spaniards saw this statue, they thought that Saint Bartholomew had reached Peru and the Indians created a monument in memory of this event. The conquistadors were so amazed by the strange statue that they did not destroy it immediately, and the temple for a time avoided the fate of other similar structures. But soon its fragments were taken away.
While exploring Peru, the Spaniards came across huge megalithic structures pre-Inca times, also lying in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. Those people arrived long before the Incas and settled here.” How strong and enduring this legend is is confirmed by the testimony of the modern Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who heard from the Indians who lived near the ruins that “these structures were created by a foreign people, white like the Europeans.”
Lake Titicaca turned out to be at the very center of the “activity” of the white god Viracocha, for all evidence agrees on one thing - there, on the lake, and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, was the residence of the god. “They also said,” writes de Leon, “that on the island of Titicaca in past centuries there lived a people, white like us, and one local leader named Kari with his people came to this island and waged war against this people and killed many.” . The white people left their buildings on the lake. "I asked local residents“,” de Leon further writes, “were these buildings created during the time of the Incas?” They laughed at my question and said that they knew for certain that all this was done long before the power of the Incas. They saw bearded men on the island of Titicaca. These were people of subtle minds who came from an unknown country, and there were few of them, and many of them were killed in the war.”
The Frenchman Bandelier was also inspired by these legends at the end of the 19th century. and began excavations on Lake Titicaca. He was told that in ancient times people similar to Europeans came to the island, they married local women, and their children became Incas. The tribes before them lived the life of savages, but “a white man came and he had great authority. In many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in his honor they created temples and erected statues in them.” When the chronicler Betanzos, who took part in the first Peruvian campaigns of the Spaniards, asked the Indians what Viracocha looked like, they answered that he was tall, in a white robe down to his toes, his hair was secured on his head with something like a tonsure (?), he walked important and in his hands he was holding something similar to a prayer book (?). Where did Viracocha come from? There is no single answer to this question. “Many believe that his name is Inga Viracocha, and this means “sea foam”,” notes the chronicler Zarate. According to the stories of the old Indians, he led his people across the sea.
Legends of the Chimu Indians tell that a white deity came from the north, from the sea, and then rose to Lake Titicaca. The “humanization” of Viracocha is most clearly manifested in those legends where various purely earthly qualities are attributed to him: they call him smart, cunning, kind, but at the same time they call him the Son of the Sun. The Indians claim that he sailed on reed boats to the shores of Lake Titicaca and created the megalithic city of Tiahuanaco. From here he sent bearded ambassadors to all ends of Peru to teach people and tell them that he was their creator. But, in the end, dissatisfied with the behavior of the inhabitants, he left their lands - he went down with his companions to Pacific coast and went across the sea to the west along with the sun. As we see, they went towards Polynesia, but came from the north.
In the mountains of Colombia lived another mysterious people - the Chibcha, who reached the arrival of the Spaniards high level culture. His legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochica with the same description as that of the Incas. He ruled it for many years and was also called Sua, that is, “sun”. He came to them from the east.
In Venezuela and neighboring areas there are also legends about the presence of a mysterious wanderer there who taught the locals how to farm. They called him Tsuma (or Sume) there. According to legend, he ordered all the people to gather around a high rock, stood on it and told them laws and instructions. After living with people, he left them.
The Kuna Indians live in the area of today's Panama Canal. Their legends also include someone who, after a great flood, came and taught them crafts. In Mexico, at the time of the Spanish invasion, the high civilization of the Aztecs was blooming. From Anahuac (Texas) to Yucotan, the Aztecs spoke of the white god Quetzalcoatl. According to legend, he was the fifth ruler of the Toltecs, came from the Land of the Rising Sun (of course, the Aztecs did not mean Japan) and wore a long cape. He ruled for a long time in Tollan, prohibiting human sacrifice, preaching peace and vegetarianism. But this did not last long: the devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses, and he left the country in a southern direction.
Cortez’s Carta Segunda contains an excerpt from Montezuma’s speech: “We know from the writings handed down to us by our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else who inhabits this country are its original inhabitants. We come from other lands. We also know that we descend from the ruler, whose subordinates we were. He came to this country, he again wanted to leave and take his people with him. But they had already married local women, built houses and did not want to go with him. And he left. Since then we have been waiting for him to return someday. Just from the direction you came from, Cortez.” It is known what price the Aztecs paid for their “come true” dream...
As scientists have proven, the neighbors of the Aztecs - the Mayans - also did not always live in today's places, but migrated from other areas. The Mayans themselves say that their ancestors came twice. The first time was the largest migration - from overseas, from the east, from where 12 thread-paths were laid, and Itzamna led them. Another, smaller group came from the west, and among them was Kukulkan. They all had flowing robes, sandals, long beards and bare heads. Kukulkan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapac and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans how to use weapons. And again, as in Peru, he leaves the country and goes towards the setting sun.
The Indians who lived in the Tabasco jungle have similar legends. They keep information about Wotan, who came from the Yucatan regions. In ancient times, Wotan came from the East. He was sent by the gods to divide the earth, distribute it to human races and give each its own language. The country from which he came was called Valum Votan. The myth ends very strangely: “When the time of sad departure finally came, he did not go through the valley of death, like all mortals, but passed through a cave into the underworld.”
Yes, there is evidence that the medieval Spaniards did not destroy all the statues; the Indians managed to hide some. When archaeologist Bennett was excavating in Tiahuanaco in 1932, he came across a red stone figurine depicting the god Kon-Tiki Viracocha in a long robe with a beard. His robe was decorated with horned snakes and two pumas - symbols of the supreme deity in Mexico and Peru. This figurine was identical to the one found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, precisely on the peninsula closest to the island of the same name. Other similar sculptures were found around the lake. On the Peruvian coast, Viracocha was immortalized in ceramics and drawings. The authors of these drawings are the early Chimu and Mochica. Similar finds are found in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador. (Note that bearded images were noted by A. Humboldt, looking at the drawings of ancient manuscripts stored in the Imperial Library of Vienna in 1810.) Colored fragments of the frescoes of the Chichen Itza temples have also reached us, telling about the naval battle of black and white people. These drawings have not yet been solved.
North America
Recently, geneticists found that among the “Indians” of America there are representatives of the DNA haplogroup R1a. They, without any hesitation, were called the descendants of European Jews, Ashkenazi Levites, the remnants of the ten lost tribes of Israel... However, for some reason, the lost tribes - "Indians" still live in reservations, essentially in modern-type concentration camps, and defenders of Jewish rights this is not at all disturbing, nor was their destruction in earlier history.
There is every reason to believe that representatives of this haplogroup are the remnants of the indigenous population of the American continent.
It is traditionally believed that North American “Indians” are naked, red-skinned, beardless, and beardless savages. However, if you look at these photographs of North American "Indians" from the 19th century, the generally accepted picture changes somewhat.
Don't recognize anyone?
Film on the topic: Amazing artifacts of America (Andrey Zhukov):
White Indians lived in Hyperborea.This question worried, for one reason or another, many scientists who were not even related to American studies.
To find out the origins of the Indians, you should first seek help from anthropology, ethnography and mythology. Basically, versions of the theory are built precisely on the basis of these disciplines, with each theorist choosing the one that is closer to him.
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One of the most interesting theories seems to be the view of anthropologist, linguist and symbolist Dr. Hermann Wirth. Who is Dr. Wirth? This man headed the secret SS institute "" during Hitler's Germany, and was engaged in racial research in the field of the origin of humanity.
"Ahnenerbe", or "Heritage of the Ancestors", was a secret institute in which the origin of races, various occult sciences were studied, and famous expeditions to Tibet were organized.
A scientist of Frisian origin, Dr. Hermann Wirth was removed from his post because his views on the formation of races did not coincide with the views of the Fuhrer himself and, on top of everything else, he was involved in an anti-Hitler conspiracy. The doctor's arrest interrupted his further research.
So, what were Dr. Wirth's views on ? Comparing the anthropological appearance of Caucasians and North Americans, Wirth came to the conclusion that these two races are closely related.
If we consider Indians as a separate race and put typical representatives of all four races side by side, then the closest in anthropological characteristics will be Caucasian and Americanoid.
Americanoids, in turn, are divided into three subraces: North, Central and South American. The last two subraces have some features in their formation and appearance, the description of which is not our task.
Let's focus on the most typical ones, that is, for example, the prairie Indians. Here's a short summary of them general characteristics: moderately long-headed, tall, straight eyes, aquiline nose, faces more profiled in the horizontal plane, skin color from reddish-brown to almost light.
Among the Dakotas, Mandans, Zunis and other tribes, the discoverers encountered some absolutely amazing Indians: fair-haired, blue-eyed and almost white-skinned.
Researchers say that there were so many so-called “albinos” that no one was surprised by them. This was the case, for example, among the Cheyennes, Apaches, and Navajos. The American anthropologist Short writes about all this in his book “The Ancient Inhabitants of North America.”
The presence of “albinos” among Indians can hardly be explained by a naive theory about the consequences of isolation. The latest research no longer confirms this view of the origin of this phenomenon. Why, then, did not the pygmies who lived for centuries in complete isolation in the jungles of Central Africa “turn white”? In general, besides the basic skin color, the appearance of an Americanoid and a Caucasian has a lot in common.
He suggested: if the anthropological characteristics are so similar, then there must have been a contact territory on which the formation and interaction of these two races took place.
Hermann Wirth considered such a territory to be Arctogea, the Northern Continent adjacent to the North Pole, where, in his opinion, white humanity originated. The main territory of Arktogea subsequently sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, and its southern regions, according to some modern researchers, are part of the Russian North.
He wrote that one of the main characteristics of the white ancestral race was necessarily the first blood group, and later, a derivative of it, the second. In the Early Paleolithic, people began settling from Arktogea. The first wave reached America and the Indians are its descendants. Pure-blooded North American Indians exclusively have the first blood group and there are not even isolated cases of the third or fourth groups.
I believed that the resettlement took place directly to the American continent, but we, knowing newest discoveries archeology, we can assume that the Caucasian ancestors of the Indians first descended to the territory of Southern Siberia, where they acquired some Mongoloid characteristics and from there they subsequently began to move to the territory of America.
Consequently, before moving to America, Indians and Aryans in the distant past had a common ancestral home and common ancestors. This, in brief, was Dr. Wirth's view of the origin of the American race. We will not touch upon his entire theory about the origin of all human races, since it has a rather complex structure and its presentation is not part of our task.
So was Hermann Wirth right? Do we have common roots or not? There seems to be some wisdom in this theory. Let's think about it, after all, it is primarily related peoples and races that are predisposed to mutual rapprochement and influence. Mutual influence occurs despite all conflicts and wars.
If we consider the influence of the white Indians, one can only wonder how the “savages” could have such an influence on their opponents. The whites adopted from the Indians not only various agricultural crops, military tactics, but, most importantly, items of clothing and household items. Was there anything similar in the European colonies of Asia and Africa?
Of course, there were people who were interested in native culture and imitated the Arabs or Chinese in clothing, but these were a few, while the white trappers of the Wild West were often difficult to distinguish from the Indians. This means that Indian aesthetics turned out to be in many ways close to the white man. There are many similar examples that can be given.
On June 4, 1975, an interesting article appeared in the Pravda newspaper. Here is an excerpt: “An unknown Indian tribe was discovered by an expedition of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) in the state of Pará in northern Brazil. The white-skinned, blue-eyed Indians of this tribe, living in a dense tropical forest, are skilled fishermen and fearless hunters. To further study the way of life of the new tribe, the expedition members, led by Raimundo Alves, a specialist in the problems of Brazilian Indians, intend to conduct a detailed study of the life of this tribe.”
In the fall of the following year, Thor Heyerdahl also joined the topic: “The question of white and bearded people in pre-Columbian America has not yet been resolved, and it is on this that I am now concentrating my attention. To clarify this problem, I crossed the Atlantic on the papyrus boat “Ra-II”. I believe that here we are dealing with one of the early cultural impulses from the African-Asian region of the Mediterranean. I consider the mysterious “peoples of the sea” to be the most likely candidate for this role.
And here is how the Soviet Americanist L.A. Fainberg responded to all this: “Nowadays, not a single serious researcher would argue that there are white and dark Indians who differ in their origin. There are no white Indians in America."
Well there is no way. When German traveler XIX V. Heinrich Barth first discovered in the Sahara rock paintings moisture-loving animals and told about this in Europe, they also told him “no” and laughed at him. When Karl Mauch, another German researcher, shared with his colleagues his impressions of the giant structures of Zimbabwe, he was categorically told: no and cannot be. “No” would have been said to the Englishman Percy Fossett, who traveled around Brazil at the beginning of the twentieth century, if he... had not disappeared forever in the jungle, leaving only a book travel notes. The brave traveler’s contemporaries called it “The Unfinished Journey.”
So what was it really like with the white Indians in America? This may help clarify Fossett. We read in his diary: “White Indians live on Kari,” the manager told me. “My brother once went on a longboat up the Tauman, and at the very upper reaches of the river he was told that white Indians lived nearby. He did not believe it and only laughed at the people who said this, but still went on a boat and found unmistakable traces of their presence. Then he and his men were attacked by tall, handsome, well-built savages, they had pure white skin, red hair and blue eyes. They fought like devils, and when my brother killed one of them, the rest took the body and ran away." Another fragment: “I knew a man who met such an Indian,” the British consul told me. “These Indians are completely wild, and it is believed that they only come out at night.” That's why they are called "bats." “Where do they live? - I asked. - Somewhere in the area of the lost gold mines, either north or northwest of the Diamantinu River. No one knows their exact location. Mato Grosso is a very poorly explored country; no one has yet penetrated the mountainous regions in the north. Perhaps in a hundred years flying cars will be able to do this, who knows?
Everything seems to be clear, but... The distrust of eyewitness accounts, in particular travelers, is simply total! Yes, of course, there have been so many hoaxers and simply liars in recent years that one is amazed. But one should not confuse opportunists of the modern era and respected people of the past, who were interested not in sensations, but in scientific truth. Here is how, for example, Columbus wrote about the Indians on November 6, 1492: “My messengers report that after a long march they found a village with a thousand inhabitants. The locals greeted them with honors, settled them in the most beautiful houses, took care of their weapons, kissed their hands and feet, trying to make them understand in any way that they (the Spaniards - O.B.) are white people who came from God. About fifty residents asked my messengers to take them with them to heaven to the star gods.” This is the first mention of the worship of white gods among the American Indians. “They (the Spaniards) could do whatever they wanted and no one stopped them; they cut jade, smelted gold, and behind all this was Quetzalcoatl,” one Spanish chronicler wrote after Columbus.
And further researchers mentioned countless legends of the Indians of both Americas, which have survived practically unchanged to this day, which tell of the landing of white bearded people on their shores in ancient times. They brought the Indians the basics of knowledge, laws, civilization... They arrived on large strange ships with swan wings and a luminous hull. Approaching the shore, the ships landed people - blue-eyed and fair-haired - in robes of coarse black material and short gloves. They had snake-shaped ornaments on their foreheads. The Aztecs and Toltecs called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas - Kon-Tiki Viracocha, the Mayans - Kukulkai, the Chibcha Indians - Bochica. Many scholars are studying Indian oral literature. Over the years, extensive data, archaeological evidence and materials from medieval Spanish chronicles have been collected. Hypotheses are born and die...
The most interesting hypothesis is from the Swiss writer Erich von Däniken: “The white deities of the Indians are, of course, aliens from outer space.” This conclusion was not obtained just out of the blue, but on the basis of the theme that is constantly present in all legends about the coming of “white gods” from Heaven. One can, of course, agree with Daniken, a well-known admirer of the version of paleocontacts with aliens. But let's try to leave the aliens “for later” and try to explain the white Indians somehow simpler. Let us first call on the Spanish chronicles of the era of the conquistadors for help. Even from Columbus's notes it is clear with what respect the Indians treated white people. In 1519, Cortez's detachment walked freely through the jungle, rising to the Aztec capital. There was practically no hindrance to him. Why? It's all because of the legends! The Aztec priests calculated that the White God, who left them in the year of Que-Acatl, would return in the same “special” year, which repeats every 52 years. By a strange coincidence, Cortez landed in America just in such a year. He almost completely coincided with the legendary god in clothing. It is clear that the Indians did not doubt at all the divine affiliation of the conquistadors. And when they began to doubt, it was already too late...
Another interesting fact. The Aztec ruler Montezuma sent one of his dignitaries, Teutlila, to Cortez with a gift: a headdress filled with gold. When the envoy poured out the decorations in front of the Spaniards and everyone crowded in to look, Teutlile noticed among the conquistadors a man wearing a helmet trimmed with the finest gold plates. The helmet struck Teutlile. When Cortes invited him to take the return gift to Montezuma, Teutlila begged him to give only one thing - the helmet of that warrior: “I must show it to the ruler, for it looks exactly the same as the one that the white god once put on.” Cortez gave him the helmet with the wish that it be returned filled with gold.
To better understand the Indians, let's move forward in time and space - to Polynesia in the first centuries of our era. Modern scientists agree that the racial identity of the Polynesians is still unclear. Among them, to this day, there are often people with pronounced dolicocephaly (long-headed) and light pigmentation, like southern Europeans. Now the so-called has been discovered throughout Polynesia. Arab-Semitic type (Heyerdahl's term) with a straight nose, thin lips and straight red hair. It is characteristic that these features were noted by the first European travelers - from Easter Island to New Zealand, so it is simply impossible to talk about any later mixing with Europeans. This strange type of people, called "uru-keu" by the Polynesians, are believed to have descended from an ancient fair-skinned, white-haired "race of the gods" who originally inhabited the islands. On about. Easter, located very far from Polynesia, legends have been preserved that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing sixty days towards the setting sun. Today's islanders claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while others had dark skin and hair. This was also witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When in 1722 Fr. Easter was first visited by a Dutch frigate, then a white man climbed on board, among other inhabitants, and the Dutch wrote the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some have even red skin, like as if the sun was burning her.”
Thompson's notes (1880) are also very curious in this regard, which speaks of a country located, according to legend, sixty days' journey east of Fr. Easter. It was also called the “country of burials”: the climate there was so hot that people died and plants withered. From Fr. Easter to the west along the entire vast stretch to Southeast There is nothing in Asia that could fit this description: the shores of all the islands are covered with tropical forest. But in the east lie the coastal deserts of Peru, and nowhere else in the Pacific Ocean is there an area that better matches the descriptions of the legend than the Peruvian coast - both in name and in climate. There, along the deserted Pacific coast, there are numerous burial sites. Because The climate is very dry, it allowed modern scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there, which turned practically into mummies.
In theory, these mummies should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of ancient pre-Inca population of Peru? But the mummies only posed new mysteries: anthropologists identified the types of buried people as never before encountered in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two more large necropolises - on the Paracas Peninsula (south of the Peruvian coast). There were hundreds of mummies there. Radiocarbon analysis determined their age - 2200 years. Near the graves, large quantities of fragments of hardwood trees, which were usually used to build rafts, were found. These bodies also differed in structure from the basic physical type of the ancient Peruvian population. The American anthropologist Stewart then wrote about this: “This was a selected group of large people, absolutely not typical for the population of Peru.”
While Stewart was studying the bones, M. Trotter was analyzing the hair of nine mummies. Their color is mostly red-brown, but in some cases it is very light, almost golden. The hair of two mummies was generally different from the rest - it was curly. The shape of the hair cut is different for different mummies, and almost all shapes are found in the burial. As for the thickness, “it is smaller than that of other Indians, but not as small as that of the average European population (for example, the Dutch),” Trotter wrote in her conclusion. As you know, human hair does not change after death. They may become brittle, but neither the color nor the structure changes.
Francisco Pizarro also wrote about the Incas: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was light-skinned, the color of ripe wheat. Most of the nobles were surprisingly similar to the Spaniards. In this country I met an Indian woman so light-skinned that I was amazed. Neighbors call these people “children of the gods.” By the time the Spaniards arrived, there were about five hundred such representatives of the elite of Peruvian society and they spoke a special language. Chroniclers also report that eight rulers of the Inca dynasty were white and bearded, and their wives were “white as an egg.” One of the chroniclers, Garcillaso de la Vega, spoke of a burial in which he saw a mummy with hair as white as snow. But the man died young, so it wasn't gray hair. De la Vega was told that this was the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the Sun.
Having compared data about bright people in America and Polynesia with the legends of Fr. Easter about the homeland of the island’s aborigines, located in the east, suggests that white-skinned people went from America to Polynesia (and not vice versa, as some researchers believe). One proof of this is the similar custom of mummification of bodies in Polynesia and South America and the complete absence of it in Indonesia. Having spread on the shores of Peru, the method of mummification of the nobility was transferred by migrants (white?) to the scattered islands of Polynesia that were not suitable for this. It turns out that the white Indian deities lived in Peru? A superficial acquaintance with the vast and varied literature on the history of Peru is enough to find many references to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods.
Images of these deities stood in Inca temples. In the temple of Cuzco, which had been razed to the ground, there was a huge statue depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as what the Spanish artists painted at home,” wrote Pizarro. In the temple built in honor of Viracocha, there also stood the great god Kon-Tiki Viracocha - a man with a long beard and proud posture, wearing a long robe. The chronicler wrote that when the Spaniards saw this statue, they thought that Saint Bartholomew had reached Peru and the Indians created a monument in memory of this event. The conquistadors were so amazed by the strange statue that they did not destroy it immediately, and the temple for a time avoided the fate of other similar structures. But soon its fragments were taken away.
While exploring Peru, the Spaniards came across huge megalithic structures from pre-Inca times, which also lay in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. Those people arrived long before the Incas and settled here.” How strong and enduring this legend is is confirmed by the testimony of the modern Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who heard from the Indians who lived near the ruins that “these structures were created by a foreign people, white like the Europeans.”
Lake Titicaca turned out to be at the very center of the “activity” of the white god Viracocha, for all evidence agrees on one thing - there, on the lake, and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, was the residence of the god. “They also said,” writes de Leon, “that on the island of Titicaca in past centuries there lived a people, white like us, and one local leader named Kari with his people came to this island and waged war against this people and killed many.” . The white people left their buildings on the lake. “I asked the locals,” de Leon further writes, “if these buildings were created during the time of the Incas. They laughed at my question and said that they knew for certain that all this was done long before the power of the Incas. They saw bearded men on the island of Titicaca. These were people of subtle minds who came from an unknown country, and there were few of them, and many of them were killed in the war.”
The Frenchman Bandelier was also inspired by these legends at the end of the 19th century. and began excavations on Lake Titicaca. He was told that in ancient times people similar to Europeans came to the island, they married local women, and their children became Incas. The tribes before them lived the life of savages, but “a white man came and he had great authority. In many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in his honor they created temples and erected statues in them.” When the chronicler Betanzos, who took part in the first Peruvian campaigns of the Spaniards, asked the Indians what Viracocha looked like, they answered that he was tall, in a white robe down to his toes, his hair was secured on his head with something like a tonsure (?), he walked important and in his hands he was holding something similar to a prayer book (?). Where did Viracocha come from? There is no single answer to this question. “Many believe that his name is Inga Viracocha, and this means “sea foam,” notes the chronicler Zarate. According to the stories of the old Indians, he led his people across the sea.
Legends of the Chimu Indians tell that a white deity came from the north, from the sea, and then rose to Lake Titicaca. The “humanization” of Viracocha is most clearly manifested in those legends where various purely earthly qualities are attributed to him: they call him smart, cunning, kind, but at the same time they call him the Son of the Sun. The Indians claim that he sailed on reed boats to the shores of Lake Titicaca and created the megalithic city of Tiahuanaco. From here he sent bearded ambassadors to all corners of Peru to teach people and tell them that he was their creator. But, in the end, dissatisfied with the behavior of the inhabitants, he left their lands - he went down with his associates to the Pacific coast and went by sea to the west along with the sun. As we see, they went towards Polynesia, but came from the north.
In the mountains of Colombia lived another mysterious people - the Chibcha, who had reached a high level of culture before the arrival of the Spaniards. His legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochica with the same description as that of the Incas. He ruled it for many years and was also called Sua, that is, “sun”. He came to them from the east.
In Venezuela and neighboring areas there are also legends about the presence of a mysterious wanderer there who taught the locals how to farm. They called him Tsuma (or Sume) there. According to legend, he ordered all the people to gather around a high rock, stood on it and told them laws and instructions. After living with people, he left them.
The Kuna Indians live in the area of today's Panama Canal. Their legends also include someone who, after a great flood, came and taught them crafts. In Mexico, at the time of the Spanish invasion, the high civilization of the Aztecs was blooming. From Anahuac (Texas) to Yucotan, the Aztecs spoke of the white god Quetzalcoatl. According to legend, he was the fifth ruler of the Toltecs, came from the Land of the Rising Sun (of course, the Aztecs did not mean Japan) and wore a long cape. He ruled for a long time in Tollan, prohibiting human sacrifice, preaching peace and vegetarianism. But this did not last long: the devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses, and he left the country in a southern direction.
Cortez’s Carta Segunda contains an excerpt from Montezuma’s speech: “We know from the writings handed down to us by our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else who inhabits this country are its original inhabitants. We come from other lands. We also know that we descend from the ruler, whose subordinates we were. He came to this country, he again wanted to leave and take his people with him. But they had already married local women, built houses and did not want to go with him. And he left. Since then we have been waiting for him to return someday. Just from the direction you came from, Cortez.” We already know what price the Aztecs paid for their “come true” dream...
As scientists have proven, the neighbors of the Aztecs - the Mayans - also did not always live in today's places, but migrated from other areas. The Mayans themselves say that their ancestors came twice. The first time was the largest migration - from overseas, from the east, from where 12 thread-paths were laid, and Itzamna led them. Another, smaller group came from the west, and among them was Kukulkan. They all had flowing robes, sandals, long beards and bare heads. Kukulkan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapac and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans how to use weapons. And again, as in Peru, he leaves the country and goes towards the setting sun.
The Indians who lived in the Tabasco jungle have similar legends. They keep information about Wotan, who came from the Yucatan regions. In ancient times, Wotan came from the East. He was sent by the gods to divide the earth, distribute it to human races and give each its own language. The country from which he came was called Valum Votan. The myth ends very strangely: “When the time of sad departure finally came, he did not go through the valley of death, like all mortals, but passed through a cave into the underworld.”
To summarize, it turns out that the white bearded god walked from the shores of Yucatan through all of Central and South America to the Peruvian coast and sailed west towards Polynesia. This is evidenced by Indian legends and early Spanish chronicles. Is there any archaeological evidence left? Or maybe the white-skinned and bearded aliens were just a ghost, a product of the fevered imagination of the Indians?
Yes, there is evidence that the medieval Spaniards did not destroy all the statues; the Indians managed to hide some. When archaeologist Bennett was excavating in Tiahuanaco in 1932, he came across a red stone figurine depicting the god Kon-Tiki Viracocha in a long robe with a beard. His robe was decorated with horned snakes and two pumas - symbols of the supreme deity in Mexico and Peru. This figurine was identical to the one found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, precisely on the peninsula closest to the island of the same name. Other similar sculptures were found around the lake. On the Peruvian coast, Viracocha was immortalized in ceramics and drawings. The authors of these drawings are the early Chimu and Mochica. Similar finds are found in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador. (Note that bearded images were noted by A. Humboldt, looking at the drawings of ancient manuscripts stored in the Imperial Library of Vienna in 1810.) Colored fragments of the frescoes of the Chichen Itza temples have also reached us, telling about the naval battle of black and white people. These drawings have not yet been solved.
So, the white bearded deities of the Indians: Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Gugumats, Bochika, Sua... Only a small part of the ancient Indian legends has been told and only some evidence from chroniclers has been given. Undoubtedly, a wide range of sources indicate the spread of a light-pigmented population in the New World. But when was this? Where did it come from? How could this Caucasian (as Heyerdahl defined it) minority maintain its racial type during a long migration from Mexico to Peru and Polynesia, passing through areas inhabited by numerous Indian tribes? The last question can be answered by simply mentioning European gypsies - the situation was approximately the same. Strict adherence to endogamy—marriage within an ethnic group—contributed to the preservation anthropological type. “They say that the sun married his sister and ordered his children to do the same,” says an Indian legend recorded in 1609. But what do modern scientists say about all this? And scientists say: “There are no white Indians that Fossett writes about in his book in America.” Apparently, there still is. In 1926, the American ethnographer Harris studied the Indians of San Blas and wrote that they had hair the color of flax and straw and the build of a white man. More recently, the French explorer Homais described an encounter with the Waika Indian tribe, whose hair was chestnut. “The so-called white race,” he wrote, “has, even with a superficial examination, a mass of representatives among the Amazonian Indians.” The American jungle has the ability to isolate no less than an island, and centuries-old isolation.
So who were these white bearded gods? Aliens? Or representatives of bygone ancient civilizations? Who are these ancient creators of megalithic structures of the Old and New Worlds? "Sea Peoples"? Cretans? Phoenicians? Who will answer these questions if official science speaks in the words of Chekhov: “This cannot be, because it can never happen!” ***The article uses materials from the magazine “Secrets of Ages”.
What did the indigenous people of North and South America really look like? What basis did the legends about the White Gods have in Indian civilizations?
South America
In 1976, the famous traveler Thor Heyerdahl wrote: “The question of white and bearded people in pre-Columbian America has not yet been resolved, and it is on this that I am now concentrating my attention. To clarify this problem, I crossed the Atlantic on the papyrus boat “Ra-II”. I believe that here we are dealing with one of the early cultural impulses from the African-Asian region of the Mediterranean. I consider the mysterious “peoples of the sea” to be the most likely candidate for this role.
Certificate Percival Harrison Fawcett(1867 - 1925) - British topographer and traveler, lieutenant colonel. Fawcett disappeared under unknown circumstances along with his son in 1925 during an expedition to discover a lost city in the Brazilian countryside.
This is the first mention of the worship of white gods among the American Indians. “They (the Spaniards) could do whatever they wanted and no one stopped them; they cut jade, smelted gold, and behind all this was Quetzalcoatl,” one Spanish chronicler wrote after Columbus.
In both Americas, there are countless legends that have survived virtually unchanged to this day, which tell of the landing of white bearded people on the shores of the Indians in ancient times. They brought the Indians the basics of knowledge, laws, civilization... They arrived on large strange ships with swan wings and a luminous hull. Approaching the shore, the ships landed people - blue-eyed and fair-haired - in robes of coarse black material and short gloves. They had snake-shaped ornaments on their foreheads. The Aztecs and Toltecs called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas - Kon-Tiki Viracocha, the Mayans - Kukulkai, the Chibcha Indians - Bochica.
Francisco Pizarro about the Incas: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was light-skinned, the color of ripe wheat. Most of the nobles were surprisingly similar to the Spaniards. In this country I met an Indian woman so light-skinned that I was amazed. Neighbors call these people “children of the gods.” By the time the Spaniards arrived, there were about five hundred such representatives of the elite of Peruvian society and they spoke a special language. Chroniclers also report that eight rulers of the Incan dynasty were white and bearded, and their wives were “white as an egg.” One of the chroniclers, Garcillaso de la Vega, spoke of a burial in which he saw a mummy with hair as white as snow. But the man died young, so it wasn't gray hair. De la Vega was told that this was the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the Sun.
In 1926, the American ethnographer Harris studied the Indians of San Blas and wrote that they had hair the color of flax and straw and the build of a white man.
The French explorer Homais described an encounter with the Waika Indian tribe, whose hair was chestnut. “The so-called white race,” he wrote, “has, even with a superficial examination, a mass of representatives among the Amazonian Indians.”
On Easter Island there are legends that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing sixty days towards the setting sun. Today's islanders claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while others had dark skin and hair. This was also witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When in 1722 Fr. Easter was first visited by a Dutch frigate, then a white man climbed on board, among other inhabitants, and the Dutch wrote the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some have even red skin, like as if the sun was burning her.”
Thompson's notes (1880) are also very curious in this regard, which speaks of a country located, according to legend, sixty days' journey east of Fr. Easter. It was also called the “country of burials”: the climate there was so hot that people died and plants withered. From Fr. Easter to the west, along the entire vast stretch to Southeast Asia, there is nothing that could correspond to this description: the shores of all the islands are covered with tropical forest. But in the east lie the coastal deserts of Peru, and nowhere else in the Pacific Ocean is there an area that better matches the descriptions of the legend than the Peruvian coast - both in name and in climate. There, along the deserted Pacific coast, there are numerous burial sites. Because The climate is very dry, it allowed modern scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there, which turned practically into mummies.
In theory, these mummies should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of ancient pre-Inca population of Peru? But the mummies only posed new mysteries: anthropologists identified the types of buried people as never before encountered in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two more large necropolises - on the Paracas Peninsula (south of the Peruvian coast). There were hundreds of mummies there. Radiocarbon analysis determined their age - 2200 years. Near the graves, large quantities of fragments of hardwood trees, which were usually used to build rafts, were found. These bodies also differed in structure from the basic physical type of the ancient Peruvian population. The American anthropologist Stewart then wrote about this: “This was a selected group of large people, absolutely not typical for the population of Peru.”
While Stewart was studying the bones, M. Trotter was analyzing the hair of nine mummies. Their color is mostly red-brown, but in some cases it is very light, almost golden. The hair of two mummies was generally different from the rest - it was curly. The shape of the hair cut is different for different mummies, and almost all shapes are found in the burial. As for the thickness, “it is smaller than that of other Indians, but not as small as that of the average European population (for example, the Dutch),” Trotter wrote in her conclusion. As you know, human hair does not change after death. They may become brittle, but neither the color nor the structure changes.
A superficial acquaintance with the vast and varied literature on the history of Peru is enough to find many references to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods.
Images of these deities stood in Inca temples. In the temple of Cuzco, razed to the ground, there was a huge statue depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as what the Spanish artists painted at home,” wrote the Spanish conquistador Pizarro. In the temple built in honor of Viracocha, there also stood the great god Kon-Tiki Viracocha - a man with a long beard and proud posture, wearing a long robe. The chronicler wrote that when the Spaniards saw this statue, they thought that Saint Bartholomew had reached Peru and the Indians created a monument in memory of this event. The conquistadors were so amazed by the strange statue that they did not destroy it immediately, and the temple for a time avoided the fate of other similar structures. But soon its fragments were taken away.
While exploring Peru, the Spaniards came across huge megalithic structures from pre-Inca times, which also lay in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. Those people arrived long before the Incas and settled here.” How strong and enduring this legend is is confirmed by the testimony of the modern Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who heard from the Indians who lived near the ruins that “these structures were created by a foreign people, white like the Europeans.”
Lake Titicaca turned out to be at the very center of the “activity” of the white god Viracocha, for all evidence agrees on one thing - there, on the lake, and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, was the residence of the god. “They also said,” writes de Leon, “that on the island of Titicaca in past centuries there lived a people, white like us, and one local leader named Kari with his people came to this island and waged war against this people and killed many.” . The white people left their buildings on the lake. “I asked the locals,” de Leon further writes, “if these buildings were created during the time of the Incas. They laughed at my question and said that they knew for certain that all this was done long before the power of the Incas. They saw bearded men on the island of Titicaca. These were people of subtle minds who came from an unknown country, and there were few of them, and many of them were killed in the war.”
The Frenchman Bandelier was also inspired by these legends at the end of the 19th century. and began excavations on Lake Titicaca. He was told that in ancient times people similar to Europeans came to the island, they married local women, and their children became Incas. The tribes before them lived the life of savages, but “a white man came and he had great authority. In many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in his honor they created temples and erected statues in them.” When the chronicler Betanzos, who took part in the first Peruvian campaigns of the Spaniards, asked the Indians what Viracocha looked like, they answered that he was tall, in a white robe down to his toes, his hair was secured on his head with something like a tonsure (?), he walked important and in his hands he was holding something similar to a prayer book (?). Where did Viracocha come from? There is no single answer to this question. “Many believe that his name is Inga Viracocha, and this means “sea foam”,” notes the chronicler Zarate. According to the stories of the old Indians, he led his people across the sea.
Legends of the Chimu Indians tell that a white deity came from the north, from the sea, and then rose to Lake Titicaca. The “humanization” of Viracocha is most clearly manifested in those legends where various purely earthly qualities are attributed to him: they call him smart, cunning, kind, but at the same time they call him the Son of the Sun. The Indians claim that he sailed on reed boats to the shores of Lake Titicaca and created the megalithic city of Tiahuanaco. From here he sent bearded ambassadors to all corners of Peru to teach people and tell them that he was their creator. But, in the end, dissatisfied with the behavior of the inhabitants, he left their lands - he went down with his associates to the Pacific coast and went by sea to the west along with the sun. As we see, they went towards Polynesia, but came from the north.
In the mountains of Colombia lived another mysterious people - the Chibcha, who had reached a high level of culture before the arrival of the Spaniards. His legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochica with the same description as that of the Incas. He ruled it for many years and was also called Sua, that is, “sun”. He came to them from the east.
In Venezuela and neighboring areas there are also legends about the presence of a mysterious wanderer there who taught the locals how to farm. They called him Tsuma (or Sume) there. According to legend, he ordered all the people to gather around a high rock, stood on it and told them laws and instructions. After living with people, he left them.
The Kuna Indians live in the area of today's Panama Canal. Their legends also include someone who, after a great flood, came and taught them crafts. In Mexico, at the time of the Spanish invasion, the high civilization of the Aztecs was blooming. From Anahuac (Texas) to Yucotan, the Aztecs spoke of the white god Quetzalcoatl. According to legend, he was the fifth ruler of the Toltecs, came from the Land of the Rising Sun (of course, the Aztecs did not mean Japan) and wore a long cape. He ruled for a long time in Tollan, prohibiting human sacrifice, preaching peace and vegetarianism. But this did not last long: the devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses, and he left the country in a southern direction.
Cortez’s Carta Segunda contains an excerpt from Montezuma’s speech: “We know from the writings handed down to us by our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else who inhabits this country are its original inhabitants. We come from other lands. We also know that we descend from the ruler, whose subordinates we were. He came to this country, he again wanted to leave and take his people with him. But they had already married local women, built houses and did not want to go with him. And he left. Since then we have been waiting for him to return someday. Just from the direction you came from, Cortez.” It is known what price the Aztecs paid for their “come true” dream...
As scientists have proven, the neighbors of the Aztecs - the Mayans - also did not always live in today's places, but migrated from other areas. The Mayans themselves say that their ancestors came twice. The first time was the largest migration - from overseas, from the east, from where 12 thread-paths were laid, and Itzamna led them. Another, smaller group came from the west, and among them was Kukulkan. They all had flowing robes, sandals, long beards and bare heads. Kukulkan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapac and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans how to use weapons. And again, as in Peru, he leaves the country and goes towards the setting sun.
The Indians who lived in the Tabasco jungle have similar legends. They keep information about Wotan, who came from the Yucatan regions. In ancient times, Wotan came from the East. He was sent by the gods to divide the earth, distribute it to human races and give each its own language. The country from which he came was called Valum Votan. The myth ends very strangely: “When the time of sad departure finally came, he did not go through the valley of death, like all mortals, but passed through a cave into the underworld.”
Yes, there is evidence that the medieval Spaniards did not destroy all the statues; the Indians managed to hide some. When archaeologist Bennett was excavating in Tiahuanaco in 1932, he came across a red stone figurine depicting the god Kon-Tiki Viracocha in a long robe with a beard. His robe was decorated with horned snakes and two pumas - symbols of the supreme deity in Mexico and Peru. This figurine was identical to the one found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, precisely on the peninsula closest to the island of the same name. Other similar sculptures were found around the lake. On the Peruvian coast, Viracocha was immortalized in ceramics and drawings. The authors of these drawings are the early Chimu and Mochica. Similar finds are found in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador. (Note that bearded images were noted by A. Humboldt, looking at the drawings of ancient manuscripts stored in the Imperial Library of Vienna in 1810.) Colored fragments of the frescoes of the Chichen Itza temples have also reached us, telling about the naval battle of black and white people. These drawings have not yet been solved.
North America
Recently, geneticists found that among the “Indians” of America there are representatives of the DNA haplogroup R1a. They, without any hesitation, were called the descendants of European Jews, Ashkenazi Levites, the remnants of the ten lost tribes of Israel... However, for some reason, the lost tribes - "Indians" still live in reservations, essentially in modern-type concentration camps, and defenders of Jewish rights this is not at all disturbing, nor was their destruction in earlier history.
There is every reason to believe that representatives of this haplogroup are the remnants of the indigenous population of the American continent.
It is traditionally believed that North American “Indians” are naked, red-skinned, beardless, and beardless savages. However, if you look at these photographs of North American "Indians" of the 19th century, the generally accepted picture changes somewhat
