Chachapoya - white Indians. The mystery of the white Indians Chachapoya Indians - in search of clues

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, and each of the theorists chooses 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 is their brief 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 Dakota, Mandan, Zuni 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.

He believed that the resettlement took place directly to the American continent, but we, knowing the latest discoveries of archeology, 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.

Any major scientific or geographical discovery is prepared by hundreds and thousands of people, but the palm goes to only one, rarely two or three chosen ones of fortune. In this regard, the history of the discovery of the American continent does not shine with originality. The ancients guessed about the existence of the mysterious land and, it is possible, reached it. Given the reliability of the watercraft of that time, only a few lucky people could cross the ocean and even return back. The second time they could no longer find their way there, and new attempts ended in nothing.

For a number of reasons, small merchant Domenico Colon changed his faith and along with it his surname. So his son Cristobal became Christopher Columbus. His father's shop stood near the Genoese harbor, and little Christopher spent all his free time there and in the shipyards. The stories of experienced sailors fell on fertile soil. The teenager is hired on a ship as a cabin boy, soon becomes a full-fledged sailor, and then quickly makes a naval career. Moreover, work on merchant ships is intricately combined with pirate work, which, in general, was typical for the 15th-16th centuries. It was a rare captain who did not have corsair experience. Equally, sea wolves did not suffer from patriotism. They worked, pirated, fought for those and for those who paid more, often against their own country. True, in such cases they did not stand on ceremony with their fellow countrymen and, without trial or investigation, they hanged them on yards. Columbus was a typical maritime landsknecht of his time.

At the age of 21, Christopher became the captain of a corsair ship, then fought against his native Genoa under the French flag. Victories alternate with defeats, his ships are sunk twice, but Columbus was born under a lucky star and both times escapes the noose. The last time he takes refuge in Portugal. His brother Bartolomeo lives in Lisbon, who persuades Christopher to settle in this country. According to my brother, important sea expeditions are planned in Portugal, and it will be possible to get interesting work and earn good money.

Christopher follows the advice and sits down to study astronomy, mathematics, cosmography and Latin. To his greatest surprise, he learns that the earth is round.

From this postulate, the inquisitive corsair makes a discovery for himself: if this is so, then it is possible to sail to China (India) by circumnavigating the globe. In 1484, the King of Portugal received a proposal from Columbus to equip an expedition to find the shortest route to China and India. The project has been lost in the labyrinths of the royal court for eight years. Disappointed Columbus goes to the Queen of Spain with the same idea. Isabella turned out to be more agile than her Portuguese colleague, and on August 3, 1492, a squadron of three ships - “Nina”, “Pinta” and “Santa Maria” - set sail from the coast of Spain. Columbus sailed into history...

For over 500 years, Columbus has been on the pedestal of the discoverer of America and is unlikely to be overthrown from there. It is, of course, possible to rewrite history, but it is troublesome, politically and economically inexpedient. Ships, universities, museums, cities and even an entire country are named after him. Public holidays have been established in his honor in the USA, Canada and Colombia. And change everything, for what?

Politicians, of course, do not need this. But there are people for whom it is not momentary considerations that are important, but Her Majesty the Truth. Having nothing against Columbus, researchers prove again and again that the Genoese was not the first to appear on the American continent.

Before him there were dozens of nameless pioneers from Scandinavia, Scotland, Portugal, and other countries, among the dignitaries - the Viking king Eric the Red (1289), the Scottish prince Henry Sinclair (1398), and the very first of the first, Prince Madoc of Wales (1170th year).

Wales was almost constantly at war with someone, and Madoc gained well-deserved fame in the field of naval battles. But a military career was his responsibility, and his real passion was the desire for sea adventures and the discovery of new lands. In between battles, Madoc travels from Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland in the north to the Caribbean islands in the south.

The romantic prince does not suspect that he is already approaching the fabulous land of Acuzamil from the ancient Celtic legends about America.

There should be a “fountain of eternal youth” and a “river nymph”, a girl of unearthly beauty, with whom Madoc is in absentia in love. The next expedition to America in 1170 turned out to be the last; not a single ship and not a single person from the squad returned to Galway harbor. Few believed in the death of such an experienced navigator, and the Celts decided that the prince had found Akusamil, the fountain and the nymph.

During his second voyage to America, Columbus discovers the remains of three ancient ships off the coast of Dominica and Guadeloupe. Judging by the design, they were European, most likely Welsh. There is an entry about this find in the ship logs of the Spanish caravels. Columbus knew what he wrote. During the expedition to Iceland he had a long stop in Galway. There he studied Celtic ships and heard a lot about Prince Madoc. As a sign of the merits of his predecessor, Columbus wrote “Celtic Sea” on one of the maps of the new continent with his own hand. Now it is difficult to judge the true intentions of the Genoese, but Columbus has little personal “guilt” in the fact that he was recognized as the discoverer of America. According to the famous papal decree (Law of Premier Seisin), the right to “stake out” new lands had only Christians.

A legion of fortune seekers poured into America following the path trodden by Columbus. The main task of the conquistadors was to expand the possessions of the Spanish crown, and on a personal level - to return to their homeland rich. Neither ocean storms, nor diseases, nor the jungle, nor the danger of being killed by Indians could stop those who wanted to reach the fabulous country of Eldorado. After the conquest of Cuba, the governor of the island, Diego Velazquez, sent an expedition of three ships to Yucatan under the command of Francis Cordoba in 1511. Cordoba's squad was defeated by a warlike local tribe. The survivors reported to the governor that the Yucatan Indians were not like other Caribbean aborigines. They are dressed in cotton clothes, live in good houses, cultivate fields and seem to be sitting on gold and silver.

The second attempt to conquer Yucatan turns out to be more successful. In 1519, conquistador Hernando Cortes completely defeated the Indians, little gold was found, but the natives paid off the Spaniards with twenty virgins. One of them, Marina, quickly mastered Spanish and became Cortez's personal translator. Donna Marina played an extremely important role in the Spanish expedition into Mexico.

She told the conquistador about the fabulous riches of the Aztec ruler Montezuma II, but they could not be taken by force, only by cunning. The best way is for Cortes to play the role of the god Quetzalcoatl. Marina's advice turned out to be sensible.

Unlike Cortes, Prince Madoc did not play the role of a god. The Aztecs themselves mistook him for Quetzalcoatl. After Madoc reaches the Caribbean islands, he decides to land in Yucatan. What made him go deep into the continent is unlikely to be known. Death of ships? Adventurism? Treasure hunt? Chasing the dream of life - the fountain of eternal youth and the river nymph? It is possible that the squad got lost in the jungles and mountains and then moved deeper into an unfamiliar continent due to certain circumstances.

Cortez is impatient to take possession of the Aztec treasures. He takes Montezuma prisoner, the emperor is at a loss: what does this strange god want? When Quetzalcoatl was with them three centuries ago, the Aztecs were at war with the Toltecs and Montezuma the First asked God to hide huge treasures from their enemies. God took them and never returned. Only he knows where these riches are now. As a result, Cortez is content with little booty. Eldorado, which was just a stone's throw away, disappears again into the jungle of this wild country. And, judging by the descriptions, the treasures of Montezuma were taken away by a European, whom the Aztecs took for a god, so that he would be empty!

The majority of Aboriginal tribes did not know writing, so the main source of information about the history of the Indians is oral folklore.

Scientists treat Indian legends with caution as scientific evidence, but when the same stories are repeated in the legends of different tribes, the reliability of the hypothesis increases. Information about white Indians is found in the folklore of the Aztecs, Cherokees, Delawares, Sioux, Shawnees... Secondary, but of great scientific help are records of legends and stories made by researchers during the initial development of America, reports of officials, and other written documents. I repeat, for some unclear reasons, Prince Madoc’s squad from Mexico headed north. Her descendants moved deeper into the modern United States over several centuries. Footprints " white Indians"

In November 1849, 300 new Mormons arrived in Salt Lake City from North Wales. Having settled in, the newcomers told the old-timers the Celtic legend about Prince Madoc and his journey to America in 1170. The outline of the legend amazingly coincided with the story of Lehi and his sons from the Book of Mormons. According to it, long before Columbus, a colony of people left Britain, reached Mexico and then settled in Utah. So, it turns out that Madoc's vigilantes were the first Mormons?

The cartographic collection in Seville, Spain contains a 1519 map made by Diego Ribeiro. He designated the modern city of Mobile Bay in Alabama “Terra de los Gales” - “Land of the Gauls.” The Celts in Europe were known as Gauls. Here is a quote from a letter from Tennessee Governor John Seaver to historian Amos Stoddard (1810): “In 1782 I participated in a campaign against the Cherokees and on their territory I discovered traces of ancient fortifications. Chief Ocanosta told me that here, on the banks of the Hiawassee and Tennessee Rivers, there once lived a strange tribe of white Indians who called themselves the Welshes.

In ancient times, they crossed the Big Water and remained to live at the mouth of the Alabama River.

Then there was a three-year war between them and the Cherokees, and the whites went to the Big (Mississippi) and Muddy (Missouri) rivers. Since then nothing has been known about them.”

The existence of white Indians is evidenced by the well-known story of the Delaware “Walam Olum” in the scientific world - the Indian analogue of “Kalevala” - recorded in the 19th century by Constantin Rafinescu, a professor at Transylvania University (Lexington, Kentucky). The same conclusions are drawn from the official archaeological observations of the future ninth US President William Harrison, and the travel notes of the famous American explorers Lewis and Clark. The hero of the War of Independence, General Roger Clark, and the founder of the Kentucky Historical Society, John Filson, are seriously interested in white Indians. But a special and, perhaps, the most significant contribution to the body of knowledge about white Indians was made by the artist of the first half of the 19th century, George Catlin.

A lawyer by training, Catlin left his profession for painting; the main subject of his drawings and paintings were Indians. The artist visited 48 tribes in America. Over 500 of his paintings are a valuable ethnographic document. Leaders, warriors, women, children pose for him, he draws Indian villages, collects decorations and household items, studies languages and customs. Among some tribes the artist lives for several years, in particular among the Mandans, near St. Louis.

The French explorer Pierre Gaultier first met this tribe, then Lewis and Clark. The observations of Gauthier, Lewis, Clark and Catlin were remarkably consistent. The Mandans were unlike any other Indian tribe.

They could not be completely classified as the white race; the majority were dark, but not dark in the Indian way, but like deeply tanned whites. Their tall stature and facial features are atypical for Indians; many have a European cut, gray eyes and light, sometimes even red, hair. Catlin's portraits feature Indians who bear a striking resemblance to Vikings and women with blue or gray eyes.

The Mandans had a typical Indian way of life, but at a higher level than the traditional tribes. Better housing, weapons and tools made of iron, beautiful decorations. The boats are not the usual pies, but have an unexpected round shape. The Mandans were partial to music and played an instrument similar to a harp. But the most striking thing was the language of the tribe. The list of linguistic overlaps with Celtic is very long. To illustrate, I will give a few words with the same, or similar, sound. The Celtic words come first, then the Mandan words, and finally the Russian translation.

Prydferth - prydfa - beautiful

Buwch - buch - cow

Tad - taid - father

Tefyn - tefyn - harp

Nant - nant - river

Hen - hen - old

In 1837, regular visitors brought anthrax to the Mandans, and out of 15 thousand people, only a few dozen remained. One day the Mandans left their place and disappeared in an unknown direction. There is an assumption that they went to St. Louis and its environs, where they disappeared among the urban population.

The last of the white Indians lived on the falls of the Ohio River on Rose Island between Indiana and Kentucky. In 1838, the red Shawnee Indians slaughtered almost all the whites. Just like in the Russian Civil War.

This is where the story of Madoc's squad ends, but the trace of the white Indians in history does not end. We will never be destined to know how and where the Odyssey of the real discoverer of America, Prince Madoc, ended; we can only speculate what happened to his squad. Most likely, it fell apart and went in different directions. Some Celts carried the language and traditions of their distant homeland through the centuries, others, to one degree or another, assimilated into the Indian masses. From the descendants of Madok, practically nothing remains of material culture: rare tools, helmets, clay vessels, some jewelry - that’s all. The boats rotted, the huts collapsed, the forts were torn down into houses and outbuildings by the pioneers of the exploration of America. Only the ruins of several forts have survived on private lands, including in the vicinity of the Kentucky cities of Louisville, Bardstown and Berea.

On July 17, 1912, a bloody drama occurred in New Albany. 18-year-old dunce George slit the throat of his own grandmother, 79-year-old Mary Kelly. Having taken possession of one hundred dollars, the grandson spent the money on whiskey, and when the police were on his trail, he committed suicide by drinking a strong toxic chemical. In general, a banal everyday crime, if not for the grandmother’s family history. Mary was the granddaughter of Black Hawk, chief of the Shawnee tribe in Indiana Territory. Even as a child, she heard stories from her grandfather and mother about white Indians. The Shawnees and the Palefaces coexisted peacefully for several generations, until one day the Redskins learned amazing news: many centuries ago, the whites came to the shores of Ohio from Mexico and brought with them the countless treasures of the Aztec leader Montezuma.

Question for the erudites: where is the largest coral reef in the world?.. Answer: not near the coast of Mexico or Australia, but in the south of Indiana, far from the seas and oceans. Once upon a time there was an ocean in the place of Indiana and Kentucky, and as a reminder of himself, he left a reef and a mass of karst caves - an ideal place for storing treasures.

Black Hawk did not tempt fate and lived to be 99 years old; he died in 1871 and was buried in Clarksville, Indiana. But having married a white petty employee, Valentine Kelly, Mary once shared a terrible secret with her husband. From that moment on, the official seemed to be replaced, he turned into a speleologist and a passionate treasure hunter. Kelly never found the Indian treasure, but people said that he had pocketed money from the Indiana Bank. A poor official suddenly buys a good-quality house and a large plot of land. After the Civil War, gangsters robbed a bank and took possession of a huge sum for those times - ten thousand dollars. A few days later, the robbers were shot during a chase, but they had no money. Most likely, they were hidden in one of the karst caves.

Look for the wind in the field! The curse of Chief Yellow Hair overtook Valentine Kelly a few years later - he died under the wheels of a train.

Then his wife Mary and nephew George die. In the Kelly family, mysterious and tragic deaths follow one after another. During one of the frequent floods, a large landslide occurs on the Kelly site, and about fifty sedentary dead people in helmets and armor appear in the light of day. Local residents dubbed this churchyard “the cemetery of kings.” In addition to all the misfortunes, the owners of the house are plagued by ghosts. Not wanting to live in a cursed place, the Kellys sell the house and land and leave for Arizona. At one time, the Kellys, along with the land, bought a strange structure, something like the remains of a huge fortress or fort. The new owners demolished the ruins and sold the stones for the foundation of a bridge over the Ohio River. Sixty construction workers died during the construction of the Louisville Bridge...

This article is based on the work and personal stories of Indian local historian Dan Olson. Olson does not consider himself a scientist, although the material he collected is very convincing: a solid bibliography, museum abstracts and reviews from experts, ancient nautical and geographical maps, copies of paintings and drawings, a collection of artifacts on the topic.

In parting, I ask Olson if he believes that descendants of Prince Madoc and the white Indians could remain in America.

“My messengers report,” the great traveler wrote on November 6, 1492, “that after a long march they found a village consisting of 1000 inhabitants. The locals greeted them with honors, settled them in the best houses, took care of their weapons, kissed their hands and feet, trying to make it clear in any way that they (the Spaniards. - Auto.) - white people who came from God. About 50 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 inhabitants of the New World. Countless legends of the Indians of both Americas tell that once white bearded gods, blue-eyed and blond-haired, arrived on the shores of their continent on large strange ships. They brought the Indians the basics of knowledge, laws, and the beginnings of culture. The Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico called their white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas called Kon-Tiki Viracocha, and the Mayans called Kukulcan.

Columbus's letter clearly shows the reverence and respect that was shown to the first Europeans on American soil. The powerful Aztec civilization, with an excellent military organization and a population of millions, fell to a handful of Spaniards. In 1519, Cortez's detachment walked freely through the jungle to the Aztec capital. He was not interfered with. Pizarro's conquistadors, who conquered Peru, also used the misconceptions of the Incas, marveling at the strange behavior of the Indians - they offered almost no resistance to the white newcomers.

The Indians saw the Europeans as returning “white gods.” »

Scientists have been studying this problem for many years. Extensive data from the oral tradition of Indian tribes of Central and South America, archaeological evidence and materials from medieval Spanish chronicles have been collected. One after another, hypotheses are born. Many researchers either try to connect the “white gods” with the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean (Crito-Minoans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, etc.), or delve into the wilds they themselves invented (Atlantis, aliens from outer space and other nonsense) . But in recent decades, in search of the place of origin of the “white gods”, scientists are increasingly beginning to turn their gaze to the Pacific Ocean...

In Peru, on the deserted Pacific coast, archaeologists have discovered numerous ancient necropolises. The dry climate allowed scientists to study the remains found there in detail. According to initial assumptions, the ancient mummies should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of the ancient pre-Inca population of Peru? However, everything happened exactly the opposite: the mummies asked scientists new riddles. Having opened the burials, anthropologists discovered types of people there that had not previously been encountered in ancient America.

In 1925, archaeologists discovered two large necropolises containing hundreds of mummies on the Paracas Peninsula on the south-central Peruvian coast. Radiocarbon analysis determined the age of these burials - 2200 years. Near the graves, researchers found large quantities of fragments of hard trees, which were usually used in the construction of rafts. When the burials were opened, a striking difference between the mummies and the main physical type of the ancient Peruvian population was discovered.

According to the American anthropologist Stewart, “this was a separate group of people, completely atypical for the population of Peru.” While Stewart was studying the remains of these people, Peruvian anthropologist M. Trotger was analyzing the hair of nine mummies. According to her, their color in general was red-brown, but in some cases the samples yielded very light, almost golden hair color. And the hair of two mummies was completely different from the rest - it curled! Trotger further established that the cut of hair is different for different mummies, and almost all forms are found in the burial...

Another indicator is hair thickness. It is smaller here than among other Indians, but not as small as among the average European population, for example the Dutch. Trotger herself, a supporter of the theory of monoracial settlement of America, tried to justify such an unexpected observation for herself by the fact that death supposedly changes the shape of hair. But another authority in this field, the English anthropologist Dawson, objected to her: “I believe that after death there are no significant changes in hair. Curly ones stay curly, straight ones stay straight. Yes, after death they become brittle, but there are no color changes.”

Findings on the Paracas Peninsula made scientists remember what the famous conquistador Francisco Pizarro wrote about the Incas: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was fair-skinned, with skin 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. The neighbors call these people children of the gods”...

There were about five hundred such “nobles” - members of the royal family - when the Spaniards arrived. Chroniclers 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, Garcillazo de la Vega, who was of Incan origin, left a description of how once, when he was still a child, a dignitary took him to the royal tomb. He showed the boy one of the rooms of the palace in Cusco, where several mummies lay along the walls, and said that these were former Incan emperors, and he saved their bodies from decomposition. The boy stopped in front of one of the mummies. Her hair was white as snow. The dignitary explained to him that this was the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the country of Tawantinsuyu. It is known that he died at a young age, and the whiteness of his hair cannot in any way be explained by gray hair...

Having compared data on the light-pigmented element in America and Polynesia with the legends of Easter Island, a number of researchers have suggested that white-skinned people went from America to Polynesia, but not vice versa. One of the proofs of this is the similar custom of mummification of the bodies of the dead in Polynesia and South America and its complete absence in Indonesia. Having spread on the shores of Peru, the method of mummifying the bodies of the nobility was transferred by migrants to the islands of Polynesia. Two mummies found in the Hawaiian Islands "demonstrated" in detail all the details of this custom in Peru.

So, the source of the spread of the “white gods” was Peru? A superficial acquaintance with the vast and diverse literature on the history of this country is enough to find many references to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods, and above all about Kon-Tiki Viracocha. Pizarro and his people reported that in the temple of Cuzco there was a huge statue of the god Viracocha, depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as what the Spanish artists painted at home...”. A contemporary of the events 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 religious buildings. But soon its fragments were taken away in different directions by poor peasants.

When the chronicler Betanzos, who took part in the 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, the hair on his head was gathered in a bun, he walked importantly and in his hands he held something resembling prayer book. Lake Titicaca was at the very center of Viracocha's activity. There, on the lake and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, his residence was located.

While exploring the territory of Peru, the Spaniards came across huge megalithic structures from pre-Incan times, lying in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the Spanish chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. These people arrived long before the Incas and settled here.” How strong and enduring this legend is is confirmed by the testimony of the Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who, 400 years after Leon, heard from the Indians who lived near the ruins that “these structures were created by a foreign people, white like the Europeans.”

“They also said,” continues Leon, “that on Lake Titicaca on an island in past centuries there lived a white people like us, and one local leader named Kari with his people came to this island and waged war against this people and killed many ... “In a separate chapter of his chronicle dedicated to the ancient structures of Tiahuanaco, de Leon reports the following: “I asked the local residents whether 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 were killed in wars...

Inca Garcillazo de la Vega questioned his royal uncle about the early history of Peru. He answered: “Nephew, I will answer your question with pleasure, and what I say you will keep in your heart forever, know that in ancient times this entire area, known to you, was covered with forest and thickets and people lived like wild animals - without religion and power, without cities and houses, without cultivating the land and without clothing, for they did not know how to make fabrics to sew a dress. They lived in twos or threes in caves or rock crevices, in the mountains underground. They ate turtles and roots, fruits and human flesh. They covered their bodies with leaves and animal skins. They lived like animals and treated women like animals, because each of them did not know how to live with one woman.” De Leon continues Garcillazo's story: “After this, a tall white man appeared and had great authority. They say that in many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in honor of him they created temples and erected statues in them...

Where did Viracocha come from? “Many believe that his name is Inga Viracocha, and it means “sea foam,” notes the chronicler Zarate. Another chronicler, Gomara, claims that, 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. Many legends agree that Viracocha and his companions sailed on reed boats on Lake Titicaca and built the megalithic city of Tiahuanaco. From here he sent his bearded “apostles” 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 decided to leave their lands.

Viracocha. Relief on the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku, Peru

Throughout the vast Inca empire, right up to the arrival of the Spaniards, the Indians unanimously named the path along which Viracocha and his associates left. They went down to the Pacific coast and went west along the sea along with the sun towards Polynesia.

In the north of the Inca state, in the mountains of Colombia, lived the Chibcha Indians, who had reached a high level of culture before the arrival of the Spaniards. His legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochik. Its description is the same as that of the Incas. He ruled over them for many years and was also called Sua, meaning “sun” in local dialects. He came to them from the east.

To the east of the Chibcha region, in Venezuela and neighboring areas, we again come across evidence of the presence of a mysterious wanderer. He was called here Tsuma, or Sume. He taught the local Indians how to farm. According to one legend, he ordered all the people to gather around a high rock, stood on it and told them laws and instructions. After living here for some time, he left this country.

North of Colombia and Venezuela, in the area of today's Panama Canal, live the Kuna Indians. They preserved legends that a long time ago, after a severe flood, someone came to them and taught people crafts. Several of his companions were with him. It is curious that in the 1920s, the American researcher Richard Marsh, who communicated a lot with the Kuna Indians, heard stories from them about a mysterious tribe of “white Indians” that in former times lived next door to the Kuna. Marsh even found several Indians among the Kuna, apparently with white skin; Later, researchers explained this phenomenon as hereditary albinism.

Even further north, in Mexico, the Aztec civilization was thriving at the time of the Spanish invasion. From Anahuca (modern Texas) to Yucatan, 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 by this name) and wore a long cape. He ruled for a long time in Tollan, prohibiting human sacrifice and preaching peace. People no longer killed animals and ate plant foods. But it didn't last long. The devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses and decided to leave the country. Before leaving, the god made all the tropical birds fly away and turned the trees into thorny bushes. He went south...

“Map Secunda” by E. Cortez contains an excerpt from Montezuma’s speech: “We know from the writings inherited from our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else inhabiting this country are its indigenous 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. He will return just from the direction you came from, Cortes... We know what price the Aztecs paid for their “come true” dream.

The neighbors of the Aztecs, the Mayans, said that their ancestors came to Yucatan in two waves. The first time - this was the largest migration - from overseas, from the east, under the leadership of the cultural hero Itzamna. Another, smaller group came from the west, led by the white and bearded Kukulkan. Kukulcan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapan and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans to use weapons, and then left them and went west...

A traveler traveling west from Yucatan must pass through the Tzeltal region in the Tabasco jungle. The legends of the population of these places contain information about Wotan, who came here from the east in ancient times. 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. When Wotan arrived in Zeltal, the people were "in a deplorable state." He distributed them among villages, taught them agricultural skills, and invented hieroglyphic writing, examples of which remained on the walls of their temples. It is also said that he wrote his story there. 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.”

But in reality, the mysterious Wotan did not go underground, but on the Soke plateau and received the name Condoy there. The Soke Indians, about whose mythology almost nothing is known, were neighbors of the inhabitants of Tzeltal. According to their legend, the “father-god” came in a light golden robe and taught them how to live correctly. They also did not believe in his death, but believed that he retreated into a cave and, having closed the hole, went to other nations...

To the south of the Mayans lived the Quiché tribes, whose culture was close to the Mayans. From their sacred book, the Popol Vuh, we learn that their people were also familiar with the white wanderer who passed through the lands. The Quiche called him Gugumats...

As we can see, legends about white bearded gods are widespread throughout Central America - from Yucatan to the Peruvian coast. In addition to legends, in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador, there are numerous images of white people. The frescoes of one of the Chichen Itza temples even depict a battle between Indians and white people. Thus, a wide range of sources indicate the spread of a lightly pigmented population in the New World. But what kind of population is this? Where did it come from? And how could this Caucasian minority maintain its racial type, being surrounded by numerous Indian tribes?

The last question is easiest to answer. Here it is enough to remember the gypsies - the analogy is very appropriate. Strict adherence to endogamy—marriages within an ethnic group—contributed to the preservation of the anthropological type. The existence of endogamy among the “white gods” is evidenced by Indian legends and reports of medieval chroniclers.

Who were these white bearded gods? Not aliens - that's for sure. Their origin is clearly terrestrial. Were they ancient proto-Berbers - megalith builders of the Old World, "peoples of the sea", Cretan-Minoans, Greeks or Phoenicians? Or maybe aliens from the other side of the world - Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Polynesians? There are a lot of hypotheses on this subject that have one common drawback: they are groundless. Let's better think about this simple question: how ancient are these legends? After all, most of them are known to us only in the retelling of Spanish authors of the 16th century. It is likely that such legends were invented by European missionaries after the Spanish conquest to facilitate the Christianization of the Indians.

The image of a cultural hero, implanting the beginnings of civilization among backward peoples, is widespread among the peoples of America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, and there is no reason to consider it a specifically American phenomenon. And regarding the “beardiness” of Indian cultural heroes, it is worth noting that a beard - natural or artificial - was a symbol of wisdom among the pre-Columbian Indians. As a cult attribute, the beard was repeatedly depicted in the drawings of the Olmecs (1st millennium BC) and Mayans (1st–15th centuries). It is quite natural that mythology endowed a cultural hero with a beard - who else would be wise if not him?

The question of whiteness remains - the most interesting, and perhaps the most difficult. Or maybe vice versa - the easiest. The fact is that there is a number of evidence that groups of white Indians lived and continue to live in America today!

When the 19th-century German traveler Heinrich Barth first discovered cave paintings of elephants and hippos in the parched Sahara and told about it in Europe, he was laughed at. When another German researcher, Karl Mauch, shared his impressions of the gigantic structures of Zimbabwe with his colleagues, he was surrounded by a wall of cold silence and mistrust. The Englishman Percy Fossett, who traveled around Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century, obviously faced the same thankless fate if he had not disappeared forever in the jungle, leaving only a book of travel notes, later called “The Unfinished Journey.”

“‘There are white Indians on Kari,’ the manager told me,” writes Fossett. “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 people 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."

Few people believe Fossett's testimony. Perhaps this is explained by the mystery and seeming unreality of the events described in the book?

“Here I again heard stories about white Indians... “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're called "bats." "Where do they live?" – I asked. “Somewhere in the area of the lost gold mines, either north or northwest of the Diamantina 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..."

“Flying cars” were able to do this three decades later. They did not find any white Indians that Fawcett writes about in his book. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. 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 meeting 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.” Let us note that the American jungle has the ability to isolate no less than the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and the isolation is centuries-old...

White Indians. 19th century drawing

One of the legends about the white Indians is associated with the mystery of the Mandans, a tribe belonging to the group of North American Sioux tribes. The Mandans, native inhabitants of the upper Mississippi, once lived in the territory now divided between the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas - perhaps the most unusual of all the Indian tribes of North America. The lands inhabited by Maidans became the arena of activity of white settlers only after 1850. However, for 200 years, the Mandans have attracted the attention of ethnographers due to the fact that they were very different from all other Indian tribes in appearance, customs and religious views. Moreover, their physical appearance showed signs that suggested mixing with some northern race, for one fifth or one sixth of these Indians had almost white skin and light blue eyes. Among the Mandans, there were often people with blond hair and a facial expression so unusual for Indians that some ethnographers even refused to consider these “more than half white people” to be Indians. The dwellings of the Mandans strongly resembled the ancient buildings of northern European peoples. We find the closest similarity to their architecture only in medieval Norway and Sweden. And one of the Mandan legends said that the father of the tribe was a white man who arrived in their country in a canoe. Even in those days when not a single European visited these places, the Mandans were already familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity: they talked about the Savior, the virgin birth, the agony of the cross, the miraculous feeding of 5 thousand people, the sin of the ancestress of the human race, the flood , the escaped ark and the dove sent from it, which brought a willow branch, etc.

Similar ideas 200 years ago amazed the first European explorer to penetrate these remote areas, the Frenchman La Vérendry. In 1738, this explorer, on behalf of the French Governor-General, undertook an overland journey from Canada to the Pacific Ocean. He wanted to take this opportunity to personally get acquainted with the strange “white Indians”, rumors about which had reached him. Having visited the Mandans, the Frenchman concluded that once upon a time a “large military expedition from well-known countries of the globe” was launched into the territory of this tribe, and the Mandans “came from the mixing of natives with civilized people.” But La Vérendry could not understand how Europeans could have reached these remote areas, located more than 1,500 km from the Atlantic Ocean and settled by whites only in the second half of the 19th century, in ancient times?

Many researchers associate the mystery of the Mandans with the voyages of the medieval Scandinavian Vikings. But the mystery of the “white Indians” as a whole cannot be solved with the help of the Vikings. The Polynesians, or, as they are called, “Vikings of the Pacific Ocean,” can come to the rescue here.

Modern scientists agree that the racial identity of the Polynesians is still unclear. Apparently, they owe their origin to two, and perhaps several races that mixed with each other. Among the Polynesians, people with pronounced dolichocephaly and light skin pigmentation, like southern Europeans, are often found to this day. Throughout Polynesia, the so-called Arab-Semitic type (Thur Heyerdahl's term) has been found - with a straight nose, thin lips and straight red hair. These features were noted by the first European travelers all the way from Easter Island to New Zealand, so it is impossible to talk about later mixing with Europeans in this case.

Anthropological evidence points to the Southeast Asian roots of the inhabitants of Polynesia, but the first European explorers of Polynesia noted in their writings that there were many people with fair skin and red hair on the Pacific Islands. At that time, the version about Caucasoid (Caucasian) elements in the Oceanian racial type was born. Recently, anthropologists have discovered that fair skin and red (or blond) hair are found not only among the indigenous people of Polynesia, but also among the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and New Guinea.

Residents of Easter Island, the closest piece of land to America, claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while the rest were dark-skinned and black-haired. This was witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When a Dutch ship first visited the island in 1722, European travelers were surprised to note the following from the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown people, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some have completely red skin, as if the sun was burning it...” Intrigued by these reports, Thor Heyerdahl went to Easter Island in the 1950s and, after research conducted here, stated that the island was first inhabited in the 4th-11th centuries by Caucasoids (Caucasoids), immigrants from Peru - from Tiahuanaco. Then, at the beginning of the middle period, new settlers from Peru arrived here, bringing with them the cult of the birdman and the cult of ancestors (hence the erection of giant statues of leaders on stone platforms). A little later, but in the same middle period, the Polynesians themselves appeared on Easter Island. Both groups coexisted with each other for a long time, until finally, in the late period, the Polynesians managed to destroy all the descendants of the South American Indians.

This hypothesis did not last long - it was swept away by a wave of criticism. Dozens of archaeological, ethnographic and other expeditions went to the islands of Oceania, many experimental voyages were undertaken on ships built according to Polynesian models, and with the help of mathematical modeling methods it was possible to understand various aspects of the process of settling Polynesia. The results of these studies completely refuted the main provisions of Heyerdahl's concept. Today, another concept seems much more reasonable - that it was the Polynesians (and among them, white-skinned and blond or red-haired elements) who were the first to land on the coast of South America. “Nowadays, no serious scientist will deny that long before Columbus, real connections existed between the inhabitants of Polynesia and South America, despite the unimaginable expanses of ocean separating them.”

The French scientist and traveler E. Bishop, who devoted many years of his life to studying the secrets of the Pacific Ocean, comprehensively substantiated the hypothesis that the Polynesians, exploring the ocean, reached the shores of America - remember, the Peruvian Indians said that their Viracocha came “from the sea ", and its very name means "sea foam". Considering the high seafaring skill of the Polynesians, most scientists today believe that they were the first to cross the Pacific Ocean and reach the shores of America. According to the famous Soviet Americanist Yu.V. Knorozov, “Polynesian expeditions should have, of course, reached the American coast, most likely based on the islands of the Marquesas archipelago. There are seasons in Polynesia when fairly strong westerly winds blow. In addition, the expedition should have preferred to go against the usually prevailing eastern trade winds, so that in case of depletion of food supplies it could quickly return back with a fair wind. The coasts of America, relatively densely populated, were hardly suitable for establishing colonies there. Perhaps contacts were limited only to exploration expeditions. Stocking up on food supplies on the American coast, the Polynesians took out local cultivated plants from there. The Peruvian sweet potato - kumara - came to Polynesia under the same name, which indicates direct contacts of the Polynesians with local residents... The most favorable route to the east for the Polynesians ran in close proximity to the equator, between the oncoming North and South Equatorial Currents, where the eastern counter-equatorial current arises current, albeit unreliable. However, returning to their islands, the Polynesians could sail south along the American coast to approximately the latitude of the city of Lima in order to take advantage of the favorable South Equatorial Current, which was well known to them.”

We can provide other interesting information about the contacts of the Polynesians with the inhabitants of South America - both folklore and archaeological. For example, in Peru, two fighting clubs of Polynesian origin – “patu” – were discovered in ancient burials. Obsidian spear tips were also found here. Stone adzes found in Polynesia, Chile and Argentina have striking similarities. Thus, there is little doubt that long before the discoveries of Columbus, brave Polynesian sailors repeatedly crossed the greatest ocean of the planet and landed on the South American coast. However, “one can only guess about the results of such “visits”,” notes V.I. Gulyaev, “although it is unlikely that they had any noticeable influence on the development of the culture of both the Indians and the inhabitants of Polynesia.”

But what then to do with the stories that the “white gods” brought numerous cultural achievements to the American continent? There is no doubt that the basis of these stories is most likely heavily mythologized. But the real, non-mythical basis of legends about white and bearded cultural heroes can be (this is nothing more than a version!) the fact of the amazing similarity of the Ainu Jomon culture with the finds in Valdivia (Ecuador), as we discussed above. It seems that no one will deny that the Ainu are “white and bearded.” Another thing is interesting: the ceramics of Valdivia, similar to the Ainu, represent a real “cultural center” in a country whose population at that time did not know ceramics!

The discoverers of Valdivian ceramics, the Ecuadorian archaeologist E. Estrada and his American colleagues B. Meggere and K. Evans and E. Estrada, will explain it this way: about 5 thousand years ago, a boat with Ainu fishermen could have been carried away by a typhoon from the coast of the island of Kyushu into the open sea. If this happened in October or November, then it was caught in the North Pacific currents, moving at a speed of 24-32 miles per day. The voyage lasted many months, but the crew of the boat, or part of it, withstood the hardships of the journey, and eventually the Ainu were brought to the Ecuadorian coast, where they were friendly received by the Indians. Asian newcomers taught local residents the art of making Jomon-type ceramics. Soon the Valdivians themselves became excellent potters and even surpassed their teachers in many ways. According to the authors of the hypothesis, the origin of the ceramics of Ecuador and all of pre-Columbian America goes back to the pottery traditions of the Jomon culture.

“If the main provisions of the hypothesis of Estrada and his colleagues are true,” writes Soviet ethnographer S.A. Arutyunov, - then what is the fundamental scientific significance of their discovery? The episode itself with the appearance of the ancient inhabitants of Japan in South America played a relatively small role in its ethnic and cultural history, although it may have given the first impetus to the spread of ceramics on the coast of Ecuador.

Be that as it may, the very fact that the “white and bearded” Ainu, the bearers of the Jomon culture, who came from across the sea, taught the Indians how to make ceramics and thereby gave impetus to new cultural traditions in the New World, could well form the basis of the legends about "white gods".

The question of white and bearded people in pre-Columbian America has not yet been resolved, and it is on this that I am concentrating my attention now. 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 most likely candidate for this role to be the mysterious “Sea Peoples”...

Nowadays, no serious researcher would claim that there are white and dark Indians, differing in their origin. There are no white Indians in America.

L.A. Fainberg, Soviet Americanist

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.

Quetzalcoyatl

The Lost Expedition

The Englishman Percy Fossett, who traveled around Brazil at the beginning of our century, would have faced the same ungrateful fate if he had not... disappeared forever in the jungle, leaving only a book of travel notes. The brave traveler’s younger contemporaries called it “The Unfinished Journey”...

Page 133 of Fossett's 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 by 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."

Re-reading the comments to the diaries, one becomes bitterly convinced of how deeply mistrust of eyewitness accounts, in particular travelers, has penetrated into people’s consciousness over the past decades. However, this can be understood - too many forgeries and hoaxes have been born during this time, discrediting the true position of this or that issue. Fossett is not believed. Or rather, they believe, but very few.

Perhaps this can be explained by the mystery and seeming unreality of the events described in the book?... “Here again I heard stories about white Indians. 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?

Flying cars were able to do this three decades later. In 1930, while flying over the Gran Sabana region, American pilot Jimmy Angel discovered huge unknown holes in the ground and a giant waterfall. And this in an age when, as it is believed, all corners of the Earth have already been discovered and explored...

"Guess" von Däniken

It all started with Columbus. “My messengers report,” he wrote on November 6, 1492, “that after a long march they found a village with 1000 inhabitants. The locals met them with honors, settled them in the most beautiful houses, took care of their weapons, kissed their hands and feet, trying to give them understand in any way that they (the Spaniards) are white people who came from God.

About 50 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.

They had snake-shaped ornaments on their foreheads. This legend has survived almost unchanged to this day. The Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas - Kon-Tiki Viracocha, for the Chibcha he was Bochica, and for the Mayans - Cuculcai... Scientists have been studying this problem for many years. Extensive data has been collected from the oral traditions of the Indian tribes of Central and South America, archaeological evidence and materials from medieval Spanish chronicles. Hypotheses are born and die...

The well-known Swiss writer Erich von Däniken also, naturally, could not pass over such an attractive topic in silence and made it work for himself. “The white deities of the Indians are, of course, aliens from outer space,” Däniken said without a shadow of a doubt and cited several legends in support. Indeed, these legends (too long to be cited here) contain, like any product of folklore, elements of fantasy, and it was not difficult for such a venerable interpreter and “interpreter” of legends as Däniken to take them in the direction he needed.

But let’s not engage in this dubious matter together with Deniken. We have a hard job ahead of us - to leaf through the notes of Spanish chroniclers, listen to some legends and delve into the mountains of archaeological finds that confirm the legends and chronicles. Let's try to understand this problem from an earthly perspective.

Success of the conquistadors

Columbus's letter clearly shows the reverence and respect that was shown to the first Spaniards on American soil. The powerful Aztec civilization with an excellent military organization and a population of millions gave way to a few Spaniards. In 1519, Cortez's detachment walked freely through the jungle, rising to the Aztec capital. There was almost no hindrance...

Pizarro's troops also took advantage of the Incas' misconceptions as best they could. The Spaniards broke into the temple in Cusco, where there were gold and marble statues of white gods, smashed and trampled the decorations, amazed at the strange behavior of the Incas. There was no resistance to them, the Spaniards. The people of Peru came to their senses too late...

The details of the conquest are well described in many books and there is no point in dwelling on them. But far from everywhere there are attempts to somehow explain the incomprehensible behavior of the Indians.

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 repeated every 52 years. By a strange coincidence, Cortes landed on the American coast just as the cycles determined by the priests were changing. In terms of clothing, he also almost completely “matched” the legendary god. And it is clear that the Indians did not doubt at all the divine affiliation of the conquistadors. And when they began to doubt it, it was already too late.

Another interesting fact. The Aztec ruler Montezuma sent one of his dignitaries (history has preserved his name - Tendile or Teutlila) to Cortes 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, Tendile noticed among the conquistadors a man wearing a helmet trimmed with the finest gold plates. The helmet hit Tendile.

When Cortes invited him to take the return gift to Montezuma, Tendile begged him to give only one thing - the helmet of that warrior: “I must show it to the ruler, because this helmet 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 understand the Indians, we need to travel back in time and space - to Polynesia in the first centuries of our era.

Procession of bearded gods

On Easter Island, the most distant piece of land from Polynesia and closest to America, legends have been preserved that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing 60 days towards the setting sun. Today's islanders - a racially mixed population - claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while the rest were dark-skinned and black-haired.

This was witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When a Dutch ship first visited Easter Island in 1722, a white man came on board, among other inhabitants, and the Dutch wrote the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown people, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some the skin is generally red, as if the sun was burning it..."

But in the east, where the residents pointed out, 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 climate and in name. There are numerous burial sites along the deserted shore of the Pacific Ocean. The dry climate has allowed today's scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there.

According to initial assumptions, the mummies located there should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of ancient pre-Incan population of Peru? However, the mummies did the opposite - they only asked riddles. Having opened the burials, anthropologists discovered types of people there that had not previously been encountered in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two large necropolises on the Paracas Peninsula on the south-central Peruvian coast. The burial site contained hundreds of mummies of ancient dignitaries.

Radiocarbon analysis determined their age - 2200 years. Near the graves, researchers found large quantities of fragments of hardwood trees, which were usually used to build rafts. When the mummies were opened, a striking difference was revealed between them and the basic physical type of the ancient Peruvian population.

Trotter further established that the shape of the hair cut is different for different mummies, and almost all shapes are found in the burial... Another indicator is the thickness of the hair. “It is smaller here than in other Indian populations, but not as small as in the average European population (for example, the Dutch).”

Trotter herself, a supporter of the “homogeneous” population of America, tried to justify such an unexpected observation by saying that death changes the shape of hair. But this is what another authority in this field, the Englishman Dawson, objected to her: “I believe that after death, no significant changes occur to hair. Curly remains curly, smooth remains just as smooth. After death, it becomes brittle, but the color there is no change."

Francisco Pizarro wrote about the Incas: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was fair-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 fair-skinned that I was amazed. The neighbors call these people children of the gods...”

One of the chroniclers, Garcillazo de la Vega, the son of an Inca queen, left an impressive description of how one day, when he was still a child, another dignitary took him to the royal tomb. Ondegardo (that was his name) showed the boy one of the rooms of the palace in Cusco, where several mummies lay along the wall.

Ondegardo said that these were former Incan emperors and he saved their bodies from decomposition. By chance the boy stopped in front of one of the mummies. Her hair was white as snow. Ondegardo said that this is the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the Sun. Since it is known that he died at a young age, the whiteness of his hair cannot in any way be explained by gray hair...

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. Two mummies recently found in a cave in the Hawaiian Islands "demonstrated" in detail all the details of this custom in ancient Peru...

So, did the white Indian deities live in Peru? A superficial acquaintance with the vast and diverse literature on the history of Peru is enough to find many references there to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods...

Pizarro, already mentioned by us, and his people, while robbing and destroying Incan temples, left detailed descriptions of their actions. In the temple of Cuzco, razed to the ground, there stood a huge statue depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as what the Spanish artists painted at home”...

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 in different directions by poor peasants.

While exploring the territory of Peru, the Spaniards came across huge metal structures from pre-Inca times, which also lay in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the Spanish chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. These people arrived long before the Incas and settled here."

How strong and enduring this legend is is confirmed by the testimony of the Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who, 400 years after de Leon, 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 “activities” of the white god Viracocha, for all evidence agrees on one thing - there, on the lake, and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, there was the residence of the god.

“They also said,” Leon continues, “that on the lake, 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 many killed..."

In a special chapter of his chronicle dedicated to the ancient buildings of Tiahuanaco, Leon says the following: “I asked the local residents whether 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 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 wars..."

When the Frenchman Bandelier began excavating these places 350 years later, the legends were still alive. He was told that in ancient times the island was inhabited by people similar to Europeans, they married local women, and their children became Incas... “The information collected in different regions of Peru differs only in details... Monk Garcillaso asked his royal uncle about the early history of Peru.

He answered: “Nephew, I will answer your question with pleasure and what I say, you will keep in your heart forever. Know that in ancient times this entire area, known to you, was covered with forest and thickets, and people lived like wild animals - without religion and power, without cities and houses, without cultivating the land and without clothing, for they did not know how to make fabrics to sew a dress.

They lived in twos or threes in caves or rock crevices, in grottoes underground. They ate turtles and roots, fruits and human flesh. They covered their bodies with leaves and animal skins.

They lived like animals and treated women like animals, because each of them did not know how to live with one woman...” De Leon adds Garcillaso: “Immediately after this, a tall white man appeared and he had great authority. They say that in many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in honor of him 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 a tonsure, he walked importantly and was holding something in his hands. something like 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. Gomara claims that, according to the stories of the old Indians, he led his people across the sea.

The most common name for Kon-Tiki Viracocha consists of three names for the same white deity. In pre-Inca times it was known on the coast as Con and inland as Tikki. But when, with the coming to power of the Incas, their language (Quechua) spread throughout the entire region, the Incas learned that these two names referred to the same deity, which they themselves called Viracocha. And then all three names were combined...

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...

Throughout the vast Inca empire, right up to the arrival of the Spaniards, the Indians unanimously named the path along which Viracocha and his associates left. They went down to the 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 north of the Incan state, in the mountains of Colombia, lived the Chibcha, another mysterious people who had reached a high level of culture before the arrival of the Spaniards. Their legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochika. Its description is the same as that of the Incas. He ruled them for many years and was also called Sua, that is, “sun” in local dialects. He came to them from the east...

To the east of the Chibcha region, in Venezuela and neighboring areas, we again come across evidence of the presence of a mysterious wanderer. They called him Tsuma (or Sume) there and reported that he taught them agriculture. According to one 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.

Directly north of Colombia and Venezuela, in the area of today's Panama Canal, live the Kuna Indians. They preserved reports that after a severe flood, someone came and taught people crafts. With him were several young companions who spread his teachings.

He ruled for a long time in Tollan, prohibiting human sacrifice and preaching peace. People no longer killed animals and ate plant foods. But it didn't last long. The devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses, and he decided to leave the country. Before leaving, the god made all the tropical birds fly away and turned the trees into thorny bushes. He disappeared in a southerly direction...

Cortés's Carta Segunda contains an excerpt of Montezuma's speech:

“We know from the writings handed down to us from our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else who inhabits this country are its original inhabitants. We came from other lands. We also know that we descend from a ruler whose subordinates we appeared. 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 since then we have been waiting for him. - will return. He will return just from the direction you came from, Cortez...”

We already know what price the Aztecs paid for their “come true” dream...

Another group, a smaller one, came from the west and among them was Kukulkan. They all had flowing robes, sandals, long beards and bare heads. Kukulcan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapac and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans to use weapons... And again, as in Peru, he leaves the country and goes towards the setting sun...

The country from which he came was called Valum Votan. When Wotan's embassy arrived in Zeltal, the people were "in a deplorable state." He distributed them among villages, taught them how to breed cultivated plants, and invented hieroglyphic writing, examples of which remained on the walls of their temples. It is also said that he wrote his story there. 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.”

But in reality, the mysterious Wotan did not go underground, but on the Soke plateau and received the name Condoy there. The Soke, about whose mythology almost nothing is known, were neighbors of the inhabitants of Tzeltal. According to their legend, Father God came and taught them how to live. They also did not believe in his death, but believed that he, in a light golden robe, retired into a cave and, having closed the hole, went to other peoples...

To the south of the Soque Maya lived the K'iche of Guatemala, whose culture was close to the Maya. From their sacred book, the Popol Vuh, we learn that their people were also acquainted with a wanderer who passed through the lands. The Quiche called him Gugumats.

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 was attested to by Indian legends and the chronicles of early Spanish observers. Is there any archaeological evidence left? Or maybe the white-skinned and bearded aliens were just a ghost, a product of the inflamed mind of the Indians?

His robe was decorated with horned snakes and two pumas - symbols of the supreme deity in Mexico and Peru. Bennett pointed out that 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 - there was no stone for figurines. The authors of these drawings are the early Chimu and Mochica. Similar things are found in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, 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...

White bearded deities of the Indians... Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Gugumats, Bochika, Sua... What do modern scientists say about all this? 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 of the anthropological type. “They say that the sun married his sister and ordered his children to do the same,” says an Indian legend written down in 1609...

“There are no white Indians that Fossett writes about in his book in America...” Apparently, there still are. 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 Amahon Indians.” The American jungle has the ability to isolate no less than an island, and centuries-old isolation...

We have raised only a few testimonies of Spanish chroniclers, only part of the legends of the American Indians and a small fraction of archaeological and anthropological evidence - the surface part of the iceberg... Who were these white bearded gods? That they are not aliens is for sure. Their origin is clearly terrestrial. Ancient creators of megalithic structures of the Old and New Worlds? "Sea Peoples"? Cretans? Phoenicians? Or maybe both? There are many interesting points of view on this matter. But this is a topic for another big conversation...

N. Nepomnyashchiy, journalist

"Secrets of the Ages"

The Lost Expedition

When the German traveler of the last century, Heinrich Barth, first discovered rock paintings of moisture-loving animals in the Sahara and told about it in Europe, he was laughed at. After another German researcher, Karl Mauch, shared his impressions of the giant structures of Zimbabwe with his colleagues, he was surrounded by a wall of cold silence and mistrust. The Englishman Percy Fossett, traveling at the beginning of our century, would have faced the same thankless fate if he had not... disappeared forever in the jungle, leaving only a book of travel notes. Younger contemporaries of the brave traveler called it “The Unfinished Journey”...

Percy Faussett (1867-1925)

Page 133 of Fossett's diary: “There are white Indians 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 people 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."

American Indian Little daylight (1905)

Re-reading the comments to the diaries, one becomes bitterly convinced of how deeply mistrust of eyewitness accounts, in particular travelers, has penetrated into people’s consciousness over the past decades. However, this can be understood - too many forgeries and hoaxes have been born during this time, discrediting the true position of this or that issue. Fossett is not believed. Or rather, they believe, but very few. Perhaps this can be explained by the mystery and seeming unreality of the events described in the book?..

“Here I again heard stories about white Indians. “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?”

Von Däniken's "Guess"

It all started with Columbus. “My messengers report,” he wrote on November 6, 1492, “that after a long march they found a village with 1000 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 50 residents asked my messengers to take them with them to heaven to the star gods.”

Columbus set foot on American soil

This is the first mention of the veneration 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.

Countless legends of the Indians of both Americas tell that white bearded people once landed on the shores of their country. They brought the basics of knowledge, laws, and entire civilization. They arrived on large strange ships with swan wings and a glowing 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. This legend has survived almost unchanged to this day. The Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas - Kon-Tiki Viracocha, for the Chibcha he was Bochica, and for the Mayans - Kukulkan... Scientists have been studying this problem for many years. Extensive data has been collected on the oral traditions of the Indian tribes of Central and South Africa, archaeological evidence and materials from medieval Spanish chronicles. Hypotheses are born and die...

A well-known Swiss writer Erich von Däniken also, naturally, he could not pass over such an attractive topic in silence and made it work for himself. “The white deities of the Indians are, of course, aliens from outer space,” Däniken said without a shadow of a doubt and cited several legends in support. Indeed, these legends (too long to be cited here) contain, like any product of folklore, elements of fantasy, and it was not difficult for such a venerable interpreter and “interpreter” of legends as Däniken to take them in the direction he needed. But let’s not engage in this dubious matter together with Deniken. We have a hard job ahead of us - to leaf through the notes of Spanish chroniclers, listen to some legends and delve into the mountains of archaeological finds that confirm the legends and chronicles. Let's try to understand this problem from an earthly perspective.

Success of the conquistadors

The details of the conquest are well described in many books, and there is no point in dwelling on them. But far from everywhere there are attempts to somehow explain the incomprehensible behavior of the Indians.

Another interesting fact. The Aztec ruler Montezuma sent one of his dignitaries (history has preserved his name - Tendile or 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, Tendile noticed among the conquistadors a man wearing a helmet trimmed with the finest gold plates. The helmet hit Tendile.

Cortez and Montezuma

When Cortes invited him to take the return gift to Montezuma, Tendile begged him to give only one thing - the helmet of that warrior: “I must show it to the ruler, because this helmet 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 understand, we need to be transported in time and space - to Polynesia in the first centuries of our era.

Procession of bearded gods

Modern scientists agree that the racial identity of the Polynesians is still unclear. Despite the fact that they owe their origin to two, and perhaps several races that mixed with each other, among them there are still often people with pronounced dolicocephaly (long-headed) and light pigmentation, like southern Europeans. Now throughout Polynesia the so-called Arab-Semitic type (Heyerdahl's term) with a straight nose, thin lips and straight red hair has been discovered. These features were noted by the first European travelers all the way from Easter Island to New Zealand, so it is impossible to talk about any later mixing with Europeans in this case. 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 Easter Island, the most distant piece of land from Polynesia and the closest piece of land to America, legends have been preserved that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing 60 days towards the setting. Today's islanders, a racially mixed population, claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while the rest were dark-skinned and black-haired. This was witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When a Dutch ship first visited Easter Island in 1722, a white man came on board, among other inhabitants, and the Dutch wrote the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown people, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some the skin is generally red, as if the sun was burning it..."

From early reports collected in 1880 by Thompson, it became known that the country, located according to legend 60 days' journey to the east, was also called "the burial place." The climate there was so hot that people died and plants withered. To the west of Easter Island, throughout the vast stretch of Southeast Asia, there is nothing that could correspond to this description: the shores of all the islands are closed by a wall of tropical forest. But in the east, where the residents pointed out, 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 climate and in name.

There are numerous burial sites along the deserted shore of the Pacific Ocean. The dry climate allowed today's scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there. According to initial assumptions, the mummies located there should have given researchers a comprehensive answer to the question: what was the type of ancient pre-Incan population? However, the mummies did the opposite - they only asked riddles.

Having opened the burials, anthropologists discovered types of people there that had not previously been encountered in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two large necropolises on the Paracas Peninsula on the south-central Peruvian coast. The burial site contained hundreds of mummies of ancient dignitaries.

Radiocarbon analysis determined their age – 2200 years. Near the graves, researchers found large quantities of fragments of hardwood trees, which were usually used to build rafts. When the mummies were opened, a striking difference was revealed between them and the basic physical type of the ancient Peruvian population.

Here is what the American anthropologist Stewart wrote then: “This was a selected group of large people, absolutely not typical for the population of Peru.” While Stewart studied their bones, M. Trotter analyzed the hair of nine mummies. According to her, their color is generally reddish-brown, but in some cases, samples yielded very light, almost golden hair color. The hair of two mummies was generally different from the rest - it curled. Trotter further established that the shape of the hair cut is different for different mummies, and almost all shapes are found in the burial... Another indicator is the thickness of the hair. “It is smaller here than in other Indian populations, but not as small as in the average European population (for example, the Dutch).” Trotter herself, a supporter of the “homogeneous” population of America, tried to justify such an unexpected observation for herself by saying that death changes the shape of hair. But this is what another authority in this field, the Englishman Dawson, objected to her: “I believe that after death, no significant changes occur to the hair. Curly ones stay curly, smooth ones stay just as smooth. After death they become brittle, but there is no color change.”

Francisco Pizarro 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. The neighbors call these people - children of the gods...»

Viracocha - Eighth King of the Incas (Brooklyn Museum)

It can be assumed that these layers adhered to strict endogamy and spoke a special language. There were 500 such members of royal families before the arrival of the Spaniards. Chroniclers report that the eight rulers of the Inca dynasty were white and bearded, and their wives were “white as an egg.” One of the chroniclers, Garcillazo de la Vega, the son of an Inca queen, left an impressive description of how one day, when he was still a child, another dignitary took him to the royal tomb. Ondegardo (that was his name) showed the boy one of the rooms of the palace in Cusco, where several mummies lay along the wall. Ondegardo said that these were former Incan emperors and he saved their bodies from decomposition. By chance the boy stopped in front of one of the mummies. Her hair was white as snow. Ondegardo said that this is the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler. Since it is known that he died at a young age, the whiteness of his hair cannot in any way be explained by gray hair...

By comparing the data on the light-pigmented element in America and Polynesia with the Easter Island legends about their homeland in the East, it can be assumed that white-skinned people went from America to Polynesia (and not vice versa, as some researchers believe). One of the proofs of this is the similar custom of mummification of the bodies of the dead in Polynesia and South America and its complete absence in Indonesia. Having spread on the shores of Peru, the method of mummification of the nobility was transferred by migrants (white?) to the scattered and unsuitable islands of Polynesia. Two mummies recently found in a cave on the island “demonstrated” in detail all the details of this custom in ancient Peru...

White god Viracocha

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. A contemporary of the events 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 in different directions by poor peasants.

While exploring the territory of Peru, the Spaniards came across huge metal structures pre-Inca times, also lying in ruins. “When I asked the locals who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the Spanish chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, “they answered that it was done by another people, bearded and white-skinned like us Spaniards. These people arrived long before the Incas and settled here."

How strong and enduring this tradition is is confirmed by the testimony of the Peruvian archaeologist Valcarcel, who, 400 years after de Leon, 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,” continues Leon, “that on the lake, 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 many killed..."

In a special chapter of his chronicle dedicated to the ancient structures of Tiahuanaco, Leon says the following: “I asked the local residents whether 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 wars...”

When the Frenchman Bandelier began excavations in these places 350 years later, the legends were still alive. He was told that in ancient times the island was inhabited by people similar to Europeans, they married local women, and their children became Incas...

“The information collected in different regions of Peru differs only in details... Monk Garcillaso asked his royal uncle about the early history of Peru. He answered: “Nephew, I will be happy to answer your question and what I say, you will forever keep in your heart. Know that in ancient times this entire region, known to you, was covered with forest and thickets, and people lived like wild animals - without power, without cities and houses, without cultivating the land and without clothing, for they did not know how to make fabrics, to sew a dress. They lived in twos or threes in caves or rock crevices, in grottoes underground. They ate turtles and roots, fruits and human flesh. They covered their bodies with leaves and animal skins. They lived like animals and treated women like animals, because each of them did not know how to live with one woman...” De Leon complements Garcillaso: “Immediately after this, a tall white man appeared and he had great authority. They say that in many villages he taught people to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same - Tikki Viracocha. And in honor of him they created temples and erected statues in them...”

When the chronicler Betanzos, who took part in the first Peruvian campaigns of the Spaniards, asked 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 a tonsure, he walked importantly and was holding something in his hands 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. Gomara claims that, according to the stories of the old Indians, he led his people across the sea..."

Many legends agree 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 the world to teach people and tell them that he was their creator. But, in the end, dissatisfied with the behavior of the inhabitants, he decided to leave their lands. Throughout the vast Inca empire, right up to the arrival of the Spaniards, the Indians unanimously named the path along which Viracocha and his associates left. They went down to the 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 north of the Inca state, in the mountains, lived the Chibcha, another mysterious people who had reached a high level of culture before the arrival of the Spaniards. Their legends also contain information about the white teacher Bochika. Its description is the same as that of the Incas. He ruled them for many years and was also called Sua, that is, “sun” in local dialects. He came to them from the east...

Directly north of Colombia and in the area of today's Panama Canal live the Kuna Indians. They preserved reports that after a severe flood, someone came and taught people crafts. With him were several young companions who spread his teachings.

Even further north, in Mexico, the high civilization of the Aztecs was flourishing at the time of the Spanish invasion. From Anahuac (modern Texas) to Yucotan, the Aztecs spoke of a 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 the country that we mean by this name) and wore a long cape. He ruled for a long time in Tollan, banning human ones and preaching peace. People no longer killed animals and ate plant foods. But it didn't last long. The devil forced Quetzalcoatl to indulge in vanity and wallow in sins. However, he soon became ashamed of his weaknesses, and he decided to leave the country. Before leaving, the god made all the tropical birds fly away and turned the trees into thorny bushes. He disappeared in a southerly direction...

Cortez's Map of the Segunda contains an excerpt from Montezuma's speech: “We know from the writings handed down to us from our ancestors that neither I nor anyone else who inhabits this country are its original inhabitants. We came 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. Since then, we have been waiting for him to return someday. He will return 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 - this was the largest migration - from overseas, from the east, from where 12 thread-paths were laid, and Itzamna led them. Another group, a smaller one, came from the west and among them was Kukulkan. They all had flowing robes, sandals, long beards and bare heads. Kukulcan is remembered as the builder of the pyramids and the founder of the cities of Mayapac and Chichen Itza. He taught the Mayans to use weapons... And again, as in Peru, he leaves the country and goes towards the setting...

A traveler traveling west from Yucatan must pass through the Tzeltal region in the Tabasco jungle. The legends of the population of these places contain information about Wotan, who came from the Yucatan regions. A great expert on American myths, Brinton says that few myths about folk heroes have entailed as many speculative fictions as the myth of Wotan. In distant eras, 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. When Wotan's embassy arrived in Zeltal, the people were "in a deplorable state." He distributed them among villages, taught them how to breed cultivated plants, and invented hieroglyphic writing, examples of which remained on the walls of their temples. It is also said that he wrote his story there. 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 the south of the Soque Maya lived the K'iche, who were similar in culture to the Maya. From their sacred book, the Popol Vuh, we learn that their people were also acquainted with a wanderer who passed through the lands. The Quiche called him Gugumats.

The medieval Spaniards did not destroy all the statues. The residents managed to hide something. 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 highest deity in Peru. Bennett pointed out that 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 - there was no stone for figurines. The authors of these drawings are the early Chimu and Mochica. Similar things are found in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, 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...

White bearded deities of the Indians... Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Gugumats, Bochika, Sua...

What do modern scientists say about all this? 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 of the anthropological type. “They say that the sun married his sister and ordered his children to do the same,” says an Indian legend written down in 1609...

Remains of Vedic civilization. Faces of white gods carved on the rocks of Machu Picchu

Chachapoya - white Indians. The mystery of the white Indians Chachapoya Indians - in search of clues

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