White Gods

White Gods is the belief that ancient cultures around the world were visited by Caucasian races in ancient times, and that they were known as "White Gods". The view is popular amongst White supremacists, Christian Identity groups, ancient astronaut theorists and pseudoarchaeological and Atlantis writers.

Contents

White Gods

It is claimed by some authors that white missionaries or "Gods" visited America before Christopher Columbus. Authors usually quote from mythology and legends which discuss ancient Gods such as Quetzalcoatl to conclude that the legends were actually based on Caucasians visiting those areas, and that the caucasians were really the Gods.[1][2] Spanish chroniclers from the 16th century claimed that when the conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro first encountered the Inca's they were greeted as Gods, "Viracochas", because their lighter skin resembled their God Viracocha.[3] This story was first reported by Pedro Cieza de León (1553) and later by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. Similar accounts by Spanish chroniclers (e.g. Juan de Betanzos) describe Viracocha as a "White God", often with a beard.[4]

Claims of other "White Gods" include Tezcatlipoca and Gukumatz. Authors have also linked "White Gods" to the ancient city of Tiahuanaco.[5]

Colonel A. Braghine in his 1940 book The Shadow of Atlantis claimed that the Carib people have reports and legends of a white bearded man who they called Tamu or Zune who had come from the East and taught the people agriculture, he later disappeared in an "easterly direction".[6]Braghine also claimed Manco Cápac was a white bearded man.[7] The Atlantis author Gerd von Hassler linked the "White Gods" to the biblical flood.[8]

The archeologist Pierre Honoré has claimed that a group of white men, took inventions, education, tools and construction skills to South America, as the races in South America were primitive. Because of his conclusions, his book has become popular amongst White supremacists and Christian Identity proponents such as Wesley A. Swift.[9][10]

The writer Robert F. Marx has written extensively about the concept of "White gods", Marx came to the conclusion that White Gods "figure in almost every indigenous culture in the Americas."[11][12]

The British writer Harold T. Wilkins took the concept of the White Gods the furthest, writing that a vanished white race had occupied the whole of South America in ancient times.[13] Wilkins also claimed that Quetzalcoatl was from Atlantis.[14][15]

The occultist James H. Madole influenced by Aryanism and Hinduism wrote that the Aryan race was of great antiquity and had been worshipped worldwide by lower races as "White Gods". Madole also wrote that the Aryans originated in the Garden of Eden located in North America.[16]

Most modern scholars consider the "White God legends" to be a post-conquest Spanish invention and that the ideas are based on pseudoscience.[17][18]

Mormonism

The anthropologist and author L. Taylor Hansen wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963.[19] In the book drawing from Native American legends, folklore and mythology discussed that a "White Prophet" had visited many different parts of America. Mormons believe that the "White Prophet" was Jesus Christ.[20][21]

Some Mormon scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl, who they describe as a white, bearded god who came from the sky and promised to return, was actually Jesus Christ.[22] According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American natives after his resurrection.[23] Latter-day Saint President John Taylor wrote:

"The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source. "[24]

This idea was adapted by science fiction author and Mormon Orson Scott Card in his story America.

Ancient Astronauts

Some Ancient astronaut and UFO writers have claimed the "White Gods" were actually extraterrestrials. Peter Kolosimo believed that the legends of Quetzalcoatl had a basis in fact, he claimed that the legends actually describe a race of white men who were born in spaceships, then migrated to Atlantis which after was destroyed moved to the Americas to be treated as "White Gods" by the "primitive earth-dwellers".[25]

The concept of "White Gods" in ancient legends and mythology has been discussed in the documentary series Ancient Aliens.[26]

References

  1. ^ Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of Pre-Columbian America, Chapter XV
  2. ^ Henry Binkley Stein Thirty Thousand Gods Before Jehovah
  3. ^ Colonial Spanish America: a documentary history, Kenneth R. Mills, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, p. 39.
  4. ^ Pre-Columbian America: Myths and Legends, Donald. A. Mackenzie, Senate, 1996, p.268-270
  5. ^ Rupert Furneaux, Ancient Mysteries, Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 154
  6. ^ Colonel A. Braghine, The Shadow of Atlantis
  7. ^ Braghine, The Shadow of Atlantis, p. 34
  8. ^ Gerd Von Hassler, Lost Survivors of the Deluge, 1980 pp. 63 - 81 ISBN 0451083652
  9. ^ http://www.israelect.com/reference/WesleyASwift/extra/WHITEGOD.htm Article by Wesley A Swift
  10. ^ In quest of the white god: the mysterious heritage of South American civilization, By Pierre Honoré Futura Publications, 1975 the book was reprinted as In Search of Quetzalcoatl: The Mysterious Heritage of American Civilization in 2007, the 2007 edition can be found online see here 2
  11. ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1992-01-22/news/vw-383_1_great-white-god
  12. ^ Robert Marx, In quest of the great white gods: contact between the Old and New World from the dawn of history, Crown, 1992
  13. ^ The Pan American, Volume 7, Famous Features Syndicate, 1946, p. 11 "Harold T. Wilkins Legend of a Fabulous Empire" discusses Wilkins belief about a "strange white race living in lost cities, amidst the crumbling ruins of once splendid palaces and temples in South America"
  14. ^ [1] David Hatcher Childress discussing White Gods in Lost Cities of North and Central America
  15. ^ Harold T. Wilkins, Mysteries of Ancient South America
  16. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity, 2003 p. 81
  17. ^ The Skeptic: encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, "white god legends", Michael Shermer, ABC-CLIO, 2002, p. 578.
  18. ^ Mills, 1998, p. 40.
  19. ^ L. Taylor Hansen, He walked the Americas, Amherst Press, 1963
  20. ^ Michael W. Hickenbotham, Answering Challenging Mormon Questions, p. 204
  21. ^ http://mindlight.info/maitreya/bswalkam.htm
  22. ^ http://www.icwseminary.org/quetzalcoatl.htm
  23. ^ http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=11&num=1&id=298
  24. ^ Taylor 1892:201, see original source
  25. ^ Peter Kolosimo, Timeless Earth, 1977 pp. 153 - 154 ISBN 0722153295
  26. ^ Ancient Aliens