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".

Based on 16th-century accounts of the Spanish conquistadors being "greeted as gods" by the peoples of the New World, certain modern authors have expanded the concept beyond what is historically verifiable, spreading it to the genre of pseudoarchaeological literature and fringe theorists, such as writers on ancient astronauts or Atlantis, in some instances (such as Christian Identity) even acquiring quasi-religious or racialist (white supremacist) connotations.

Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Magliabechiano.

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 Incas 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]

Rupert Furneaux 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 archaeologist Pierre Honoré in 1962 proposed the fringe theory that the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations were due to "white men from the vicinity of Crete".^[9]

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."^[10][11]

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.^[12] Wilkins also claimed that Quetzalcoatl was from Atlantis.^[13][14]

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.^[15]

Some modern scholars consider the "White God legends" to be a post-conquest Spanish invention and that the ideas are based on pseudoscience.^[16][17]

Mormonism

Some Mormons believe that Quetzalcoatl, a figure described as white and bearded, who came from the sky and promised to return, was likely Jesus Christ. According to the scriptural account recorded in the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ visited and taught natives of the Americas following his resurrection, and regarded them as the "other sheep," he had referenced during his mortal ministry. The Book of Mormon also claims that Jesus Christ appeared to others, following his resurrection, even to the inhabitants on the "isles of the sea." This latter reference, may offer additional consideration of certain Polynesian accounts.^[18] With regard to the Mexican legend, LDS Church 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."^[19]

This idea was adapted by Mormon science fiction author 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 and migrated to Atlantis; then, after Atlantis was destroyed, they moved to the Americas to be treated as "white gods" by the "primitive earth-dwellers".^[20]

References