The first Spanish chroniclers from the 16th century, however, made no mention of any identification with Viracocha. The first to do so was Pedro Cieza de León in 1553.[4] Similar accounts by Spanish chroniclers (e.g. Juan de Betanzos) describe Viracocha as a "white god", often with a beard.[5] The whiteness of Viracocha is however not mentioned in the native authentic legends of the Incas. Most modern scholars, therefore, had considered the "white god" story to be a post-conquest Spanish invention. [6]
Proponents
Rupert Furneaux also linked "White gods" to the ancient city of Tiahuanaco.[7]
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 whom they called Tamu or Zune who had come from the East, taught the people agriculture and later disappeared in an "easterly direction".[8] Braghine also claimed Manco Cápac was a white bearded man.[9] The Atlantis author Gerd von Hassler linked the "White gods" to the biblical flood.[10]
Acclaimed Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, best known for his voyage across the Pacific in a reconstruction of an ancient vessel in an effort to prove that Polynesia was peopled by South American voyagers, believed that a white race inhabited South America.[11]
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".[12]
The writer and treasure-hunter 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."[13][14]
Some Mormon theorists have suggested that the Izapa Stela 5 depicts the Tree of Life.
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" whom 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."[21] With regard to the Mexican legend, LDS ChurchPresidentJohn 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.[22]
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".[23]
Magelssen, S. (2016). "White-Skinned Gods: Thor Heyerdahl, the Kon-Tiki Museum, and the Racial Theory of Polynesian Origins". TDR/The Drama Review, 60(1), 25–49.
^Pierre Honoré, In quest of the white god: the mysterious heritage of South American civilization, Futura Publications (1962). In 2007, the book was reprinted as In Search of Quetzalcoatl: The Mysterious Heritage of American Civilization. The 2007 edition can be found online at google books.
^Robert Marx, In quest of the great white gods: contact between the Old and New World from the dawn of history, Crown, 1992
^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"
