White Gods
Encyclopedia
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.
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.
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
. 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.
Claims of other "White Gods" include Tezcatlipoca
and Gukumatz
. Authors have also linked "White Gods" to the ancient city of Tiahuanaco.
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".Braghine also claimed Manco Cápac
was a white bearded man. The Atlantis
author Gerd von Hassler
linked the "White Gods" to the biblical flood.
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
.
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."
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. Wilkins also claimed that Quetzalcoatl
was from Atlantis
.
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
.
Most modern scholars consider the "White God legends" to be a post-conquest Spanish invention and that the ideas are based on pseudoscience
.
L. Taylor Hansen
wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963. 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.
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. According to the Book of Mormon
, Jesus visited the American natives after his resurrection.
Latter-day Saint President John Taylor wrote:
This idea was adapted by science fiction author and Mormon Orson Scott Card
in his story America
.
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".
The concept of "White Gods" in ancient legends
and mythology
has been discussed in the documentary series Ancient Aliens
.
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
in ancient times, and that they were known as "White Gods". The view is popular amongst White supremacists, Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
groups, ancient astronaut theorists and pseudoarchaeological and Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
writers.
White Gods
It is claimed by some authors that white missionaries or "Gods" visited AmericaAmericas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
before Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
. Authors usually quote from mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and legends
Legends
Legends are historical narratives, symbolic representations of folk belief.Legends may also refer to:-Music:*Legend , a 1984 album*Legends , a 1998 album...
which discuss ancient Gods such as Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
to conclude that the legends were actually based on Caucasians
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
visiting those areas, and that the caucasians were really the Gods.
Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
chroniclers from the 16th century claimed that when the conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess was a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Incan Empire, and founder of Lima, the modern-day capital of the Republic of Peru.-Early life:...
first encountered the Inca's they were greeted as Gods, "Viracochas", because their lighter skin resembled their God Viracocha
Viracocha
Viracocha is the great creator god in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Full name and some spelling alternatives are Apu Qun Tiqsi Wiraqutra and Con-Tici Viracocha...
. This story was first reported by Pedro Cieza de León
Pedro Cieza de León
Pedro Cieza de León was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru. He is known primarily for his history and description of Peru, Crónicas del Perú...
(1553) and later by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa was a Spanish explorer, author, historian, astronomer, and scientist. His birthplace is not certain and may have been Pontevedra, in Galicia, where his paternal family originated or Alcalá de Henares in Castile, where he later is known to have studied...
. Similar accounts by Spanish chroniclers (e.g. Juan de Betanzos
Juan de Betanzos
Juan de Betanzos wrote one of the most important sources on the conquest of the Incan civilization, Narrative of the Incas. He based this account of the Incas on the testimony of his wife, who had been previously married to Incan King Atahualpa as well as conducting interviews of Incans who had...
) describe Viracocha as a "White God", often with a beard.
Claims of other "White Gods" include Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca was a central deity in Aztec religion. One of the four sons of Ometeotl, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty,...
and Gukumatz
Gukumatz
Q'uq'umatz was a deity of the Postclassic K'iche Maya. Q'uq'umatz was the feathered serpent god of the Popol Vuh who created humanity together with the god Tepeu...
. Authors have also linked "White Gods" to the ancient city of Tiahuanaco.
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
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, he later disappeared in an "easterly direction".Braghine also claimed Manco Cápac
Manco Capac
Manco Cápac was the legendary first Sapa Inca of the Kingdom of Cusco and a figure of Inca mythology. There are several versions of his origin story, which connect him to the foundation of Cusco.- Inti legend :In one myth, Manco Cápac was a son of the sun god Inti and Mama Quilla, and brother of...
was a white bearded man. The Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
author Gerd von Hassler
Gerd von Hassler
Gerd von Hassler was a German author, director, radio broadcaster, composer, singer, journalist and producer.-Life and career:...
linked the "White Gods" to the biblical flood.
The archeologist Pierre Honoré has claimed that a group of white men, took inventions, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, tools and construction
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
skills to South America, as the races in South America were primitive
Primitive
Primitive may refer to:* Anarcho-primitivism, an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization* Primitive culture, one that lacks major signs of economic development or modernity...
. Because of his conclusions, his book has become popular amongst White supremacists and Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
proponents such as Wesley A. Swift
Wesley A. Swift
Wesley A. Swift , was a former Methodist minister from Southern California. In the 1940s, Swift started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian....
.
The writer Robert F. Marx
Robert F. Marx
Robert F. Marx is one of the pioneer American scuba divers and is best known for his work with shipwrecks and sunken treasure. Although he is considered controversial for his frequent and successful forays into treasure hunting, fellow treasure hunter E...
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."
The British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer Harold T. Wilkins
Harold T. Wilkins
-Biography:Educated at Cambridge University in journalism, Wilkins regularly reported on the early television experiments of John L. Baird, during the years 1926—1932....
took the concept of the White Gods the furthest, writing that a vanished white race had occupied the whole of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
in ancient times. Wilkins also claimed that Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
was from Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
The occultist James H. Madole
James H. Madole
James Hartung Madole was the leader of the National Renaissance Party in the United States. He is now recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-war occult-fascism.-Beliefs:...
influenced by Aryanism and Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
wrote that the Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
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
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
located in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
.
Most modern scholars consider the "White God legends" to be a post-conquest Spanish invention and that the ideas are based on pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
.
Mormonism
The anthropologist and authorAuthor
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
L. Taylor Hansen
L. Taylor Hansen
L. Taylor Hansen was a science fiction writer and anthropologist who used a male writing persona for the early part of her career...
wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963. In the book drawing from Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
legends
Legends
Legends are historical narratives, symbolic representations of folk belief.Legends may also refer to:-Music:*Legend , a 1984 album*Legends , a 1998 album...
, folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
discussed that a "White Prophet" had visited many different parts of America. Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
believe that the "White Prophet" was Jesus Christ.
Some Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
, who they describe as a white, bearded god who came from the sky and promised to return, was actually Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement that adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2600 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr...
, Jesus visited the American natives after his resurrection.
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 LamanitishLamaniteAccording to the Book of Mormon, a Lamanite is a member of a dark-skinned nation of indigenous Americans that battled with the light-skinned Nephite nation...
source. "
This idea was adapted by science fiction author and Mormon Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
in his story America
America (short story)
"America" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It appears in his short story collection The Folk of the Fringe. Card originally published this story in the January 1987 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.-Plot summary:...
.
Ancient Astronauts
Some Ancient astronaut and UFO writers have claimed the "White Gods" were actually extraterrestrials. Peter KolosimoPeter Kolosimo
Peter Kolosimo, pseudonym of Pier Domenico Colosimo was an Italian journalist and writer. Together with the later Erich von Däniken, he is ranked amongst the founders of pseudoarchaeology .Born in Modena, he lived in Bolzano for much of his life...
believed that the legends of Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
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
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
which after was destroyed moved to the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
to be treated as "White Gods" by the "primitive earth-dwellers".
The concept of "White Gods" in ancient legends
Legends
Legends are historical narratives, symbolic representations of folk belief.Legends may also refer to:-Music:*Legend , a 1984 album*Legends , a 1998 album...
and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
has been discussed in the documentary series Ancient Aliens
Ancient Aliens
Ancient Aliens is an American television series that premiered on April 20, 2010 on the History channel. Produced by Prometheus Entertainment, the program presents theories of ancient astronauts and proposes that historical texts, archaeology and legends contain evidence of past...
.