White gods

Did You Know?

• Early accounts of the Spanish conquest describe Hernán Cortés as mistaken for the god Quetzalcōātl by the Aztec Empire, but historian Camilla Townsend disputes these claims, noting Spanish authors had political motives.
• Some ancient astronaut writers claim the white gods were extraterrestrials; Peter Kolosimo believed the legends describe white men born in spaceships who migrated to Atlantis and then to the Americas.

Proponents

The idea of "white gods" has been linked to the ancient city of Tiahuanaco by Rupert Furneaux. In his 1940 book The Shadow of Atlantis, Colonel A. Braghine wrote that the Carib people tell of a white bearded man named Tamu or Zune who arrived from the East, taught agriculture, and then left toward the east. Braghine also claimed Manco Cápac was a white bearded figure. Gerd von Hassler, an author on Atlantis, connected these white gods to the biblical flood. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer, thought a white race once lived in South America. In 1962, archaeologist Pierre Honoré suggested that pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations were started by white men from near Crete. Harold T. Wilkins went further, stating a vanished white race had covered all of South America and that Quetzalcoatl came from Atlantis. The occultist James H. Madole, drawing on Aryanism and Hinduism, said the ancient Aryan race was worshipped as white gods by lesser peoples and originated in the Garden of Eden, which he placed in North America. Today, most scholars view these "white god legends" as a post-conquest Spanish invention and classify them as pseudoscience.

Beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Some Mormons believe that Quetzalcoatl, described as white and bearded, who came from the sky and promised to return, was likely Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ visited natives of the Americas after his resurrection. LDS Church President John Taylor wrote that the story of Quetzalcoatl closely resembles that of the Savior, leading to the conclusion that they are the same being. This idea was adapted by Mormon science fiction author Orson Scott Card in his story 'America'.