In short, according to one of the Quechua myths, Viracocha was considered the first ancestor, the forefather of all people and the creator of the world. According to a version of the cosmogonic myth, Viracocha created the sun, moon and stars in Lake Titicaca.

Then, with the help of two younger viracoches, he made human figures from stone and created people in their likeness, assigning each tribe its own region.

Viracocha and his assistants went all over the country, calling people out of the ground, from rivers, lakes, caves. Having populated the earth with people, Viracocha sailed to the west.

The theme of the white gods of the American Indians has worried scientists ever since they got acquainted with the sacred books of different peoples of the New World, where the role of certain bearers of culture and knowledge who came to New World"beyond the sea".

In the West, Graham Hancock became interested in the topic. Here are the main conclusions of the scientist and writer from the book "Traces of the Gods":

By the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Inca Empire stretched along the Pacific coast and the highlands of the Cordillera from the current northern border of Ecuador throughout Peru and reached south of the Maule River in central Chile. The remote corners of this empire were connected by a long and extensive network of roads, these included, for example, two parallel north-south highways, one of which stretched 3600 km along the coast, and the other, of the same length, across the Andes. Both of these great highways were paved and connected by a large number of transverse roads. A curious feature of their engineering equipment was suspension bridges and tunnels carved into the rocks. They were clearly the product of an advanced, disciplined and ambitious society. The capital of the empire was the city of Cusco, whose name in the local Quechua language means "navel of the earth." According to legend, it was founded by Manco-Capac and Mama-Oklo, two children of the Sun. Moreover, although the Incas worshiped the sun god Inga, the most revered deity was Viracocha, whose namesakes were considered the authors of the Nazca drawings, and his very name means “sea foam”.

No historian, however, is able to say how ancient the cult of this deity was by the time the Spaniards put an end to it. It seems that he has always existed; in any case, long before the Incas included him in their pantheon and built a magnificent temple dedicated to him in Cusco, there was evidence that the Great God Viracocha was worshiped by all civilizations in the long history of Peru.

At the beginning of the 16th century, before the Spaniards seriously undertook the destruction of Peruvian culture, an image of Viracocha stood in the most holy temple of Coricancha. According to a contemporary text, Anonymous Description of the Ancient Customs of the Natives of Peru, the marble statue of the deity "most resembled the holy apostle Bartholomew in hair, physique, facial features, dress and sandals, as he was traditionally depicted by artists."

According to other descriptions, Viracocha outwardly resembled St. Thomas. Therefore, he could be anything but an American Indian, as they have comparatively dark skin and sparse facial hair. Viracocha's thick beard and light skin are more suggestive of his non-American origin.

Who served as the prototype of Viracocha? Through many legends of the peoples of the Andean region, the mysterious figure of a fair-skinned bearded "old man" passes. And although in different places he was known under different names, everywhere you can recognize one person in him - Tiki Viracocha, Sea Foam, a connoisseur of science and a sorcerer, the owner of a terrible weapon, who came in troubled, antediluvian times to restore order in the world:

“Suddenly appeared, coming from the South, a white man of high stature and imperious behavior. He had such great power that he turned hills into valleys, and valleys into high hills, made streams flow from rocks ... "

The Spanish chronicler who recorded this legend explains that he heard it from the Indians with whom he traveled in the Andes:

“They heard it from their fathers, who, in turn, learned about it from songs that came from ancient times ... They say that this man traveled through the mountains to the North, performing miracles along the way, and that they never saw him again . It is said that in many places he taught people how to live, while talking to them with great love and kindness, encouraging them to be good and not harm or harm each other, but love each other and show mercy to all. In most places he was called Tiki Viracocha…”

He was also called Kon-Tiki, Tunupa, Taapak, Tupac, Illa. He was a scientist, an unsurpassed architect, sculptor and engineer.

“On the steep slopes of the gorges, he arranged terraces and fields, and the walls supporting them. He also created irrigation canals ... and went in different directions, creating many different things.

In his Code of Traditions of the Incas, the Spanish chronicler of the 16th century Juan de Betanzos states, for example, that, according to the Indians, "Viracocha was a tall, bearded man, dressed in a floor-length white shirt girded at the waist."

They say that Viracocha marked the beginning of a golden age, which subsequent generations remembered with nostalgia, continues G. Hancock. - Moreover, all the legends agree that he carried out his civilizing work with great kindness and, if possible, avoided the use of force: benevolent teachings and personal example - these are the main methods that he used to equip people with the technology and knowledge necessary for cultural and productive life. He was especially credited with introducing medicine, metallurgy, agriculture, animal husbandry, writing (later, according to the Incas, forgotten) and an understanding of the complex foundations of technology and construction to Peru. I was immediately impressed by the high quality of the Inca stonework in Cusco. However, as I continued my research in this old city, I realized with surprise that the so-called Inca masonry was not always made by them. They really were masters of stone processing, and many of the monuments of Cusco are undoubtedly their work.

However, it seems that some of the remarkable buildings attributed by tradition to the Incas could have been erected by earlier civilizations, there is reason to believe that the Incas often acted as restorers, rather than first builders.

As for the highly developed system of roads connecting the remote parts of the Inca empire, they are known to be parallel highways running from north to south, one parallel to the coast, the other across the Andes: in total over 20 thousand km of paved roads.

But the fact is that the Incas themselves did not build them, they only repaired the coatings, maintaining them in proper form. And no one has yet been able to reliably date the age of these amazing roads, not to mention the authorship ...

They say that they were some kind of red-haired people from two clans, faithful warriors (“waminka”) and “radiant” (“ayuaypanti”).

We have no choice but to turn to the traditions preserved by the chronicler José de Acosta in his Natural and Moral History of the Indians:

“They mention a lot the flood that happened in their country ... The Indians say that all people drowned in this flood. But a certain Viracocha came out of Lake Titicaca, who first settled in Tiahuanaco, where to this day you can see the ruins of ancient and very strange buildings, and from there he moved to Cuzco, from which the multiplication of the human race began ... ”“ The great creator god Viracocha decided to create a world where man could live. First he created the earth and the sky. Then he took on people, for which he cut giants out of stone, which he then revived. At first everything went well, but after a while the giants fought and refused to work. Viracocha decided that he must destroy them. Some he turned back to stone… the rest he destroyed in a great flood.”

Very similar to the revelations of the Old Testament. So, in the sixth chapter of the Bible (Genesis) it is described how the Jewish God, dissatisfied with his creation, decided to destroy it. And the phrase sounds intriguing here: “In those days, giants lived on earth ...” Could there be any connection between the giants, which have yet to be discovered in the biblical sands of the Middle East, and the giants from the legends of the pre-Columbian Indians?

And here we have the work of Garcillaso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish aristocrat and a woman from the family of the ruler of the Incas, "The History of the Inca State," Hancock continues his story. - He was considered one of the most reliable chroniclers and keeper of the traditions of the people to which his mother belonged. He worked in the sixteenth century, shortly after the conquest, when these traditions were not yet clouded by alien influences. He also quotes what was deeply believed: "After the flood receded, a certain man appeared in the country of Tiahuanaco ..."

That man was Viracocha. Wrapped in a cloak, strong, of noble appearance, he marched with impregnable self-confidence through the most dangerous places. He performed miracles of healing and could call fire from heaven. It seemed to the Indians that he appeared out of nowhere.

The story of Viracocha has curious parallels with the myth of the ups and downs of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of death and resurrection. This myth is most fully stated by Plutarch, who says that this mysterious person brought the gifts of civilization to his people, taught him many useful crafts, put an end to cannibalism and human sacrifice, and gave people the first set of laws.

Despite the significant differences between the traditions, the Egyptian Osiris and the South American Tunupa-Viracocha have, oddly enough, the following common features: both were great enlighteners; a conspiracy was organized against both; both were slain by the conspirators; both were hidden in some receptacle or vessel; both were thrown into the water; both swam down the river; both eventually reached the sea (“sea foam”…)

Doesn't this say - for the umpteenth time! - about a single antediluvian world, for which the Atlantic was not an insurmountable obstacle and in which social, economic and ethno-cultural ties were carried out much more intensively than we can imagine? And Viracocha was one of the messengers and workers of this world, irretrievably gone, but leaving mysterious traces.

Miloslav Stingl::: The State of the Incas. Glory and death of the sons of the sun

"Brides of the Sun" were servants of the solar cult, so systematically and methodically implanted in the Inca empire. In addition to the original traditional folk religion of the Indians of pre-Columbian Peru, which was based on the cult of uak, that is, sacred places and objects, there was another one in Tahuantinsuyu - the official, main religion of the empire, the meaning of which was to worship the highest god Inti - the Sun. Along with this, other celestial bodies were also worshiped - the Moon, Venus, constellations, thunder, lightning and a seven-color celestial rainbow were also revered. In addition to these two religious systems, there was also a third in the empire, which later, thanks to the great theological reform of the Inca Pachacuti, took the official position of supremacy in relation to both previous religious systems. The essence of this religion was to worship the creator god Viracocha.

Introduced by Pachacuti, the cult of Viracocha began to spread again in Peru during the reign of a number of the last rulers of Tahuantinsuyu. However, this cult found its admirers only in a narrow circle of the empire’s elite, that is, among a relatively educated group of people who, quite naturally, could no longer be satisfied with the primitive, often rather naive beliefs of the “solar religion” with its gods such as, for example, thunderer Ilyap, walking across the sky in golden chain mail, with a sling in one hand and a club in the other. This god from time to time poured water from the Heavenly River onto the earth and thereby gave it moisture, etc. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the educated layers of the empire, people who gravitated towards deeper, literally philosophical, more abstract religious ideas, turned to the creator Viracocha. Just as in pre-Columbian Mexico, the great philosopher and reformer of religion, Nezahualcoyotl, replaced the "ordinary" gods, who behaved too earthly, with a scheme, an idea of ​​​​an abstract omnipresent supreme being, that is, he replaced the idea that he called In Tloce Nahuaque. Such a higher being in the understanding of Pachacuti was to become Viracocha Pacha in Peru.

However, if the Mexican Nezahualcoyotl created the image of In Tloque Nahuaca himself, then the Incas only returned to Viracocha. The name Viracocha (however, it is quite possible that this was only one of the many official titles) was known throughout Peru even in the pre-Inca era. Viracocha himself was known as the creator of the world, people, the creator of all living beings. However, the authors of the Spanish chronicles, such as Molina, Betanzos, Sarmiento and others, argued that the Indians of the destroyed state of the Sun imagined the act of creation of the world in different ways.

The legends about the creation of the world coincide at least in one thing - that at the very beginning, in the depths of centuries, there was nothing and no one at all, except for the almighty, eternally existing Viracocha, whom no one created. Viracocha lived in a huge black "nothingness" that he did not like, and therefore he first created light - a clear day. After that, he created the earth. Viracocha wanted the earth not to be empty, devoid of all living things, which is why he created a special kind of people - giants. However, the creator was not satisfied with the first creation. It seemed to him that these people were too big and clumsy and not at all beautiful. Moreover, they did not follow the orders that the wise creator gave them. Therefore, Viracocha had to destroy the first, "failed" tribe of people and turn them into stones. Soon Viracocha sent down a huge flood on the petrified giants. The flood in America (as we can see, the flood is mentioned not only in the Bible, it is also reflected in the religious ideas of the Peruvian Indians) lasted for 60 days. During the flood, almost all traces of the first people, whom Viracocha created and whom he himself renounced and then destroyed, disappeared forever under water.

When the waters of the flood receded and the earth finally dried up, Viracocha continued his creation. He settled in a place called Tiahuanaco, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (they say that he also lived on the island of Titicaca, located in the middle of the lake of the same name). – While in Tahuantinsuyu, the creator created the Sun, and then the Moon, Venus, as well as other planets, stars and constellations. In the end, he again tried to create people. The creator was pleased with the new generation of the human race created in Tahuantinsuyu (his direct descendants were supposedly the Indians who inhabited Inca Peru). Viracocha divided the created men and women into tribes and peoples, determining where they should settle. According to the chronicler Molina, Viracocha then created all the animals, having determined their place of residence.

Viracocha gave people not only their homeland and their lands, he made laws for them. So, he showed people how they should live and honor him, Viracocha.

Following this, Viracocha left the region of Tiahuanaco and Lake Titicaca and went north. He moved through the Andes, surveying the country inhabited by the people he had created. According to the legends of the Peruvian Indians, he turned from a creator into an educator. Viracocha taught men and women useful pursuits. And finally, when Viracocha was completely satisfied with both the people and what he had created, he left Peru and on the coast Pacific Ocean plunged into the sea waves, promising, however, eventually to return to the Indians of Peru. The inhabitants of Tahuantinsuyu sometimes imagined Viracocha as a solid man, tall, with a bushy beard. With this image in mind, many Peruvian Indians decided that Pizarro with his white-skinned bearded soldiers was Viracocha who had returned to earth. Just as the Mexican Indians saw the returning Quetzalcoatl in the bloody Cortes.

Viracocha, or Kon-Tiki Viracocha, as he was also called, was revered not only in the Inca Empire (mainly after the mentioned religious reform of Pachacuti). Even long before the formation of the empire, Viracocha was worshiped by the Indians of some regions of Peru, as well as in a number of pre-Inca Peruvian cultures. In pre-Inca Peru, Viracocha was obviously centered in the city of Tiahuanaco, that magnificent Tiahuanaco, located at an altitude of four thousand meters above sea level on the high plateaus of Bolivia, which is one of the most remarkable places in South America. This city continues to remain a mystery to us to this day. It was here, in Tiahuanaco, as the legends tell, that Viracocha also created the Sun, which later - according to the official version of the religious beliefs of the Inca Empire - became the father of their rulers.

It is here, in this amazing Tiahuanaco, that one of the most remarkable monuments of the Indian culture of all three Americas is located - the so-called Gate of the Sun, carved from one huge block of andesite and decorated with a large frieze, in the center of which is the image of a god. According to many researchers, this is Viracocha. The same god from the Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco is depicted on fabrics dating back to the pre-Inca era, and on many ceramic vessels found in various regions of the Andes.

The All-Andean creator of the universe, himself created by no one, was in Tahuantinsuyu for a long time in the background. And only the great reformer Inca Pachacuti, at the famous “theological council” he assembled in Coricancha, again returned Veracocha to that place in ancient Peruvian religious ideas, which, as the lord was convinced, belonged to him by right.

The image of the "new Viracocha", at least in the form in which Pachacuti recreated it at the "theological council" in Coricancha, in many respects loses its specificity and receives a more philosophical interpretation. In the understanding of this Inca, Viracocha is a kind of original idea, very far from both the people themselves and the other gods. He stands above everyone, sovereign, spontaneously born, who created everyone and everything around. He lives alone, creates and breeds differently than other beings. He doesn't need a wife. He lives somewhere in the depths of the universe inaccessible to human eyes. Nevertheless, it is through this creator, so remote from man, that blessing, health and peace descend upon the Peruvian Indians.

During this period, one and later a second temple was erected in Tahuantinsuyu in honor of Viracocha. The first temple was located in Cuzco, the second - in the city of Kutch. By the way, the Temple of Viracocha in Kutch was one of the largest sanctuaries in the entire empire. Its ruins have survived to this day. So, for example, the wall of the main building of the sanctuary, 90 meters long, remained. During the time of Pachacuti, the oval image of Viracocha was also in the center of the main "solar sanctuary" - in the Temple of the Sun in Cusco.

It is believed that in honor of the creator god, the great Pachacuti, the ruler who revived the cult of Viracocha in the religious worldview of the Indians of the Inca Empire, composed many hymns. Unlike most other works of Inca literature, some of these magnificent hymns glorifying Viracocha have survived to this day. Now, of course, it is difficult for us to establish whether the author of the hymns in honor of Viracocha was the Transformer of the World himself - Inca Pachacuti. This, in fact, is not so important. Another thing is more important: from the depths of centuries, from pre-Inca times, the voice of the pre-Columbian Indians of Peru has come down to us, and thanks to this voice we can appreciate not only their literary skill, but also their religious and philosophical views, their understanding of the essence of the world.

In the verses below, full of originality, we feel the hand of Pachacuti, the Inca ruler, who transformed the image of a concrete creator god into something abstract, devoid of reality, omnipotent, and at the same time cosmically distant for man. Man lives in search of this highest, absolute being and cannot find it in any way. Pachacuti is the only poet among the countless anonymous literati of Inca period Peru whose name we know. It is very possible that he was the author of the following hymn:

O Viracocha, lord of the world,

Whoever you are: man

Or a woman.

O thou, through whom the human race is multiplied.

Whoever you are.

Where is your place?

Is it over me?

Is it under me?

Or maybe your throne is everywhere around me,

And your club - your rod - is also everywhere around me?

Hear me!

Creator of the world.

Listen to me there, in heaven.

Listen to me, wherever you are.

Listen to me from the deep abyss of the ocean.

After all, there could be your place.

O king of kings!

How I wish I could see you.

But my eyes do not see you.

Oh, if you would appear to me

If I only dared to look at you.

Oh, if I understood you.

Oh, look at me from your heavens.

Because you care about me.

After all, you did not do it in vain,

Viracocha,

sun and moon,

Day and night,

Autumn and spring.

Goes where you assigned

You have a certain place.

Yes, it's getting closer

To your goal

And all this is at your will, at your command.

So listen to me.

Let me also join your [chosen ones].

Don't let

my fall,

My death!

This hymn in honor of the creator god may have been composed by Pachacuti himself, or perhaps by someone else, having done it, however, in the spirit of the Inca ruler. Now let's listen to at least the first lines of one poetic prayer with which the Tahuantinsuyu Indians turned to Viracocha, asking for the multiplication of the human race:

O Viracocha, you who work miracles,

And who [give us] a diva never seen before.

Desired Viracocha, great, incomparable.

Bless that people multiply

And for children to be born!

And let our fields, our villages

No trouble threatens.

O you who give life, do not forget about them.

Stretch your merciful right hand over them.

Forever and ever [O Viracocha!]…

With regard to the South American events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many questions arise, and among them one main one is why in some areas the conquistadors did not meet any resistance, but, on the contrary, were met with offerings?

The answer is simple, the Spaniards were fair-skinned and bearded, and some of them were fair-haired - exactly like the deities who landed on the same lands hundreds of years ago.

From the notes of Francisco Pizarro: “The ruling class in the Peruvian kingdom was light-skinned, the color of ripe wheat. Most of the nobles were remarkably like the Spaniards. In this country I met an Indian woman so fair-skinned that I was amazed. Neighbors call these people the children of the gods ... "

Is there any modern evidence of the existence of these mysterious white people in the land of the Indians? “An unknown Indian tribe was discovered by an expedition of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) in the state of Para (Amazon basin) in northern Brazil. The white-skinned blue-eyed Indians of this tribe, living in a dense tropical forest, are skilled fishermen and fearless hunters. To further study the way of life of the new tribe, the expedition members, led by a specialist in the problems of Brazilian Indians, Raimundo Alves, intend to conduct a detailed study of the life of this tribe.” (Clarin, Argentina).

In the summer of 2003, in July, in the wilds of the Amazon, traces of a civilization that science still did not know were found. French and Ecuadorian archaeologists, who studied 4,500-year-old burials on one of the tributaries of the Rio Chinchipe (Ecuador), discovered dozens of stone objects (bowls, small dishes, stupas), as well as clay shards. These finds, made near the town of Palanda (Province of Zamora-Chinchipe), look promising. Everything suggests that the objects found in the place of La Florida (1000 meters above sea level) on the spurs of the Andes are traces of a developed civilization that once existed in the Amazon forests, which archaeologists still did not know about.

In 1681, a Jesuit, Fray Lucero, described information coming from the Indians that there was a city where white people lived, a nation called curveros, in a place called Yurachuasi, or White Settlement. The description of this place is also found in the book "The Secret Threshold". Perhaps Paititi is the mystical city of Eldorado, constantly mentioned in the Amazon. Also, some believe that El Dorado is located closer to the Orinoco. In 1559, an expedition was organized by the Spaniards with the Peruvian Indians to search for this place. The expedition failed and its leader, Pedro de Ursua, was killed by a soldier, Lope de Aguirre. Its members spoke of white-skinned people and warlike women, who were called Amazons. Based on the events, the film "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" was created.

Where are the white people? How could it be that these amazing demigods suddenly disappeared? Some sources claim that the entire territory of America (especially South and Central America) was penetrated by a network of underground communications tunnels and that almost entire settlements can be found underground, where people lived in the pre-Columbian era.

Argentine professor Gigermo Terrera, a specialist in history and anthropology, believes that the peoples of America knew about these underground rooms. He claims that in different eras, high priests and rulers used this underground complex, and that they hid from the persecution of the Spaniards and carried away most of the gold treasures there. It turns out that the Lower (underground) World, represented in the cosmogony of South America by a snake, is not a myth, but a reality?

Tibetan lamas claim that in South America there is an underground world that can only be reached through secret tunnels that are protected and hidden from those who are not expected there. In this underworld, according to the monks, peoples live ancient world who fled there during the great cataclysm. They use the ancient knowledge of how to use the energy of crystals and with their help receive light and life energy.

Countless legends of the Indians of both Americas tell that white bearded people once landed on the shores of their country. They brought to the Indians the foundations of knowledge, laws, the whole civilization. They arrived in large, strange ships with swan wings and luminous hulls. Approaching the shore, the ships landed blue-eyed and blond-haired people in robes of coarse black material, in short gloves. They had snake-shaped ornaments on their foreheads. This legend has survived almost unchanged to this day. The Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico called the white god Quetzalcoatl, the Incas Contixi Viracocha, for the Chibcha he was Bochica, and for the Maya Kukulkan...

Lake Titicaca turned out to be in the very center of the “activity” of the white god Viracocha, for all the evidence converges on one thing there, on the lake, and in the neighboring city of Tiahuanaco, there was the residence of the god. “They also told, writes Cieza de Leon, that in the past centuries a people lived on the lake, on the island, white, like us, and one local leader named Kari with his people came to this island and waged war against this people and killed many ..."

In a special chapter of his chronicle devoted to the ancient structures of Tiahuanaco, Leon says the following: “I asked local residents whether these structures were created during the time of the Incas. They laughed at my question and said that they knew for sure that all this was done long before the power of the Incas. They saw bearded men on Lake Titicaca. These were people of a subtle mind, who came from an unknown country, and there were few of them, and many of them were killed in wars ... "

When the Frenchman Bandelier 350 years later began excavations in these places, the legends were still alive. He was told that in ancient times the island was inhabited by people similar to Europeans, they married local women, and their children became Incas ... "Information collected in various regions of Peru, differs only in details ... Inca Garcilaso asked his royal uncle about the early history of Peru.

He answered: “Nephew, I will gladly answer your question and what I say, you will forever keep in your heart. Know that in ancient times the whole region known to you was covered with forest and thickets, and people lived like wild animals without religion and power, without cities and houses, without tilling the land and without clothes, because they did not know how to make fabrics, to make a dress.

They lived in twos or threes in caves or rock crevices, in grottoes underground. They ate turtles and roots, fruits and human flesh. They covered their bodies with leaves and animal skins…” De Leon adds Garcilaso: “Immediately after this, a tall white man appeared and he had great authority. They say that in many villages he taught people how to live normally. Everywhere they called him the same Contixi Viracocha. And in honor of him they built temples and erected statues in them...’’

When in 1932 the archaeologist Bennett was excavating in Tiahuanaco, he came across a red stone figurine depicting the god Contixi Viracocha in a long robe, with a beard. His robe was adorned with horned snakes and two puma, symbols of the highest deity in Mexico and Peru. Bennett pointed out that this figurine was identical to that found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, just on the peninsula closest to the island of the same name. Other similar sculptures were found around the lake. On the Peruvian coast, Viracocha was immortalized in ceramics and there was no stone for figurines there. The authors of these drawings are early Chimu and Mochika.

Already mentioned by us, Pizarro and his people, robbing and breaking the Inca temples, left detailed descriptions their actions. In one of the temples of Cusco, wiped off the face of the earth, there was a huge statue depicting a man in a long robe and sandals, “exactly the same as that painted by Spanish artists at home” ...

In the temple built in honor of Viracocha, the great god Contixi Viracocha also stood, a man with a long beard and proud posture, in a long robe.

A contemporary of the events wrote that when the Spaniards saw this statue, they thought that St. Bartholomew had reached Peru and the Indians created a monument in memory of this event.

The conquistadors were so amazed by the strange statue that they did not immediately destroy it, and the temple for a while passed the fate of other similar structures.

One of the chroniclers, Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of an Inca queen, left an impressive description of how once, when he was still a child, another dignitary took him to the royal tomb. Ondegardo (that was his name) showed the boy one of the rooms of the palace in Cuzco, where several mummies lay along the wall.

Ondegardo said they were former Inca emperors and he saved their bodies from decay. By chance the boy stopped in front of one of the mummies. Her hair was white as snow.

Ondegardo said it was the mummy of the White Inca, the 8th ruler of the Sun. Since it is known that he died at a young age, the whiteness of his hair can in no way be explained by gray hair ...

A superficial acquaintance with the huge and multi-genre literature on the history of Peru is enough to find many references to bearded and white-skinned Indian gods...

Exploring the territory of Peru, the Spaniards also stumbled upon huge metal structures of pre-Inca times, which also lay in ruins. “When I asked the local Indians who built these ancient monuments,” wrote the Spanish chronicler Cieza de Leon in 1553, they replied that it was made by another people, bearded and white-skinned, like us Spaniards. These people arrived long before the Incas and settled here.”

How strong and tenacious the legends about white deities are confirmed by the testimony of the Peruvian archaeologist Valysarsel, who 400 years after de Leon heard from the Indians who lived near the ruins that "these structures were created by a foreign people, white like Europeans."

On Easter Island, the most distant piece of land from Polynesia and closest to America, legends have been preserved that the ancestors of the islanders came from a desert country in the East and reached the island after sailing 60 days towards the setting sun. Today's racially mixed islanders claim that some of their ancestors had white skin and red hair, while the rest were dark-skinned and black-haired.

This was witnessed by the first Europeans who visited the island. When a Dutch ship first visited Easter Island in 1722, a white man boarded among the other inhabitants, and the Dutch recorded the following about the rest of the islanders: “Among them there are dark brown, like the Spaniards, and completely white people, and some the skin is generally red, as if the sun burned it ... "From the early reports collected in 1880 by Thompson, it became known that the country, located, according to legend, 60 days' journey to the east, was also called the" burial place ".

The climate there was so hot that people died and plants withered. To the west of Easter Island, all the way to Southeast Asia, there is nothing that could fit this description: the coasts of all the islands are covered with a wall of rainforest. But in the east, where the inhabitants pointed out, lie the coastal deserts of Peru, and nowhere else in the Pacific Ocean is there a place that would better correspond to the descriptions of the legend than the Peruvian coast, both in climate and in name.

Numerous graves are indeed located along the deserted coast of the Pacific Ocean. The dry climate has allowed today's scientists to study in detail the bodies buried there. According to initial assumptions, the mummies located there should have given researchers an exhaustive answer to the question: what was the type of the ancient pre-Inca population of Peru?

However, the mummies did the opposite, they only asked riddles. Having opened the graves, anthropologists discovered there types of people who had not yet met in ancient America. In 1925, archaeologists discovered two large necropolises on the Paracas Peninsula in the southern part of the central Peruvian coast.

Hundreds of mummies of ancient dignitaries lay in the burial. Radiocarbon analysis determined their age to be 2200 years. Near the graves, the researchers found large amounts of fragments of hardwoods that were commonly used to build rafts. When the mummies were opened, they revealed a striking difference from the main physical type of the ancient Peruvian population.

Here is what the then American anthropologist Stuart wrote about the mummies found on the coast of Peru: "It was a selected group of large people, absolutely not typical of the population of Peru." While Stewart studied their bones, M. Trotter analyzed the hair of nine mummies. According to him, their color is generally red-brown, but in some cases the samples gave a very light, almost golden hair color. The hair of the two mummies was generally different from the rest, they curled ...

Many legends agree that Viracocha sailed on reed boats to the shores of Lake Titicaca and created the megalithic city of Tiahuanaco. From here he sent bearded ambassadors to all parts of Peru to teach people and say that he was their creator. But, in the end, dissatisfied with the behavior of the inhabitants, he decided to leave their lands.

Throughout the vast Inca empire, until the arrival of the Spaniards, the Indians unanimously named the path along which Viracocha and his associates left. They went down to the Pacific coast and went by sea to the west along with the sun ...

"Interesting newspaper. Mysteries of civilization" №22 2012

In short, according to one of the Quechua myths Viracocha was considered the ancestor, forefather of all people and the creator of the world. According to a version of the cosmogonic myth, Viracocha created the sun, moon and stars in Lake Titicaca.

Then, with the help of two younger viracoches, he made human figures from stone and created people in their likeness, assigning each tribe its own region.

Viracocha and his assistants went all over the country, calling people out of the ground, from rivers, lakes, caves. Having populated the earth with people, Viracocha sailed to the west.

The theme of the white gods of the American Indians has worried scientists ever since they got acquainted with the sacred books of different peoples of the New World, where the role of certain bearers of culture and knowledge who came to the New World "from beyond the sea" was clearly formulated in various expressions.

In the West, I got carried away with the topic Graham Hancock. Here are the main conclusions of the scientist and writer from the book "Traces of the Gods":

- By the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Inca Empire stretched along the Pacific coast and along the highlands of the Cordillera from the current northern border of Ecuador throughout Peru and reached south of the Maule River in central Chile.

The remote corners of this empire were connected by a long and extensive network of roads, they included, for example, two parallel north-south highways, one of which stretched for 3600 km along the coast, and the other, of the same length, across the Andes. Both of these great highways were paved and connected by a large number of transverse roads.

A curious feature of their engineering equipment was suspension bridges and tunnels cut into the rocks. They were clearly the product of an advanced, disciplined and ambitious society.

The capital of the empire was the city of Cusco, whose name in the local Quechua language means "navel of the earth." According to legend, it was founded by Manco-Capac and Mama-Oklo, two children of the Sun. Moreover, although the Incas worshiped the sun god Inga, the most revered deity was Viracocha, whose namesakes were considered the authors of the Nazca drawings, and his very name means “sea foam”.

No historian, however, is able to say how ancient the cult of this deity was by the time the Spaniards put an end to it. It seems that he has always existed; in any case, long before the Incas included him in their pantheon and built a magnificent temple dedicated to him in Cusco, there was evidence that the Great God Viracocha was worshiped by all civilizations in the long history of Peru.

At the beginning of the 16th century, before the Spaniards seriously undertook the destruction of Peruvian culture, an image of Viracocha stood in the most holy temple of Coricancha. According to a contemporary text, Anonymous Description of the Ancient Habits of the Natives of Peru, the marble statue of the deity "looked most like the holy apostle Bartholomew in hair, body type, features, dress and sandals, as he was traditionally portrayed by artists."

According to other descriptions, Viracocha outwardly resembled St. Thomas. Therefore, he could be anything but an American Indian, as they have comparatively dark skin and sparse facial hair. Viracocha's thick beard and light skin are more suggestive of his non-American origin.

Who served as the prototype of Viracocha? Through many legends of the peoples of the Andean region, the mysterious figure of a fair-skinned bearded "old man" passes. And although in different places he was known under different names, everywhere you can recognize one person in him - Tiki Viracocha, Sea Foam, a connoisseur of science and a sorcerer, the owner of a terrible weapon, who came in restless, antediluvian times to restore order in the world:

“Suddenly appeared, coming from the South, a white man of high stature and imperious behavior. He had such great power that he turned hills into valleys and valleys into high hills, made streams flow from rocks ... "

The Spanish chronicler who recorded this legend explains that he heard it from the Indians with whom he traveled in the Andes:

“They heard it from their fathers, who, in turn, learned about it from songs that came from ancient times ... They say that this man traveled through the mountains to the North, performing miracles along the way, and that they will never see him again. did not see.

It is said that in many places he taught people how to live, while talking to them with great love and kindness, encouraging them to be good and not harm or harm each other, but love each other and show mercy to all. In most places he was called Tiki Viracocha..."

He was also called Kon-Tiki, Tunupa, Taapak, Tupac, Illa. He was a scientist, an unsurpassed architect, sculptor and engineer.

“On the steep slopes of the gorges, he arranged terraces and fields, and the walls supporting them. He also created irrigation canals... and went in different directions, creating many different things.”

In his Code of Traditions of the Incas, the Spanish chronicler of the 16th century Juan de Betanzos states, for example, that, according to the Indians, "Viracocha was a tall, bearded man, dressed in a floor-length white shirt girded at the waist."

— They say that Viracocha marked the beginning of a golden age, which later generations remembered with nostalgia, — continues G. Hancock. - Moreover, all the legends agree that he carried out his civilizing work with great kindness and, if possible, avoided the use of force: benevolent teachings and personal example - these are the main methods that he used to equip people with the technology and knowledge necessary for cultural and productive life.

He was especially credited with introducing medicine, metallurgy, agriculture, animal husbandry, writing (later, according to the Incas, forgotten) and an understanding of the complex foundations of technology and construction to Peru.

I was immediately impressed by the high quality of the Inca stonework in Cusco. However, as I continued my research in this old city, I realized with surprise that the so-called Inca masonry was not always made by them. They really were masters of stone processing, and many of the monuments of Cusco are undoubtedly their work.

However, it seems that some of the remarkable buildings attributed by tradition to the Incas could have been erected by earlier civilizations, there is reason to believe that the Incas often acted as restorers, rather than first builders.

As for the highly developed system of roads connecting the remote parts of the Inca empire, they were known to be parallel highways running from north to south, one parallel to the coast, the other across the Andes: in total over 20 thousand km of paved roads.

But the fact is that the Incas themselves did not build them, they only repaired the coatings, maintaining them in proper form. And no one has yet been able to reliably date the age of these amazing roads, not to mention the authorship ...

They say that they were some kind of red-haired people from two clans, faithful warriors (“waminka”) and “radiant” (“ayuaypanti”).

We have no choice but to turn to the traditions preserved by the chronicler José de Acosta in his Natural and Moral History of the Indians:

“They mention a lot the flood that happened in their country ... The Indians say that all people drowned in this flood. But a certain Viracocha came out of Lake Titicaca, who first settled in Tiahuanaco, where to this day you can see the ruins of ancient and very strange buildings, and from there he moved to Cuzco, from which the multiplication of the human race began ... "

“The great creator god Viracocha decided to create a world where man could live. First he created the earth and the sky. Then he took on people, for which he cut giants out of stone, which he then revived. At first everything went well, but after a while the giants fought and refused to work. Viracocha decided that he must destroy them. Some he turned back to stone... the rest he destroyed in a great flood.”

Very similar to the revelations of the Old Testament. So, in the sixth chapter of the Bible (Genesis) it is described how the Jewish God, dissatisfied with his creation, decided to destroy it. And the phrase sounds intriguing here: “In those days, giants lived on earth ...” Could there be any connection between the giants, which have yet to be discovered in the biblical sands of the Middle East, and the giants from the legends of the pre-Columbian Indians?

“And here we have the work of Garcillaso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish aristocrat and a woman from the family of the ruler of the Incas, “The History of the Inca State,” Hancock continues his story. - He was considered one of the most reliable chroniclers and keeper of the traditions of the people to which his mother belonged.

He worked in the sixteenth century, shortly after the conquest, when these traditions were not yet clouded by alien influences. He also quotes what was believed deeply and with conviction:

"After the flood receded, a certain man appeared in the country of Tiahuanaco..."

That man was Viracocha. Wrapped in a cloak, strong, of noble appearance, he marched with impregnable self-confidence through the most dangerous places. He performed miracles of healing and could call fire from heaven. It seemed to the Indians that he appeared out of nowhere.

The story of Viracocha has curious parallels with the myth of the ups and downs of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of death and resurrection. This myth is most fully stated by Plutarch, who says that this mysterious person brought the gifts of civilization to his people, taught him many useful crafts, put an end to cannibalism and human sacrifice, and gave people the first set of laws.

Despite the significant differences between the traditions, the Egyptian Osiris and the South American Tunupa-Viracocha have, oddly enough, the following common features: both were great enlighteners; a conspiracy was organized against both; both were slain by the conspirators; both were hidden in some receptacle or vessel; both were thrown into the water; both swam down the river; both eventually reached the sea ("sea foam"...)

Doesn't this say - for the umpteenth time! - about a single antediluvian world, for which the Atlantic was not an insurmountable obstacle and in which social, economic and ethno-cultural ties were carried out much more intensively than we can imagine? And Viracocha was one of the messengers and workers of this world, irretrievably gone, but leaving mysterious traces.

In the second volume of N.V. Levashov’s now banned book “Russia in Crooked Mirrors”, there is a mention of the legends of the Red Race, which describe the god-enlightener of the American Indians, which came after a planetary catastrophe.

Viracocha with assistants brought moral norms, law, the development of crafts and art - all this was done in order to reduce the gap between the evolutionary number of the White and Red Races, which led to the mentioned catastrophe.

For a closer acquaintance with the traditions of the Indians, we present a fragment of the book Graham Hancock "Footprints of the Gods".

"SEA FOAM"

By the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Inca Empire stretched along the Pacific coast and the highlands of the Cordillera from the current northern border of Ecuador throughout Peru and reached south of the Maule River in central Chile. The remote corners of this empire were connected by a long and extensive network of roads, these included, for example, two parallel north-south highways, one of which stretched 3600 kilometers along the coast, and the other, of the same length, across the Andes. Both of these great highways were paved and connected by a large number of transverse roads. A curious feature of their engineering equipment was suspension bridges and tunnels cut into the rocks. They were clearly the product of an advanced, disciplined and ambitious society. Ironically, these roads played an important role in the fall of the empire, as the Spanish troops, led by Francisco Pizarro, successfully used them to mercilessly advance deep into the Inca lands.

The capital of the empire was the city of Cusco, whose name in the local Quechua language means "navel of the earth." According to legend, it was founded by Manco-Capac and Mama-Oklo, two children of the Sun. Moreover, although the Incas worshiped the sun god Inga, the most revered deity was Viracocha, whose namesakes were considered the authors of the Nazca drawings, and his very name means “sea foam”.

It is no doubt a mere coincidence that the Greek goddess Aphrodite, born from the sea, was named after the sea foam (“afros”). Moreover, the inhabitants of the Cordillera have always uncompromisingly considered Viracocha a man, this is known for sure. No historian, however, is able to say how ancient the cult of this deity was by the time the Spaniards put an end to it. It seems that he has always existed; in any case, long before the Incas included him in their pantheon and built a majestic temple dedicated to him in Cusco, there was evidence that the Great God Viracocha was worshiped by all civilizations in the long history of Peru.

BEARDED STRANGER

At the beginning of the 16th century, before the Spaniards seriously undertook the destruction of Peruvian culture, an image of Viracocha stood in the holy temple of Coricancha. According to a contemporary text, Anonymous Description of the Ancient Customs of the Natives of Peru, the marble statue of the deity "most closely resembled the Holy Apostle Bartholomew in hair, physique, features, dress and sandals, as he was traditionally depicted by artists." According to other descriptions, Viracocha outwardly resembled Saint Thomas. I studied a number of illustrated Christian church manuscripts in which the said saints appeared; according to the descriptions, both looked like thin, fair-skinned, bearded people, elderly, shod in sandals and dressed in long flowing cloaks. It can be seen that all this exactly corresponds to the description of Viracocha, accepted by those who worshiped him. Therefore, he could be anything but an American Indian, as they have comparatively dark skin and sparse facial hair. The thick beard and fair skin of Viracocha are more suggestive of his non-American origin.

Then, in the 16th century, the Incas were also of the same opinion. They so unambiguously imagined his physical appearance, according to legendary descriptions and religious beliefs, that at first they mistook the light-skinned and bearded Spaniards for Viracocha and his demigods who returned to their shores, especially since such an coming was predicted by the prophets and, according to all legends, Viracocha himself promised. This happy coincidence guaranteed Pizarro's conquistadors a decisive strategic and psychological advantage in battles against the numerically superior Inca army.

Who served as the prototype of Viracocha?

THE ONE WHO CAME IN THE TIME OF CHAOS

Through all the ancient legends of the peoples of the Andean region, wrapped in a cloak, a tall, mysterious figure of a fair-skinned man with a beard passes. And although in different places he was known under different names, everywhere you can recognize one person in him - Viracocha, Seafoam, a connoisseur of science and a sorcerer, the owner of a terrible weapon who appeared in times of chaos to restore order in the world.

The same story exists in many versions among all the peoples of the Andean region. It begins with a graphic, terrifying description of the time when a great flood hit the earth and great darkness fell due to the disappearance of the sun. Society fell into chaos, people suffered. And then “suddenly appeared, coming from the South, a white man of high stature and imperious behavior. He had such great power that he turned hills into valleys, and valleys into high hills, made streams flow from rocks ... "

The Spanish chronicler who recorded this legend explains that he heard it from the Indians with whom he traveled in the Andes:

“They heard it from their fathers, who, in turn, learned about it from songs that came from ancient times ... They say that this man traveled through the mountains to the North, performing miracles along the way, and that they never saw him again . It is said that in many places he taught people how to live, while talking to them with great love and kindness, encouraging them to be good and not harm or harm each other, but love each other and show mercy to all. In most places he was called Tiki Viracocha…”

He was also called by other names: Huaracocha, Kon, Kon Tiki, Tunupa, Taapak, Tupaca, Illa. He was a scientist, an unsurpassed architect, sculptor and engineer. “On the steep slopes of the gorges, he arranged terraces and fields, and the walls supporting them. He also created irrigation canals ... and went in different directions, creating many different things.

Viracocha was also a teacher and healer and did a lot of good for those in need. It is said that "wherever he passed, he healed the sick and restored sight to the blind."

However, this good educator, the superhuman Samaritan, had another side. If his life was threatened, which is said to have happened several times, he was armed with heavenly fire:

“Working great miracles with his word, he came to the region of Kanas, and there, near a village called Kacha… people rebelled against him and threatened to throw stones at him. They saw how he knelt down and raised his hands to the sky, as if calling for help in the misfortune that befell him. According to the Indians, they then saw a fire in the sky that seemed to be all around. Filled with fear, they approached the one they wanted to kill, and begged to forgive them ... And then they saw that the fire was extinguished by his order; at the same time, the fire so scorched the stones that large pieces could be easily lifted by hand - as if they were from a cork. And then, they said, he left the place where it all happened, went ashore and, holding his mantle, went straight into the waves. He was not seen again. And people called him Viracocha, which means "Sea Foam".

Legends are unanimous in describing the appearance of Viracocha. In his Code of Traditions of the Incas, the 16th-century Spanish chronicler Juan de Betanzos states, for example, that, according to the Indians, "Viracocha was a tall bearded man, dressed in a long white shirt to the floor, girded at the waist."

Other descriptions, collected from the most diverse and distant Andean inhabitants, seem to refer to the same mysterious person. So, according to one of them he was:

“a bearded man of medium height, dressed in a rather long cloak ... He was not the first youth, with gray hair, thin. He walked with his retinue, addressed the natives with love, calling them his sons and daughters. Traveling around the country, he worked wonders. He healed the sick by touch. He spoke any language even better than the locals. They called him Tunupa or Tarpaka, Viracocha-rapacha or Pachakan…”

According to one legend, Tunupa-Viracocha was "a white man of high stature, whose appearance and personality caused great respect and admiration." According to another, he was a white man of majestic appearance, blue-eyed, bearded, with an uncovered head, dressed in a “kusma” - a sleeveless jacket or shirt that reached his knees. According to the third, apparently relating to a later period of his life, he was respected "as a wise adviser on matters of national importance", at that time he was a bearded old man with long hair, dressed in a long tunic.

CIVILIZATION MISSION

But most of all, Viracocha is remembered in legends as a teacher. Before his arrival, legends say, "people lived in complete disorder, many walked naked, like savages, they had no houses or other dwellings except caves, from where they walked around the neighborhood in search of something edible."

Viracocha is said to have changed all of this and ushered in a golden age remembered with nostalgia by later generations. Moreover, all the legends agree that he carried out his civilizing work with great kindness and, if possible, avoided the use of force: benevolent teachings and personal example - these are the main methods that he used to equip people with the technology and knowledge necessary for cultural and productive life. He was especially credited with introducing medicine, metallurgy, agriculture, animal husbandry, writing (later, according to the Incas, forgotten) and an understanding of the complex foundations of technology and construction to Peru.

I was immediately impressed by the high quality of the Inca stonework in Cusco. However, as I continued my research in this old city, I realized with surprise that the so-called Inca masonry was not always made by them. They really were masters of stone processing, and many of the monuments of Cusco are undoubtedly their work. However, it seems that some of the remarkable buildings attributed by tradition to the Incas could have been erected by earlier civilizations, there is reason to believe that the Incas often acted as restorers, rather than first builders.

The same can be said about the highly developed system of roads connecting the distant parts of the Inca empire. The reader will remember that these roads were in the form of parallel highways running from north to south, one parallel to the coast, the other across the Andes. By the time of the Spanish conquest, over 15,000 miles of paved roads were in regular and efficient use. At first I thought that they were all the work of the Incas, but then I came to the conclusion that, most likely, the Incas inherited this system. Their role was reduced to the restoration, maintenance and consolidation of pre-existing roads. By the way, although it is not often recognized, no expert has been able to reliably date the age of these amazing roads and determine who built them.

The mystery is compounded by local lore that not only were roads and elaborate architecture already ancient during the Inca era, but that they were the work of white, red-haired people who lived thousands of years before.

According to one of the legends, Viracocha was accompanied by messengers of two kinds, faithful warriors (“waminka”) and “radiant” (“ayuaypanti”). Their task was to carry God's message "to every part of the world."

Other sources said: "Kon-Tiki returned ... with satellites"; "Then Kon-Tiki gathered his followers, who were called viracocha"; “Kon-Tiki ordered all the viracochas, except for two, to go east…”, “And then a god named Kon-Tiki Viracocha came out of the lake, leading a certain number of people…”, “And these viracochas went to different areas, which Viracocha pointed out to them…”

THE OVERTHROW OF THE GIANTS

I would like to take a closer look at some of the curious relationships that, as it seemed to me, were visible between the sudden appearance of Viracocha and the flood in the legends of the Incas and other peoples of the Andean region.

Here I have before me an excerpt from the Natural and Moral History of the Indians by Father José de Acosta, in which the learned priest tells of "what the Indians themselves tell about their origin":

“They mention a lot the flood that happened in their country ... The Indians say that all people drowned in this flood. But a certain Viracocha came out of Lake Titicaca, who first settled in Tiahuanaco, where to this day you can see the ruins of ancient and very strange buildings, and from there he moved to Cuzco, from which the multiplication of the human race began ... "

Mentally instructing myself to find something about Lake Titicaca and the mysterious Tiahuanaco, I read the following paragraph with a summary of the legend that once existed in these places:

“For some sin, people who lived in ancient times were destroyed by the Creator ... in a flood. After the flood, the Creator appeared in human form from Lake Titicaca. Then he created the sun, moon and stars. After that, he revived humanity on earth ... "

In another myth:

“The great creator god Viracocha decided to create a world where man could live. First he created the earth and the sky. Then he took on people, for which he cut giants out of stone, which he then revived. At first everything went well, but after a while the giants fought and refused to work. Viracocha decided that he must destroy them. Some he turned back to stone... the rest he drowned in a great flood.”

Of course, very similar motifs are heard in other sources that are completely unrelated to those listed, for example, in the Old Testament. So, in the sixth chapter of the Bible (Genesis) it is described how the Jewish God, dissatisfied with his creation, decided to destroy it. By the way, I have long been intrigued by one of the few phrases describing the forgotten era that preceded the flood. It says that "giants lived on earth in those days ..." Could there be any connection between the giants buried in the biblical sands of the Middle East and the giants woven into the fabric of the legends of the Indians of pre-Columbian America? The mystery is compounded by the coincidence of a number of details in the biblical and Peruvian descriptions of how an angry God brought down a catastrophic flood on an evil and rebellious world.

On the next sheet in the stack of documents I have collected, the following description of the Inca flood is given by Father Malina in his Description of the Legends and Images of the Incas:

“The details of the flood they inherited from Manco-Capac, who was the first of the Incas, after whom they began to call themselves the children of the Sun and from whom they learned to worship the Sun paganly. They said that in this flood all races of men and their creatures perished, for the waters rose above the highest mountain peaks. None of the living creatures survived, except for a man and a woman who were floating in a box. When the waters receded, the wind carried the box ... to Tiahuanaco, where the creator began to settle people of different nationalities of this region ... "

Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish aristocrat and a woman from the family of an Inca ruler, was already familiar to me from his History of the Inca State. He was considered one of the most reliable chroniclers and keeper of the traditions of the people to which his mother belonged. He worked in the sixteenth century, shortly after the conquest, when these traditions were not yet clouded by alien influences. He also quotes what was deeply believed: "After the flood receded, a certain man appeared in the country of Tiahuanaco ..."
That man was Viracocha. Wrapped in a cloak, strong, of noble appearance, he marched with impregnable self-confidence through the most dangerous places. He performed miracles of healing and could call fire from heaven. It seemed to the Indians that he materialized out of nowhere.

ANCIENT LEGEND

The legends that I studied were intricately intertwined, somewhere they complemented each other, somewhere they came into conflict, but one thing was obvious: all scientists agreed that the Incas borrowed, absorbed and carried on the traditions of many and various civilized peoples, over which they extended their imperial power as part of centuries of expansion. In this sense, regardless of the outcome of the historical dispute regarding the antiquity of the Incas proper, no one can seriously doubt that they became the guardians of the system of ancient beliefs of all the previous great cultures of this country, known and forgotten.

Who can firmly say what kind of civilizations existed in Peru in the areas that are now unexplored? Every year, archaeologists return with new finds that expand the horizons of our knowledge deep into time. So why shouldn't they one day discover evidence of an Andes Penetration in distant antiquity by a certain race of civilizers who arrived from across the sea and, having completed their work, retired? This is what the legends whispered to me that immortalized the memory of the god-man Viracocha, who walked the paths of the Andes in the open winds, performing miracles along the way:

“Viracocha himself and his two assistants headed north ... He walked through the mountains, one assistant along the coast, and the other along the edge of the eastern forests ... The Creator proceeded to Urcos, near Cusco, where he ordered the future population to be born from the mountain. He visited Cuzco and then headed north. There, in the coastal province of Manta, he parted ways with the people and went over the waves into the ocean.

Always at the end of folk legends about a wonderful stranger, whose name means "Seafoam", the moment of parting appears:

“Viracocha went his own way, calling people of all nations… When he came to Puerto Viejo, he was joined by his followers, whom he had previously sent out. And then they walked together on the sea as easily as they walk on land.

And it's always a sad goodbye... with a slight hint of either science or magic.

KING PRESENT AND KING COMING

Traveling through the Andes, I re-read several times a curious version of the typical legend about Viracocha. In this variant, born in the area around Titicaca, the divine civilizing hero appears under the name of Tunupa:

“Tunupa appeared on the Altiplano in ancient times, coming from the north with five followers. A white man of noble appearance, blue-eyed, bearded, he adhered to strict morals and in his sermons spoke out against drunkenness, polygamy and militancy.

Having traveled long distances across the Andes, where he created a peaceful kingdom and introduced people to various manifestations of civilization, Tunupa was struck down and seriously wounded by a group of envious conspirators:

“They placed his blessed body in a totora cane boat and lowered it into Lake Titicaca. And suddenly ... the boat rushed off with such speed that those who so cruelly tried to kill him were dumbfounded in fear and amazement - for there is no current in this lake ... The boat sailed to the shore in Cochamarca, where the Desguardero River is now. According to Indian tradition, the boat crashed into the shore with such force that the Desguardero River arose, which until then did not exist. And the stream of water carried away the holy body for many leagues to the seashore, to Arica ... "

BOATS, WATER AND RESCUE

There is an interesting parallel here with the myth of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian supreme god of death and resurrection. This myth is most fully stated by Plutarch, who says that this mysterious person brought the gifts of civilization to his people, taught him many useful crafts, put an end to cannibalism and human sacrifice, and gave people the first set of laws. He never forced the barbarians he met to accept his laws by force, preferring discussion and appealing to their common sense. It is also reported that he passed on his teaching to the flock by singing hymns with musical accompaniment.

However, during his absence, a conspiracy of seventy-two courtiers arose against him, led by his brother-in-law named Set. Upon his return, the conspirators invited him to a feast, where a magnificent ark made of wood and gold was offered as a gift to any of the guests who would fit it. Osiris did not know that the ark was prepared exactly to the dimensions of his body. As a result, none of the assembled guests, he did not fit. When it was Osiris's turn, it turned out that he fit there quite comfortably. Before he had time to get out, the conspirators ran up, hammered nails into the lid and even soldered the cracks with lead so that air would not penetrate inside. Then the ark was thrown into the Nile. They thought that he would drown, but instead he quickly swam away and swam to the seashore.

Then the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, intervened. Using all her magic, she found the ark and hid it in a secret place. However, her evil brother Seth combed the swamps, found the ark, opened it, in a violent rage cut the royal body into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over the earth.

Again Isis had to take up the salvation of her husband. She built a boat out of resin-coated papyrus stalks and set off down the Nile in search of his remains. Finding them, she prepared a potent remedy, from which the pieces grew together. After becoming unharmed and undergoing a process of stellar rebirth, Osiris became the god of the dead and king underworld, from where, according to legend, he subsequently returned to earth under the guise of a mortal.

Despite the significant differences between the respective traditions, the Egyptian Osiris and the South American Tunupa-Viracocha have, oddly enough, the following common features:

Both were great enlighteners;
- a conspiracy was organized against both;
- both were slain by the conspirators;
- both were hidden in a certain receptacle or vessel;
both were thrown into the water;
- both swam down the river;
Both eventually reached the sea.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

You can find out in detail who VIRACOCHA and his associates were and why they came to the Indians in the book of the scientist-Rus Nikolai Viktorovich Levashov "Russia in Crooked Mirrors, Volume 2. Crucified Rus'."

Vyacheslav Kalachev