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Who were the Civilisers?by Andrew Collins |
| The Conquest |
The Conquest Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor (also known as Moctezuma or Motecuhzoma), became king in 1502 at the apex of Aztec power. In the words of Ignacio Bernal, Director of the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico: When Montezuma was chosen emperor in 1502, he had the reputation of a valiant captain who had ably led his armies; but he was especially recognized as a profound expert in religious matters, a kind of simple and humble mystic. Also called the Great Speaker, no one was permitted to look upon him. One had to come before him with eyes lowered. No one could touch him. The few who had the right to visit him had to enter barefoot, performing a series of genuflections and calling him Lord, "My Lord, My Great Lord."
Throughout the first seventeen years of Montezuma's reign, the empire was plagued with constant uprisings of peoples who had been harshly subjugated by the Aztecs and wished to escape the tributes required of them. Montezuma left the consolidation of his empire up to his generals while he devoted his time to worldly pleasures and religious duties in Tenochtitlan. The Spanish Across the Atlantic Ocean
The popes had intentionally given sovereignty over any new lands discovered to the Portuguese; but with the advent of Columbus's discovery, the Spanish wished to end this legacy of Portuguese favoritism in the Vatican. Papal bulls of the 1450s had declared that the Portuguese had rights to any lands "as far as the Indies," which actually gave Portugal the rights to the discovery of America. In 1493, after Columbus's first voyage, Spain sent envoys to the pope demanding that he give Spain the rights to Columbus's discoveries, as the past popes had given the Portuguese the rights to Africa and lands to the east. The new pope, Alexander VI (pope from 1492 to 1503), being a Spanish Borgia himself, acknow-ledged these previous "injustices" and issued a series of four bulls that established the papacy as an adamantly pro-Spanish power. The first two gave the Spanish title to Columbus's discoveries and any other non-Christian western lands discovered as long as the native populations were converted to Christianity. The third limited this "western" area to all the lands beginning one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde and Azores islands. This bull actually gave the Spanish rights to the far East by western circumnavigation.
The fourth bull, the Dudum Siguidem, which was issued later on August 26, 1493, nullified any previous papal orders that had favored the Portuguese. With Spanish control of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico assured, Spain proceeded to colonize the islands in the area (Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba), converting the islanders as they went and often massacring whole populations purposely or accidentally killing them by transmitting European diseases. The main goals in the expansion were to Christianize the Indians (as dictated by the pope), to gain trading power, and of course, to "acquire" the great mineral wealth of the Americas. This mineral wealth included vast amounts of gold and silver ore. The reports of opulent Mexican empires brought back by explorers on Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba's and Juan de Grijalba's coastal journeys caused the Spanish government to look inland. Cortés Hernan (also Hernando or Fernando) Cortés was born in Medellin, Estramadura, in Spain in 1485 to a family of minor nobility. Cortés was sent to study law at the University of Salamanca in 1499. After intermittent studying for two years, he left school to fight in a military expedition in Italy but became ill and was forced to stay behind. In 1504 he left to seek his fortune in the West Indies, arriving in Hispaniola and fighting in various battles against the Arawak. Cortés later participated in the conquest of Cuba with Diego Velazquez, the future governor, and gained the latter's respect. After the reports from the coastal expeditions of Cordoba and Grijalba reached Velazquez in 1517 and 1518, the governor became determined to make full contact with the mainland empire and gain riches for Spain, converts for the Church, and fame for himself.
The man he chose for the mission was his old ally, Cortés. According to William H. Prescott's history of the conquest, Velazquez chose Cortés because "[he] came of an ancient, respectable family; his courage and prowess won him favor with Velazquez as much as his good humor, cordial manners, and wit made him a favorite with the soldier." This pleased Cortés as well because he had been waiting for a time to prove himself in an independent adventure. Cortés quickly contributed all his cash resources to the project and mortgaged all of his estates in Cuba. Velazquez agreed to contribute one-third of the funds needed. Cortés purchased six vessels and commissioned 110 mariners and 553 soldiers (including thirty-two crossbowmen and thirteen arquebusiers). He brought along 200 Cuban soldiers and also a few Cuban women for cooking and other menial jobs. Anticipating the terror that they could strike in the Mexicans, Cortés brought fourteen cannons (four light falconets and ten heavy guns) and sixteen horses. Shortly before Cortés's expedition was to leave, Velazquez turned on the Captain General and tried to stop the mission. Bernal Diaz proposes that there was some plot among Velazquez's relatives against Cortés and they convinced the governor that Cortés would betray him or become too powerful. Disobeying the governor's orders and dissociating himself from Velazquez's sponsorship, Cortés and his fleet departed for the coast of the Yucatan on February 18, 1519. After defeating the Maya in skirmishes along the coast, he reached the Gulf coast on 21 April 1519. The events that followed his landing in New Spain are astonishing. After burning his ships to prevent desertion, he made his advance on the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, against Montezuma's orders. After odering Aztec tribute collectors arrested and then released, and replacing pagan idols in sacred temples with wooden crosses, Cortés led his men against armies of 100,000 warriors and more. Against ridiculous odds, he never knew defeat.
Having failed in every attempt to kill the white men who now arrived in his capital, Montezuma (accompanied by his personal army) greeted Cortés and his entourage with dignity. After an exchange of gifts, the Great Speaker addressed the Spanish general: O our lord, thou hast suffered fatigue, thou hast endured weariness. thou hast come to arrive on earth. thou hast come to govern thy city of Mexico; thou hast come to descend upon thy mat, upon thy seat, which for a moment I have watched for thee. for thy governors are departed...who yet a very short time ago had come to stand guard for thee, who had come to govern the city of Mexico....I have been afflicted for some time. I have gazed at the unknown place whence though hast come - from among the clouds, from among the mists. And so this. The rulers departed maintaining that thou wouldst come to visit thy city, that thou wouldst come to descend upon thy mat, upon thy seat. And now it hath been fulfilled; thou hast come; thou hast endured fatigue, thou hath endured weariness. Peace be with thee. Rest thyself. Visit thy palace. Rest thy body. May peace be with our lords.After a return speech and reassuring gestures, the Spanish were led to prepared quarters. We might wonder at Montezuma's reverence, at why, after trying so many times before, he did not give the command for the Spaniards to be slain - closely surrounded as they were by the entire army and population of the Aztec capital, they would not have survived. We begin to get a better picture from his speech given the next day: For a long time we have known from the writings of our ancestors that neither I, nor any of those who dwell in this land, are natives of it, but foreigners who came from very distant parts; and likewise we know that a cheiftain, of whom they were all vassals, brought all our people to this region. and he returned to his native land. And we always held that those who descended form him would come and conquer this land and take us as their vassals....Cortés was fully aware that he supposedly resembled a god who had arrived from the East. He had brought civilisation and his homeland was known as Tlapallan (the Red land), to which he returned after his ministry. His name, Quetzalcoatl, means 'feathered snake'. He was a great culture hero of the Toltec peoples whom the Aztecs saw as their ancestors. Before the Toltecs, the land was ruled by an unknown race that built the awe-inspiring city of Teotihuacan and the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.
According to the earliest Spanish chroniclers, Quetzalcoatl was said to have been tall with long dark hair and a flowing beard. Many also assumed he was white, but this is dismissed by scholars as a creation of the Spaniards who wanted to see themselves as fulfilling the prophecy. He was said to have landed on the Gulf coast, close to where Cortés arrived and like him, protested against human sacrifice. He taught of a divinity called Opu, the 'Invisible' and stayed in the ancient city of Cholula, where he taught metalworking, agriculture, and government administration - unknown before that time. Not everyone was happy with his presence however, and the dark god Tezcatlipoca tricked him into sinning. His self-punishment was to destroy the city of Tollan, which he'd built to honour his homeland, and return to his country. After his departure, the vengeful Tezcatlipoca reigned over the land and was worshipped by both the Toltecs and the Aztecs, who made daily human sacrifices to him so that he would allow the sun to rise each day. The followers of Quetzalcoatl, however preached of his return and his punishment of those who had turned their back on him. 'Omens' also appeared to the people of Tenochtitlan foretelling the coming of the Spaniards: 1) In 1510, Lake Tezcuco, on which Tenochtitlan was built, became violently agitated without any form of tempest or earthquake, flooding the city. 2) In 1511, the turrets of the city's Great Temple, spontaneously caught fire and resisted all attempts to douse it. 3) In the following year, no less than 3 comets were seen and just before the Spanish arrival, a mysterious 'sheet of fire' was seen in the sky. 4) Most bizzarre, a rumour spread through the Aztec capital that Montezuma's sister had reawoken 4 days after her death to warn him of a dark cloud hanging over his empire. As though this were not enough, the Aztec priests, astronomers and Montezuma himself believed that Quetzalcoatl would return from his home in the east when the year Ce Acatl, coincided with the day Chiconaui Ehecatl. This occurred only once every 52nd year, and did indeed occur in the spring of 1519 - shortly before Cortés' landfall. The fact that one of the world's greatest rulers did nothing to save his hard won empire, when he had the chance - testifies to the potency of the prophecy. But who was Quetzalcoatl? Was he man or myth? Where was his homeland? Why was there a widespread tradition among many of the Mesoamerican peoples of feathered serpent gods who brought wisdom? Serpent People
He burnt it! Miraculously, he did record sections of it which were used by a Spanish Friar Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar in the 1770's in his rendition of the history of the stone city of Palenque which he'd discovered buried in undergrowth in 1773. It seems the story of Votan set out to prove that he was descended of the line of 'Chan' or 'Serpent'. He was represented as part bird and part serpent. Votan was said to have come from Valum-Chivim, land of 'Chivim' and that he belonged to the race of Chanes or 'Serpents' - and specifically that he was a 'Son of the Serpent'. On his voyage to America he was said to have stayed at a place called Valum-Votan, which Ordoñez identified with Cuba. From here his 'large boats' reached the Yucatan and followed the Gulf coast till they reached the Lagoon de Terminos where they followed the river Usumacinta towards what is modern Guatemala. In the valley of Usumacinta, some 80 kilometers upstream, they founded the 'city of Serpents' which Ordoñez identified with Palenque. This does not make much sense archeologically as Palenque is considered to have been built as late as AD 600. Either Votan built a different city or Palenque marks a much older site. Ordoñez recorded that the local Tzendal tribe called them 'men in women's petticoats' as they wore long robes. They treated the strangers as brothers and in turn were taught the basics of government. He became their first legislator and instituted his own holy laws. The Tzendal were happy to submit to his rule and offered their daughters whith whom Votan and his leaders formed an 'alliance'. He is said to have returned to his home of Valum-Chivim 4 times. On one return he was said to have found the the local Tzenquiles having usurped his authority and claimed their own territory. To his credit, diplomacy was used to settle the dispute. Reading Ordoñez's account, we must be careful of the biblical elements introduced as Ordoñez clearly believed this to be Israel - on one trip Votan is said to have witnessed the 'house of God' (Solomon's Temple) being built. The original copier, Nuñez de la Vega records in his own account of votan's story that he went to Huehuetlan on the Pacific coast and here placed a 'considerable treasure' consisting of antique figurines and large urns in a 'gloomy house' outside of which he set guardians. Vega recorded that he went to Huehuetlan himself and rooted out this treasure that had laid undisturbed for countless generations and unbelievably, had a public burning on a pastoral visit in 1691. Yet 'the indians still revere this Votan'. That Votan is a genuine character in Tzendal history is not in doubt as there is even a memory of an entire dynasty of Votanide prices who suceeded him. in Huehuetlan, he is said to have started a secret society known as the Sh'Tol Brothers which continued in the Yucatan through to the twentieth century. Other feathered serpents that brought civilisation to the mesoamerican peoples include Itzamna of the Yucatec Maya and Kukulcan of the Nahua and Maya tribes. Like Itzamna, Votan claimed to belong to the priestly line of Chanes or Serpents from Chivim. So who were the snake people and where was Chivim? Votan was said to have used Valum-Votan, 'land of Votan' as a staging post on his long journey to and from his home in the east. This Ordoñez identified as Cuba, though we don't know how he came to this conclusion - possibly Tzendal or Maya knowledge. After leaving this island he is said to pass the 'Dwelling Place of the Thirteen Snakes' which some writers identify with the 13 islands of the Canaries, though there are only 6 principal Canary islands. Reaching a dead end, we turn to the name of his homeland 'land of Chivim'. No root for this name can be found in Mesoamerican languages. Constance Irwin in 'Fair Gods and Stone Faces' argues that Chivim is derived from the root Chna, a Greek name for Canaan, and is strikingly like 'Chittim' or 'Kittim', the name in the book of Genisis given to the descendants of Japheth, son of Noah. We do know that Chittim originally refered to Phoenicians in general and was then used to denote any Phoenician colony which thrived as a sea power after the fall of Tyre and Sidon in the 6th century BC. Though, as we've seen, there is every possibility that the Phoenicians/ Carthaginians reached the Americas in the first millenium BC, they were seafarers and traders, not great civilisers. They built trade routes and ports, not empires. They were not concerned with effecting the destiny of the alien cultures they traded with. The only snake symbolism that the Phoenicians used was that of Astarte, the goddess of fertility, probably cognate with the Hebrew Eve. This brings us to look for a culture which venerated the snake, and in the Eastern Mediterranian, we need look no further than the Jews. The snake was to them a symbol of wisdom and retribution through its association with Moses the Lawgiver. It became the personification of sin and evil in the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
The Hebrew for snake is "nahash", but the root of the name Eve is "chevvah" and in Arabic "hawwa" which are inextricably linked with words meaning both life and snake. Eve was seen as a 'female serpent' and 'mother of all living' things. The name Hevia signifies a female serpent (Clement of Alexandria c. AD 213) In Jewish folklore, Eve was considered the progenitor of the Nephilim, an ancient biblical race known as the 'strong ones' and importantly also as 'awwim' generally thought to mean Serpents or correctly rendered - sons of the serpent. If we break down the word Chivim we can see that is the same as the word Awwim. The 'ch' is simply a hard 'h' leaving us with 'hivim'. The suffix 'm', written 'im' denotes plurality e.g. Anakim - sons of Anak. This means hivim can be read as the sons of hiv. In Hebrew, 'e' and 'i' are interchangeable which means it is also the sons of hev i.e. sons of Hevia (the female serpent). What does this mean? Was Votan a Nephilim? Who were they and what role could they have played as the wisdom-bringing feathered serpents of Mesoamerican tradition? Nephilim means 'those who have fallen'. In Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Giants, they were known as irin, 'those who watch' or in the Greek rendering 'watchers' and are identified as, bene ha-elohim 'Sons of God'. The Watchers are also described as snakes making their offspring 'sons of serpents' e.g. The Book of Enoch says of a Nephilim "...the son of the serpent named Tabâ'et". We find the connection with Eve in the Book of Enoch were it says the serpent that led Eve astray was a Watcher, and echoes the way Watchers were said to have taken wives from among the 'daughters of men' who bore them children known as Nephilim, as Votan and his compatriots did. Their leader Azazel is said (among other things) to have 'taught men to make swords and knives....the metals of the earth and the art of working them', while to women 'the art of beautifying' the eyelids and the use of 'costly stones'. This reminds us of the skills imparted by Quetzalcoatl. Other skills they reveal to humanity include 'astrology', 'knowledge of the clouds', 'the bitter and the sweet' (a reference to herbs and spices), the use of 'ink & paper' (like Itzamna in the Yucatan), geography,the passage of celestial bodies and rather disturbingly, the 'smitings of the embryo in the womb' (abortions). Though Hebrew texts imply a supernatural nature for the Watchers, it can be shown that they were an actual human race that occupied biblical Eden (a known geographical region of the Near East). In the Book of Ezekiel, it is listed alongside Harran (northern Syria) and Assur (Assyria) and tells how this land dealt in exotic spices, gold, precious stones and other 'choice wares'. Eden lies in Kurdistan, between the north Syrian coast of the Mediterranean and Lake Van. Legend states that Eden was drowned beneath the depths if this large inland sea at the time of the Great Flood and in Kurdistan, all Muslims, Christians and Jews believe that Noah's ark came to rest on Al Judi a mountian 104 Km south-east of Van and not on Mount Ararat which they say is a late invention. These legends serve to demonstrate that in Jewish tradition, both the place of human emergence (Eden) and its re-emergence after the Great Flood were located in Kurdistan - where the earliest Semitic peoples almost certainly developed as early as the 4th millennium BC. It was only c. 200 BC in the time of Abraham that the Jewish tribes departed Harran for Canaan. Like the Feathered Serpents of Mesoamerican tradition, the Watchers were a ruling elite responsible for the development and organisation of the earliest Neolithic peoples in the Near East - at sites such as Nevali Çori in eastern Turkey, megalithic complexes and sculpted art were developed c. 8400 -7600 BC. Significantly, the earliest forms of agriculture, metal working, smelting, painted pottery, writing, alcoholic drinks, monetary tokens and jewellery manufacture were all took place in this one small region of the globe between the 10th and 6th millenium BC. The Book of Enoch tells us that the Nephilim were destroyed by fire and flood. Yet survivors crop up in the Book of Numbers: And there we saw the Nephilim, sons of the Anak, which come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.It also describes the Anakim as 'men of great stature' who inhabit Canaan and at their capital Hebron, they are defeated by Caleb and the forces of Joshua - successor of Moses c. 1250-1200 BC.
Physically the Watchers/Nephilim/Anakim are repaetedly described as being very tall. Among the Jewish texts that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls they are described as being taller than any man, their hair long and as 'white as wool', their skin as 'white men' or 'whiter than snow' yet also 'red as a blooming rose'. Their eyes glowed 'like lamps' and faces shone 'like the sun'. Most important, is their serpentine facial features. In the Book of Amram (father of Moses), is the following account: "like a serpent,, his cloak many-coloured yet very dark...and I looked again, and... his visage like a viper."Elongated facial features alone would have made them stand out from the round-faced people who inhabited the Near East at this time and perhaps explains why the Nephilim were sais to have looked like their serpent fathers, the Watchers. In the Americas, the Maya Chanes priesthood tradition dictated the wrapping of the heads of newborns with boards in order to elongate the cranium in memory of Ahau Chan 'the Great, Lordly Serpent'. As they saw themselves as descendants of Votan or Itzamna, could they too have had elongated features? This same tradition was also to be found among the ruling elite of the Kurdish highlands and Iraq from the sixth to the fourth millennia BC. There is every reason to believe they did this in order to claim lineal descendancy from the Watchers.
Also Tolec myth speaks of a race of giants known as the Quinamßs who ruled the country in earliest times; the islanders of Taobaga spoke of the Caribbean having been originally inhabited by 'very, very big men' and we remember how the men from the east were dressed in long, flowing robes. Further sealing the connection between the mesoamerican civilisers and the Nephilim is the linking of feathers with their snake form. The Book of Amram spoke of a 'cloak many coloured, but very dark', and the Book of the Secrets of Enoch (written in Greek from the original Hebrew) says their dress had the appearance of [purple] feathers. Although it goes on to say their wings were 'brighter than gold', theological scholars accept that such fantastic elements were added later by early Christian scribes. The irridescent nature of the feather coats suggest the plummage of a carrion bird such as the vulture - seen as the symbol of death and rebirth among formative Neolithic cultures in the Near East. Neolithic art showing the vulture and snake together have been uncovered at the Nevali Çori site dated to c. 8400-7600 BC. Totemic forms, such as birds and snakes have always been used by Shamans (spirit walkers) of tribal communities and the Watchers of the Near East would have used the vulture or possibly other carrion/raptorial birds, while the beautiful quetzal bird would appear to have been the more natural choice for the shamans in Mesoamerica. So could the Mesoamerican memory of pale feathered serpent gods, dressed long robes and bringing wisdom from the east, be a memory of the Nephilim? There is much textual evidence in Old Testament tradition that the Anakim, last of the Nephilim, came up against and were defeated by Joshua as he attempted to take Canaan on behalf of the tribes of Israel. Some of the writings of Sumer and Akkad tell of great battles between mythical Kings and demon bird-men. These too suggest that after their defeat the Nephilim disappeared from the pages of history. What happened to them? Could they really have travelled the Atlantic?
The Titans Sanchoniathon states that his allies in this war were the 'Eloeim', a misspelling of Elohim, or bene ha-elohim, 'Sons of God' - a name given to the Watchers in the Old Testament. In Greek myth the Nephilim are equated with the Titans and Gigantes, 'Giants' and in the King James Bible, the term Nephilim is substituted with the words Giants and Gigantes. Could this link to maritime gods be our first clue?
After their defeat, the Titans were banished to a region of hell called Tartarus. The classical writer Ovid (43 BC-AD 18)wrote that Gyges ,brother of Cronus, like the others was banished to Tartarus, but Chaldean writer Thallus states in a different version of the same story, that he was 'smitten, and fled to Tartessus', the prehistoric Iberian city-port of Tartessos. This port was situated on a delta island of the Guadalquivir River, and though we have no trace of it today, we know it attained a high state of civilisation and traded extensively with Mediterranean and Atlantic ports. Elena M. Wishaw's 'Atlantis in Andalucia' describes the discovery of a complex of Neolithic temples, fortresses, hydraulic systems and harbour works at Niebla, near the site of ancient Tartessos. She proposed that those responsible for the sea-port made long-distance Atlantic trading journeys, and even linked them with Plato's Atlantis island empire. Could the banished Titans have ended their days in Tartessos? Certainly, the Turdetans - an ancient Iberian race inhabiting the area around Tartessos, claimed to be of the same race as the Pelasgians - the earliest inhabitants of Greece. Like the Nephilim, they were said to have been of extraordinary stature. In seperate traditions, the Titans were said to have been defeated near the 'Straits of Hercules', linking them again to south-eastern Spain - though other claimants for the site include 'Italy' and 'south of Gaul'. Though no direct evidence put the Nephilim in Spain, even today, certain folk events feature men dressed entirely in feather coats and in the town of Piornal one fiesta sees a bird-man beating a drum through the streets becoming the recipient of abuse from the people who see his presence as an intrusion and try to drive him out of town. The origin of this tradition is not known, but could it be a memory of the presence of foreign men who dressed in such a manner? Plutarch's 'The Face of the Moon' tells us that Homer's island Ogygia is 5 days' sail from Britain and that beyond that, there are "three other islands beyond the summer sunset" and that on one of these Cronus is "confined by Zeus...holding watch over those islands and the sea... The great mainland continent, by which the great ocean is encircled..." As we've seen from Plato's texts, there is good reason to conclude that the three 'other' islands are synonymous with the three main islands of the Caribbean, reached according to the account via Britain and the Northwest Passage. The physical evidence comes in the form of stone monuments on the American mainland - attributed variously to Amerindians or early colonial 'druids' in New England, which are strikingly similar to those of Western Europe and in particular the Iberian peninsula. Indeed on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, there is a legend about those who built the famous stone circle at Callanish (dated c.2800-2200 BC or earlier). It states that an ancient priest-king dressed in a robe of feathers taken from the sun-bird, came to the island with a fleet of ships containing black men and together they erected the monument.
Even if they were not the builders of the monument, could this be a memory of Nephilim in the company of black Africans? Could one of the larger islands off Britain or Spain be the "dwelling place of the 13 snakes" encountered by Votan on his return trips to his home? Many of them have, monuments reflecting 12 or 13 divisions of land. Callanish itself is made up of 13 tall standing stones. Could the banishment of Cronus and the Titans and the arrival of Votan and the other feathered serpents in Mesoamerica be abstract memories of the transatlantic journeys made by Nephilim who went on to rule the indigenous tribes? Did these first voyagers pass on more than the knowledge of trade routes onto the Phoenicians who occupied Tartessos after c.1100 BC? Did they learn that the indigenous people of the Caribbean and particularly Cuba preserved the memory of a great cataclysm that devasted their islands long ago?
For a more detailed look at the Nephilim please see Andrew Collins' article. For Graham Hancock's view, see this article |
In 1691, Nuñez de la Vega, the Bishop of Chiapas (a Mexican province) had in his possession, a codex which recorded the story of the 'first man that God sent to divide up' the lands of the Americas and bring civilisation to the native people - Votan.
