Hope of Israel Ministries (Church of YEHOVAH):

From Canaan to Copan --

Seen from the air, the tropical rain-forest of the Yucatan peninsula is like a brilliant green blanket stretching to the far horizon. The lush, ever-encroaching forest hides all traces of ancient Maya life -- except for an occasional artificial mountain or an abandoned pyramid that pokes through the tree tops.

When early archaeologists slashed their way through the dense foliage to reach these almost forgotten reminders of a past civilization, they were met by silent figures that stared out from the walls of ancient cities. The languorous, humid air, the constant rainfall, the clinging vegetation and the exotic faces peering out at the explorers had a powerful -- almost hypnotic -- effect on even the most experienced archaeologist. John Lloyd Stephens, who had journeyed up the Nile, ventured to the rock-cut city of Petra and explored the Holy Land had never seen anything like this. Calling the silent figures in one city "grim and mysterious," he fell under the spell of what he found and, as a result of the work he subsequently undertook, Stephens became known as the father of Maya studies. "In the romance of the world's history nothing ever impressed me so forcibly," he later wrote, "than the spectacle of this once great and lovely city, overturned, desolate, and lost...it did not even have a name to distinguish it..."

According to the archaeologists, the Classic Maya civilization flourished between 200 B.C. and A.D. 900 -- incorporating more than 100,000 square miles of the Yucatan lowlands. It was a civilization of great lords, a small elite who ruled over as many as fifty independent states and tens of thousands of village farmers. The influence of the Maya extended far from their tropical homeland. They were great TRADERS, maintaining links with states in the Valley of Oaxaca in the highlands and diplomatic relations with the vast city of Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico. They perpetuated religious beliefs that took hold over an enormous area of ancient Mesoamerica. Maya leaders were divine kings -- quarrelsome rulers obsessed with power and prestige. They were expert diplomats who were masters of political intrigue. "They built great cities and trading centers around palaces, plazas, and pyramids. Grandiose public buildings were adorned with stone and stucco sculptures of deities and mythical creatures, of lords conducting important ceremonies" (Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade, p. 112).

Maya kings were evidently fanatical about their position in the scheme of things. They erected intricately carved stelae to commemorate their accessions and ancestors. Everything, however commonplace, unfolded within a wider historic context and against the background of a rich fountain of epic and legend. Today, archaeologists and historians marvel at this complex world. Maya civilization was truly one of the most sophisticated, exotic and volatile cultures of ancient Mesoamerica.

Archaeologists have divided the Maya experience into four basic periods: The Preclassic (also called Formative), the Classic, the Terminal Classic and the Postclassic. The Preclassic period is further divided into Early Preclassic, Middle Preclassic and Late Preclassic with dates of 2000-1000 B.C., 1000-300 B.C., and 300 B.C.-250 A.D. Since these dates are based on radiocarbon dating, we should not take them as being cast in concrete. The radiocarbon dating process contains many errors and/or assumptions that can affect the outcome.

Author Charles Gallenkamp, in his book Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, writes --

Regardless of everthing scientists have learned about the Maya so far, we constantly encounter unanswered questions. NO ONE HAS SATISFACTORILY EXPLAINED WHERE OR WHEN MAYA CIVILIZATION ORIGINATED, or how it evolved in an environment so hostile to human habitation. We have almost no reliable information on the origin of their calendar, hieroglyphic writing, and mathematical system; nor do we understand countless details pertaining to sociopolitical organization, religion, economic structure, and everyday life. Even the shattering catastrophe leading to the sudden aboundonment of their greatest cities during the ninth century A.D. -- one of the most baffling archaeological mysteries ever uncovered -- is still deeply shrouded in conjecture. -- Viking Penguin Inc. P. 57.

It seems that the scholarly world is in the dark when it comes to tracing the origins of the Maya and their leaders. Why is this so? Because they are so enamored with the theory of evolution and have a great distain for the traditions and legends of a people. Those, however, with an open mind, can determin the true origins of the Maya Indians of the New World.

In The Annals of the Cakchiquels -- Lords of Totonicapan we find a direct reference to the RACIAL ORIGINS of the kings and nobles who led and governed the Maya in the New World.

Notice --

These, then, were the THREE NATIONS OF THE QUICHES [MAYANS -- the Cauecs, the Greathouses and the Lord Quiches], and they came from where the sun rises, DESCENDANTS OF ISRAEL, of the same language and the same customs....When they arrived at the edge of the [Red] sea, BALAM-QITZE [a native title for one in a religious office] touched it with his staff and at once A PATH OPENED, which then closed up again, for thus the great God wished it to be done, BECAUSE THEY WERE SONS OF ABRAHAM AND JACOB. So it was that those THREE NATIONS passed through, and with them THIRTEEN OTHERS CALLED VULKAMAG....We have written that which by tradition our ancestors told us, who came from the other part of the sea, WHO CAME FROM CIVAN-TULAN, BORDERING BABYLONIA. -- Translated by Delia Goetz. University of Oklahoma Press, 1953. P. 170.

On page 169 of the same translation we read: "...came from the other part of the ocean, FROM WHERE THE SUN RISES."

In the Mesoamerican dialects the mysterious CIVAN-TULAN in the above passage means "A PLACE OF CAVES OR RAVINES." Could this be the region of PETRA where Moses led the Israelites? Petra is famous for its caves, and deep ravines. Herman Hoeh notes that "CANAANITE HIVITES, mixed with Egyptian stock, dwelt at Petra, or Mt. Seir, at the time of the Exodus (Genesis 36:2, 20, 24). They lived at peace with the Hebrews." (Compendium of World History. Ambassador College, 1963. Vol. II, p. 88).

Under the control of the Canaanite Hittites was a land called KHURRI. Notes the Encyclopedia Britannica, "besides the Hittite, Khattish and Luish, still another language [of the Hittites] has been revealed by the inscriptions at Boghazkeui -- Khurrish (Hittite khurlili), which is thus named after a people, empire and, apparently, also a city Khurri. The country Khurri (WHICH MEANS PROPERLY "HOLLOWS, CAVERNS"), must be looked for in North Mesopotamia and the bordering Armenian mountains" (1943 edition. Vol. 11, p. 603).

The Britannica goes on to say: "Hrozny regards the North Mesopotamian town Urfa, Gr. Orrhoe, Edessa, as the centre of the empire of Khurri....In Assyria Urfa seems to be called Khurra. As the name prabably means "CAVERN[S]," it is possible to suppose that Khurra-Urfa received this name on account of the NUMEROUS CAVERNS in the Nimrud Dagh of the surrounding country" (ibid., p. 604).

Not only that, but the encyclopedia goes on to reveal that --

Occasionally Khurri is synonymous with SYRIA generally. The country Kharu, more exactly Khor of the Egyptian inscriptions, as also the Old Testament people, the Khorites (until now usually considered to be "DWELLERS IN THE CAVERNS") who, according to Gen. xiv. 6, Deut. ii. 12 and 22, inhabited the LAND OF EDOM before the Edomites, is identical with this Khurri. -- Ibid., p. 604.

Interestingly, the Khurri-Khorites also belong, like the Khatti, to the large-nosed, sloping forehead and high cheek-boned race which was neither Semite nor Indo-European -- but bears the features of many of the American Indian tribes in the New World!

Some of the people who later sailed across the Atlantic to Mesoamerica were called CHIVIM, reports Ordonez the early Spanish writer. It is the very Hebrew spelling used for the English word HIVITES, some of whom once LIVED IN MT. SEIR -- the LAND OF CAVES NEAR BABYLONIA!

The area of Petra was, at that time, DOMINATED BY MIDIAN. A high priest who visited the land of Midian and MOAB in Moses' day was called BALAAM -- almost the EXACT-SAME SPELLING as the title BALAM used by the priests of the QUICHE-MAYA in Mesoamerica!

The Kharu of the Egyptian inscriptions are clearly Canaanite in origin. History reveals that the Canaanites formed a fixed, settled population in the eastern marshes of Lower Egypt at a very early time. To this very day descendants of these Canaanites live in the very same region where their forefathers settled thousands of years ago -- on the shores of Lake Menzaleh. "Near the old towns and districts of Ramses...a DISTINCTLY PECULIAR RACE OF FISHERMEN AND SAILORS, whose manners and customs, whose historical traditions, faint though they be, and whose ideas on religious matters, characterize them as foreigners in contrast with the Egyptians proper....The[se] same inhabitants of the eastern provinces [of Egypt], who at the present day navigate in their barks the shallow waters of Lake Menzaleh, and carry on the fishing as their chief business, are, as has been said, the descendants of the Phoenician [Canaanite] inhabitants of the Tanitic and Sethroitic nomes....What, however, forms the most characteristic MARK of their ancient and now forgotten origin, is their NON-EGYPTIAN COUNTENANCE...WITH THE BROAD CHEEKBONES AND DEFIANTLY POUTING LIPS, which more than anything else give to the boatmen of Lake Menzaleh the stamp of the foreigner" (A History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs, by Henry Brugsch-Bey. Second edition, Vol. I. John Murray, London 1881. Pp. 258-260).

The presence of KHAR-CANAANITES IN EGYPT is made known to us by the inscriptions. Their importance in the affairs of Egypt culminates in the fact, revealed by the monuments, that a Khar or Canaanite, towards the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty, was able to make himself master of the throne and sovereign over all Egypt. The name Khar denoted not only a people, but also the country they inhabited -- namely parts of western Asia, the Syrian coast, and, above all others, the LAND OF CANAAN. "The abodes of the people of the Khar, or the Phoenicians [Canaanites], were described as 'beginning with the Fortress of Zar (Tanis-Ramses), and extending to Aupa or Aup.' The last-mentioned name denotes a place in the north of Palestine..." (ibid., p. 256).

Not only did the Kharu (Khars) settle the eastern part of the Egyptian delta, but they also spread to oases in the Libyan desert west of the delta. One such oasis is that of KHAR-GA. Lying 435 miles south-west of Cairo, this oasis is presently inhabited by people of BERBER STOCK -- descendants of the original Khars.

Another such oasis is that of SIWA, located some 350 miles W.S.W. of Cairo. Once again, this area is inhabited by people of Berber or Canaanite stock, and have a language all of their own.

During the time the Khars/Canaanites (also known as Berbers) dominated Egypt, expeditions were dispatched to other lands. At the end of their dominance in Egypt they, themselves, undertook a MIGRATION to the distant islands of the Pacific!

Notice what John Mitchell and Christine Rhone say in their book Twelve-Tribe Nations --

According to Max Freedom Long, the early expert on Polynesian magic and shamanism, there are in fact only eleven Polynesian tribes. In his book of 1948, The Secret Science behind Miracles, he tells of the legend of the twelfth tribe, and how it became separated from the others.

Long's informant was a retired journalist, William Reginald Stewart, who had spent some time in NORTH AFRICA being instructed by a native wise woman in the magical traditions of a certain BERBER TRIBE. This tribe, he was told, was once one of twelve whose homeland was the Sahara, at a time when it was watered and fertile. With the onset of drought, the twelve tribes MOVED TO THE NILE VALLEY and became MASTERS OF EGYPT....There came a time when their prophets foresaw an age of darkness, when their ancient traditions would be threatened. To preserve their knowledge, they decided to disperse and to find refuge in the loneliest parts of the earth. Eleven of the tribes moved eastward, passing through the Red Sea and along the coasts of India...towards the various groups of Polynesian islands. The twelfth tribe went in the other direction, to the Atlas mountains.

The authors of Twelve-Tribe Nations continue --

On reading Long's first book on the magic of the Polynesian kahunas, the native shamans, he [Stewart] was struck by the SIMILARITY between their religious terms and those of his BERBERS. The word for shaman, kahuna, was COMMON to them both (though spelt quahuna by the Berbers); a female shaman, kahuna wahini, corresponded to the African's quahuna quahini; and akua, a god in Polynesian, was rendered atua. These and other parallels obviously indicated a SINGLE ORIGIN.

Long found this information to be compatible with the migration legends of the Hawaiians, and was thus inclined to accept the testimony of Mr. Stewart. The secret magical lore of the Polynesians, as well as of the Berbers, came from Egypt when they were the masters of the land.

In Stephen's Incidents of Travel in Central America, the author quotes what Fuentes (chronicler of the ancient kingdom of Guatemala and of the Toltecan Indians) said of the origin of the leaders of the Quiche Maya. Fuentes said that, according to the grandson of the last king of the Quiches, the TOLTECS WERE ISRAELITES, released by Moses from the tyranny of Pharaoh. After crossing the Red Sea they became idolators. To escape the reproofs of Moses, they strayed away and, under the leadership of a man named Tanub, drifted from continent to continent until they came to a place they called the SEVEN CAVERNS -- a part of the kingdom of Mexico. Here they founded the city of TULA. The story recounts that from Tanub, their leader, sprang the ruling families of the Toltec and the Quiche Maya.

Of these Toltecs, who were in 1519 only a distant memory, Don Fernando writes --

...And the Tultecs...came to these parts, having first passed over great lands and seas, LIVING IN CAVES and passing through great hardships, until getting to this land. -- Primera Relacion.

The record of this voyage is found in The Popul Vuh -- the Quiche Mayan book of creation. Originally written in MAYAN hieroglyphs, it was transcribed in the Spanish alphabet in the sixteenth century. This book is considered the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, and begins with the deeds of MAYAN gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the MAYAN LORDS who founded the QUICHE KINGDOM in the GUATEMALAN HIGHLANDS.

Who were these MAYAN LORDS who founded the Quiche kingdom? Where did they come from?

In The Popul Vuh are recorded the migrations and wanderings of their ancestors. Notes Herman L. Hoeh: "It traces their origin EASTWARD ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN to the OLD WORLD. Other Indians had similar origins of having to cross A GREAT BODY OF WATER FROM THE NORTHEAST to reach their present land" (Compendium of World History, Vol. II. P. 88).

The author of The Popul Vuh records it this way: "They also multiplied there IN THE EAST....All lived together, they existed in GREAT NUMBERS and walked there in the EAST....There they were then, in great numbers, the black man and the white man, many of many classes, men of many tongues....The speech of all was the same. They did not invoke wood nor stone, and they REMEMBERED THE WORD OF THE CREATOR AND THE MAKER..." (English version by Goetz and Morley. Pp. 171-172).

The MAYA record continues: "...THEY CAME FROM THE EAST...they left there, from that great distance....THEY CROSSED THE SEA" (Pp. 181, 183).

Briefly summarized, the Popul Vuh and other Mesoamerican traditions relate that humans were created in the EAST and lived there in darkness. The ancestors of the Maya left the East "crossing the SEA in A FLEET OF SEVEN VESSELS carrying 'many companies,' and SAILED ALONG THE GULF OF MEXICO COAST to its farthest westward point, at PANUCO, where the people debarked" (Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Contacts, by Stephen C. Jett). They were evidently led to TULA by priests -- "bookmen" who carried their symbols of rank and their gods with them.

In 1615, Juan de Torquemada, who was fluent in the Nahuatl language, published in his Los veinte i un libros rituales i monarguia indiana:

...certain NATIONS OF PEOPLE, who arrived by way of Panuco, came from the north...[after skirting the Gulf of Mexico]

These people moved onward from Panuco with good diligence without either a warlike encounter or a battle...by chance coming as far as Tulla (where they arrived and were received and given lodging by the natives of that province)...

...when these people arrived in Tullan [Tula], they brought with them a very important person as chief, who governed them, and whom they called Quetzalcohuatl (whom afterwards the Cholultecas worshipped as a god). -- Editorial Porrua, Mexico (1969), vol. I, pp. 254-255.

There were FOUR Quetzalcoatls in the Mesoamerican traditions; and the exploits and persona of each of them have become blurred and jumbled over the ages. The Quetzalcoatl that de Torquemada mentions here is the second one -- Tanub, the Israelite leader of the Toltecs that passed through the Red Sea.

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, in his Historia Guarania, Asuncion de Paraguay (1944), vol. IV, pp. 108-109, relates the same story --

After the foundation of Mexico, and all the land, NEW PEOPLES came, from toward the north, they landed at Panuco, they wore long clothes, open in front, without cowls, (with) low-cut collars, short sleeves, and wide, which until this time the natives used in their dances, imitating that NATION, which without opposition passed as far as Tulo, where they were well received, for it was a people of much industry in whatever art, and in cultivating the land, and thus they were loved by all; and not being able to sustain themselves in Tulo, for being very populated, they passed to Cholulan, where they established themselves, and from there they settled in Guaxaca (Oaxaca), and in Mixteca Baxa, and (Mixteca) Alta, and Capotecas: they taught good administration (mucha policia) in all the land: and for this (reason), in being some men of prudence, and industry, they called them TOLOTECAS, for in Tulo they commenced to teach; and it is thus, that the Tolotecas are charitable...

In most versions, these culture-bearer ancestors came to TULA. The Aztec and the Maya both seem to have inherited the legend from the TOLTECS; and one version places the arrival of these ancestors during the OLMEC period.

Shortly after the group arrived in the valley of Mexico the leaders, according to the traditions, either left for home or to continue on their quest. Those voyagers who remained in the region settled near the highest mountains they could find and commenced building the city of Tula in an easily defensible location. Eventually they married into the local population -- to whom they taught the arts of civilization. "When their leaders returned, the settlers would not accompany them homeward" (The Popul Vuh). Generations later, the sons of these priest-kings returned to the east on a mission that we will discuss later in this article.

Montezuma, the Aztec leader when the Spaniard Cortez invaded Mexico, reminded his ministers and high dignitaries:

You know, as I do, that our ancestors did not hail from this country we live in, but came here from a far distant land, led by a GREAT PRINCE. This prince then left the country again with only a few of his followers, but returned a long time afterwards. He saw that our ancestors, his subjects, had built towns, had chosen wives from the daughters of the country, and had had children by them; that they had settled in their new land and would not go back with him, their prince. Since they no longer wanted him as their ruler, he went away alone, announcing that he would one day in the remote future either return himself with an immense army or send someone in his name to take back what was his due. -- A speech given by Montezuma soon after the arrival of the Spaniards. Recorded in "In Search of the Roots of Ancient American Civilization," New Dawn, April/May 1994. Number 24.

Upon meeting Cortez face-to-face, Montezuma told the interloper: "For a long time and by means of our writings, we have possessed a knowledge, transmitted from our ancestors, that neither I nor any of us who inhabit this land are of native origin. We are FOREIGNERS and came here from very remote parts. We possess information that our lineage was led to this land by a PRINCE to whom we all owed allegiance (vasalage). (Ibid.)

It has only been in the last forty years or so that the Toltecs themselves have finally emerged from obscurity -- and their great capital, the lengendary Tollan (Tula), was brought to light.

Writes Charles Gallenkamp --

Myths concerning Tollan were common in Mexican folklore. Among the first European chronicles to mention this site was a Franciscan friar, Bernadino de Sahagun, who referred to it in his monumental work entitled A General History of the Things of New Spain, also known as the Florentine Codex...almost everything they [the Aztecs] accomplished -- had been strongly influenced by peoples who inhabited central Mexico LONG BEFORE the Aztecs rose to power in the fourteenth century. Unfailingly, these precursors were identified as the TOLTECS, whose capital, TOLLAN, was reportedly one of the most magnificent cities in Mexico. So highly skilled were the Toltecs, wrote Sahagun, that "nothing they did was difficult for them....They cut green stone [jade], and they cast gold, and made other works of the craftsman and the feather-worker....And these Toltecs enjoyed great wealth; they were rich; never were they poor. Nothing did they lack in their homes...." (Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization. Viking, 1985. Pp. 162-163.)

A sixteenth-century Aztec noble, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who was an interpreter for the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City, complied a lengthy version of his people's history which also declared that the stimulus underlying the rise and greatness of Aztec culture was largely derived from the Toltecs.

"Ixtlilxochitl portrayed them as masters of art, architecture, calendrics, medicine, and engineering, with a fierce dedication to religion and a love of rich pagentry. Toltec laws were said to have been strict but justly enforced, and their most important priest-king was the famous Quetzalcoatl, the 'living divinity' who dwelled among the builders of Tollan." (Ibid., p. 163.)

Diego Duran declares that "...the disciples whom the Papa [Quetzalcoatl] brought, whom they called Toltecas and sons of the sun...had their principal seat [of government] in Cholula although they roamed all the land..."

Ixtlilxochitl, though not mentioning Quetzalcoatl in the context, described the apparel worn by the Toltecas --

The Tulteca men, particularly in time of warmth, dressed in their cloaks and trunks of cotton; and in times of coldness they donned some long jackets without sleeves, which reached to their knees, with their cloaks and trunks; they wore shoes in their style, cotaras or catles [cactli] of henequen -- the women their huipiles and petticoats and likewise their cotaras of their own; and when they went outside they donned some white cloaks embroided with many colors, sharp-pointed at the shoulders, as in the manner of a hood of a friar although they reached to the knee pits; they called this cloak toxquemitl.

The priests wore some [white] tunics and others black ones that reached to the ground, with their hoods with which they covered the[ir] head[s], their hair long, plaited, which reached to the shoulders, their eyes always lowered and humble, their feet bare at the time of their fasts; and when they were in the temple they seldom wore shoes unless they went outside on a long journey...

When the Tultecas fought, they donned some [clothes] in the manner of long TUNICS OF A THOUSAND COLORS to their heels, embroided and very thick and heavy...[and some had] long lances and others [spear] throwers and clubs studded with iron [iron swords?]. They wore helmets [morriones y celadas] of copper and gold, and some used bucklers, principally those who carried clubs. Likewise the Tultecas wore the rest of the clothes that I have mentioned above, tunics like those of the priests, white although different, neither more nor less than the tunics that our religious priests wear underneath; for besides being like these, they have [had] sleeves like those of the oidores and certain hoods, as I have already declared above...

Their clothing was some long tunics in the manner of the long robes which the Japanese use and as footwear they wore sandals and used some[thing] in the manner of hats made of straw or palm. -- Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Obras Historicas, Editora Nacional, Mexico (1965), vol. I, pp. 40-41, 56, 71, vol. II, p.33.

The "tunics of a thousand colors" is one of the identifying signs of the Israelite tribes descended from Joseph -- and is the origin of the tartans worn by the clans of Scotland.

During the 2nd millenium B.C. the region of Scandinavia (and particularly the peninsula of Denmark) became a chief area of trade and commerce. It was strategically located to dominate both the North and Baltic sea trade. So, together with the original German tribes of the CYMRY and DAUCIONES were migrants from Britain -- the HEBREW CYMRY transplanted by Hu the Mighty or Joshua of Jericho fame. "In 1040 [B.C.]" relates Herman L. Hoeh, "the HEBREW CYMRY called for a DESCENDANT OF JUDAH, A ROYAL SCION OF THE HOUSE OF TROY, to rule over them." "ODIN," continues Hoeh, "answered the call and led a migration OUT OF THRACE into DENMARK and neighboring regions" (Compendium of World History. Vol. II. Ambassador College, 1963. P. 50).

Also known as WODEN, WOTAN and DAN, Odin is the foremost hero of Norse mythology and, as such, was worshipped by the pagan forebears of the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians, the Germans and THE CANAANITES in their midst! As the chief god of the northern pantheon, he is said to have been the father of several legendary kings. "His exploits and adventures," notes the Encyclopedia Britannica, "are a common theme in the poetic and prose Eddas. Here his character is distinguished rather by wisdom than martial prowess, and reference is frequently made to his skill in poetry and magic" (Vol. 16, 1943 edition. P. 704).

Human sacrifices were frequently offered to ODIN, especially prisoners taken in battle; and the worship of ODIN seems to have prevailed chiefly, if not solely, in military circles. He was known to the Anglo-Saxons as WODEN, and to the Germans as WODAN (WUOTAN).

Writes Herman L. Hoeh: "In Danish history he is also called DAN I. He was the FIRST ODIN or VOTAN -- from the Hebrew ADONAI meaning 'lord.' Denmark originally received its name from the TRIBE OF DANAAN. It passed to the king who took the name of the subjects whom he ruled" (Compendium of World History, Vol. II, p. 43).

The magazine Wake Up!, in its August 1980 issue, explains that "whilst such deification of ancestors can only be deplored, there is firm reason to assert that ODIN WAS A MIGHTY LEADER OF THE ISRAEL PEOPLE during their westward trek from ancient Scythia [which included Thrace] -- the region to the north of the BLACK AND CASPIAN SEAS -- towards the fringe countries of the North Sea" (Covenant Publishing Co., Ltd. London. P. 18).

King DAN I, or ODIN, commenced his reign in Scandinavia in the year 1040 B.C. and his line, the sagas reveal, stretched all the way back to TROY! "The repeated assertions and implications," notes The Link magazine, "that the families descended from ODIN (or WODEN) derive from the ANCIENT TROJAN KINGS (often thought to belong to the fanciful category) may indeed prove to have FIRM FOUNDATION IN TRUTH."

"Several factors," continues this publication, "provide evidence which is harmonious with such a claim. Ancient classical and extra-Biblical sources indicate that the TROJAN KINGS were of the ROYAL LINE OF JUDAH and that they were closely related to other ROYAL FAMILIES IN IONA, GREECE AND CRETE. The early British king-line is traditionally DESCENDED THROUGH THE TROJAN KINGS, and the kings of Ireland are stated to have sprung from the MILESIAN ROYAL FAMILY in IONA into which 'Pharaoh's daughter' married."

"Accepting these sources," notes the magazine, "the royal families of the NORTHERN NATIONS OF EUROPE -- Irish-Scottish, Early British, Frankish, Norwegian -- are all of the SCEPTRE TRIBE OF JUDAH and the many intermarriages of these royal lines would thus all be within the one great royal family of which so much is prophesied in Scripture. Queen Elizabeth II has stated that she is WODEN-BORN" (Dec. 1981. Christian Israel Foundation, Walsall, England. P. 117).

The genealogy of Odin is traced by Gladys Taylor when she states that "the royal families of England [and] Wales...sprang from BRUTUS THE TROJAN, while those of the SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES came from ODIN, whose genealogy," she confirms, "as given in the Prologue to the Prose Edda, is traced TO PRIAM KING OF TROY..." (The Magnet of the Isles. The Covenant Book Co., Ltd. London, 1971. P. 37).

From Priam Herman L. Hoeh traces Odin's lineage all the way back to Jacob! (See Compendium of World History, Vol. II. P. 48).

At this juncture we should digress a little and locate the area known as "THRACE." This will help us to understand the migrations of the Canaanites who fled from Joshua and the Israelites and, at a later time, were led from Thrace to Scandinavia under the leadership of Dan I of the House of Judah.

"Thrace," notes the Encyclopedia Britannica, "[is] a name applied at various periods to areas of different extent....The boundaries of the ROMAN PROVINCE OF THRACE were -- north, the Haemus; east, THE EUXINE SEA [BLACK SEA]; south, the Propontis, the HELLESPONT and the AEGEAN; and west, the Nestus. The distinguishing features of the country were the mountain chain of Rhodope (Despotodagh) and THE RIVER HEBRUS (Maritza)." "The HEBRUS," continues the Britannica, "with its tributaries, drains almost the whole of THRACE" (1943 edition. Vol. 22, p. 159).

The 1946 edition of the Britannica describes the people who anciently inhabited this region. In the article on Thrace, we read --

The name Thrace, because it has been used as a geographical term as well as an ethnic description, has added to the confusion. Thrace was inhabited by indigenous tribes, as well as by Celtic [Israelite] Tribes such as the Getas. The aboriginal inhabitants were the RED-SKINNED THRACIANS mentioned by the Greek writers and they differed from the Celtic tribes not only in complexion but also in customs and religion. (Herodotos, V. 14.)

The native Thracians were called RED-SKINS by the Greeks; and the word "Phoenician" means reddish dye in the Greek language.

The Britannica continues --

The most outstanding archaeological monuments of this prehistoric period are the MOUND-LIKE TOMBS, that were generally located in the outskirts of the ancient cities....There is no well-defined difference between the aboriginal Thracians and the native Illyrians. All of the Thracian tribes and the Illyrian tribes practiced TATTOOING, which distinguished them from the Celtic tribes that had from time to time dominated them.

Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia defines the boundaries of Thrace in much the same manner, adding that "the THRACIANS were a barbaric, warlike people who established their own kingdom in the 5th century B.C." (Vol. 23, p. 140). Also, the Thracian tribes tattooed themselves, thus being distinguished from the Celtic tribes.

Dr. Jackson, Professor of Celtic Languages at the University of Edinburgh, states in The Problem of the Picts that the Picts arrived in Scotland and England from Trace and Illyria. The Thracians and Illyrians observed and practiced the very same customs that were observed by the Picts of the British Isles (Wainwright, op. cit., p. 132).

In the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica we find the following --

Herodotus and other Greek historians portrayed the Illyrians as a semi-savage people; they viewed them as the most savage tribes of Thrace. Both peoples they described as practitioners of the art of tattooing. They painted their bodies and sacrificed human victims to their gods. The women of Illyria occupied as exalted position in tribal society and even exercised political authority. The queens are referred to as despots or royal personages. -- Vol. XIV, p. 326. Article "Illyria."

These are very important points to remember. The people of Illyria practiced the very same customs we find among the Picts and the Indian tribes of America! These peoples were completely different from those of other European peoples including the Celts.

If we go to the Encyclopedia Britannica again, we find revealed that the inhabitants of Thrace were men of RED SKIN! Herodotus adds that the Thracians resembled the people of Illyria ("Thracia," ibid., Vol. XXVI, p. 886).

Going now to The Universal Encyclopedia Illustrated ("Thracia," La Encyclopedia Universal Illustrada, Europeo-Americana, Vol. LXIII, p. 329), we read:

A custom unique to the Thracians was tattooing. The nobles painted the hair of their head blue.

The weight of all the evidence we have just uncovered plainly indicates that the Picts, on beginning their march to the British Isles, departed from the region that included the ancient territories of Thrace and Illyria. "From this area came the American Indians who the Europeans found inhabiting this continent when they arrived!" (The Roots of the American Indian, p. 49).

Elucidates Herman L. Hoeh:

It was FROM THRACE that ODIN led THE AGATHYRSI and OTHER TRIBES to northwestern Europe when he founded the Danish kingdom.

Many of the warriors employed by the early princes of western Europe were FIERCE, OF SWARTHY SKIN, NAKED AND OFTEN TATTOOED AND PAINTED. Strabo, the Roman geographer, wrote that AREAS OF IRELAND AND BRITAIN were inhabited "by MEN ENTIRELY WILD." Jerome, writing in one of his letters in the fifth century, characterizes some of them as CANNIBALS. -- Compendium of World History, Vol. II. P. 86.

With ODIN when he migrated from Thrace to the area of Scandinavia was a MIXED THRONG of people -- including the Pactyae or Picts who were descendants of the CANAANITES Joshua drove out of the Promised Land. Julius Firmicus, an early writer, recorded that "in Ethiopia all are born black; in Germany, white; and IN THRACE, RED." At the time of Odin's great migration Thrace was populated by various of the Canaanite tribes who had fled from Canaan as the Children of Israel invaded the land, as well as the children of Tiras, son of Japheth.

While in Asia Minor some of the Canaanite tribes became known as the LYKIANS and the Solymoi. Herodotus (I. 173) states that the Lykians were called SOLYMOI and that they lived as transhumant shepherds. Herodotus also records that an earlier name for Lykia (where the Lykians lived) was Milyas (very similar to the name Mayas), and that the Lykians were called the Milyai. He said that the Milyai of his day were descendants of the Solymoi. The Lykians, he says, were uniquely MATRILINEAL -- a custom that was to identify these Canaanites wherever they migrated to.

In the Iliad the Lykians are pictured as being BOWMEN, and historian Cyclone Covey shows that the "Luqqa [Lykians] had existed as a hardy, rebellious people on the frontier of the Hittite Empire and sometimes within it, by that name, much earlier than Greek memory of Lykians as transmitted by Homer, Herodotos, or Kephalion" (Homeric Troy and the Sea Peoples. Copple House Books, Inc. Lakemont, GA. 1987. P. 115).

Notes Covey --

LYKIA, IONIA and KARIA are places where we can locate a custom of FULL-CIRCLE FEATHERED HEADDRESSES for warriors...they are found depicted on Cyprus, in Syria-Palestine, in Egypt, and at Tiryns....A relief of Sennacherib's at Nineveh c. 700 B.C. so depicts the headgear of processing Ionians and Karians. Herodotos notes (VII. 92) that Lykian sailors in Xerxe's expedition against Greece (still) wore "a hat ENCIRCLED WITH PLUMES" (ibid., p. 142).

Covey goes on to say "the prabability persists that the mountaineers of Lykia clung to the FEATHERD WAR-BONNET for five centuries after it had gone out of style elsewhere in western Asia Minor. [Maybe the other wearers moved out of the area?] If not a more general practice, it might have been a local one peculiar to the TROAD, introduced into Lykia..." (ibid., p. 143).

Eventually these tribes migrated to the Aegean and left their marks on the various islands of the area. T.R. Bryce in The Lukka Problem -- and a Possible Solution (JNES XXXIII/4, October 1974, p. 404) says "there must have been two main groups of Luqqa people, one in the vicinity of Lykaonia, the other in KARIA...[hypothesizing] an original Luqqa homeland in the former and a MIGRATION of a large part of the SEMI-NOMADIC TRIBESMEN via the MAIander Valley to the Aegean." Covey adds that "such a migration would have occurred by the time of Tudkhaliyash II [a Hittite king] when, as the Madduwattash indictment attests, ten towns associatable with Luqqa were already in place." These towns, which recur in later Hittite documents from the time of Khattushilish III through Tudkhaliyash IV, include Attarimma, Iyalanda, DALAWA, and WALLARIMMA. Interestingly, we find two North American Indian tribes with the names of DELAWARE and WALLA WALLA -- in all likelihood derived from these towns of the Lykians. F.J Tritsch stresses that "the unsettled mobility of Luqqa tribes meant that they, like Illyrians or Epirots, might turn up in locales great distances apart" (Der Alte Orient XVIII, pps. 494-502).

Traditions of folk-movements were preserved not only by the Greek-speaking peoples but also by the survivors of other races -- races which had been in contact with the Aegean area in the Bronze Age. "Thus," writes N.G.L. Hammond, "Thucydides could state with confidence that...in the time of 'Minos' CARIANS AND PHOENICIANS occupied most of the Aegean islands....These traditions are certainly compatible with the broad deductions based on the archaeological evidence" (A History of Greece to 322 B.C. Second Edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1967. P. 58).

"The Carians," continues Hammond, "claimed they were native to south-west Asia Minor and and expanded thence into the islands....The Phoenicians claimed to have migrated from the Erythraean Sea (that is, southern Arabia) to the Syrian coast, where they expanded into the Aegean islands; their occupation of Thera is stated to have extended over eight generations, of which five were anterior to the Trojan War" (ibid., p. 58). The arrival of Phoenicians at Thera and Cadmus at Thebes c. 1350 B.C. is supported by the cylinder-seals of King Burraburrias II (1367-1346) -- found in the palace at Thebes.

Apparently, the Karians (Carians) and their kin the Phoenicians, arrived in the islands of the Aegean at about the same time -- one group by land, the other by sea. Notes J.B. Bury: "For several centuries after the Trojan War the trade of the Aegean with the east was partly carried on by strangers. The men who took advantage of this opening were the traders of the city-states of SIDON and TYRE on the Syrian coast....The Greeks knew these bronzed...traders by the same name, Phoenikes or "RED MEN," which they had before applied to the Cretans. This led to some confusion in their traditions" (A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great. Random House, N.Y. 1913. P. 69).

This author goes on to show --

The evidence of the Homeric poems shows clearly that between the commercial enterprise of the heroic age and the commercial enterprise of the later Greeks there was an interval of perhaps two hundred years or thereabouts, during which no Greek state possessed a sea-power strong enough to exclude foreign merchants from Greek seas, and trade was consequently shared by Greek and Tyrian merchants...and the CARIANS developed a considerable sea-power. -- Ibid., pp. 69-70.

These "strangers" planted permanent settlements at Camirus in Rhodes and on the island of Cythera. They had stations at the purple fisheries of Cos and and Nisyros and Erythrae and elsewhere, and were the first to tap the goldmines of Siphnos and Thasos and even the silver-mines of Attica. The Karians and/or Lykians left their mark on the Aegean islands of Ios, Tenos, Andros, Patmos, Leros, Piraeus, Naxos, Aguis, Sikinos, Anafe and Karpathos before moving on to the area that later became known as Thrace.

We can easily see that the inhabitants of the Aegean islands and the surrounding areas were the descendants of Canaan; and we can easily see from their characteristics that they were the ancestors of the American Indians! The Universal Encyclopedia Illustrated, Europe-America ("ilirio," 1925, Vol. XXVIII, p. 998) tells us that "Herodotus described them as savages, tattooing their skin and offering human sacrifices; their women enjoyed a very HIGH SOCIAL POSITION which even included the exercise of political power; and we have a great number of names of their rulers."

In the plains of the TROAD on the other side of the Aegean Sea can be seen a great number of mounds that date to the time of the first inhabitants of that region, the Lykians. The Universal Encyclopedia Illustrated, in an article entitled "Troy" (Vol. LXIII, p. 329), says --

Near the city exists several tombs discovered by Schlieman who supposed that they were the tombs of the heroes of the Trojan War, and whose contents did not raise any speculation on his part since it seemed obvious what their contents were; this was especially true concerning the date of their construction.

Explaining these similarities Dr. Benjamin M. Rea, in his thesis The Roots of the American Indian, points out that "these facts, without doubt, identify the first inhabitants of the American continent as men with RED SKIN. In addition, they practiced the art of TATTOOING and CONSTRUCTED MOUNDS similar to those we find in the Mississippi Valley and Mexico" (Ehud International Language Foundation, Walnut Creek, CA. P. 36).

Rea goes on to make some striking discoveries --

Another proof that provides us with additional evidence that cannot be discarded is the similarity of the names of the indigenous tribes that inhabited the borders of the Aegean Sea with names of the islands that are located in the Aegean Sea. Many of these islands still carry the names of the Indian tribes....These names reveal something truly amazing when we consider them in the light of our search. It is well known that when the Europeans arrived at the Americas, the Indians did not know how to write according to the phonetic system of the Europeans; and, naturally, the Europeans pronounced the Indian names according to their own sound system and consequently wrote them in compliance with their own phonetic code. For example, the French, on hearing the sound SIOUX, wrote it according to the French sound system; and the Spanish, upon hearing the SAME SOUND in Central America, called one of the tribes of the Mayas XIUS. This word has almost the same sound in the two languages, but the written representation appears different at first glance.

Continues Rea --

Now let us look for names in the area of the Aegean Sea that are SIMILAR to names of the American Indians of pre-Columbiam times.

We find islands bearing the following names:

Ios, Tenos Andros, Naxos, Aquis, Sikinos, Patmos, Leros, Piraeus, Anafe, and Karpathos.

Based on the similarity of names...the name Sioux and Xius...derived from the Island of Xios (Ios). The Aztecs that finally settled in Mexico began their long migration from the Island of Tenos and called their island city in the lake of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan. (The name Tenochtitlan means the island in the water).

The tribe named Androa started its march toward the west from Andros and still bears the name in the State of Oregon, U.S.A., where they lived among the trees. (The word Androa or Andros means the people that lived in the forest.)

The Patoes (Columbia, S.A.) originally came from the Island of Patmos; the Lecos (Brazil, S.A.) from Leros; the Piros or Peiraieis (Chihuahua) from Piraeus; the Nahoas from Naxos; the Haquios (Guatemala, S.A.) from Aquis; the Siquias (Honduras, S.A.) from Sikinos; the Anafes (Brazil, S.A.) from Anafe; and the Arapahoes or Karpazos (Colorado, U.S.A.) from the Island of Karpathos.

Only in the Aegaen Sea and in America do we find such a striking similarity of names. -- Ibid., pp. 37-38.

In addition to the names just mentioned by Rea, we find the Penutian language tribe of COOS (COS) in Oregon -- obviously derived from the Aegean island of Cos. Also, in the same area of the U.S. we find the Tenino tribe, plainly derived from the Karian island of Tenedos, off the coast of the Troad. Amongst the Algonquin-speaking people of North America is the tribe of Delua or Delaas -- the name deriving from the Aegean island of Delos. The family of Canaan subdivided into various other tribes -- among which are the Mayas, Amazons, Caribes and the Tine or Thyni, according to the Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Classics. The Tinne Indians, called by the Greeks Thyni, live to this very day in Canada. The Amazon Indians of South America gave their mane to the Amazon River. "The MAYAS live in Mexico and Guatemala and took their name from the Greek goddess MAIA, daughter of Atlas and one of the seven Pleiades" (ibid., pp. 38-39). In the Caribbean live the Caribes, the same tribe that once lived on the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Eventually these tribes in the area of the Aegean Sea were incorporated into what later became known as the land of Thrace.

Shortly after arriving in Scandinavia from Thrace, ODIN embarked on a venture that was to take him, along with his followers, thousands of miles across the ocean to a mystical land shrouded in legend. This was a result of the descendants of the original migrants seeking to establish their kingdom and authority over the people: "And then they remembered what had been said about THE EAST. This is when they remembered the instructions of their fathers. The ancient things received from their fathers were not lost. The tribes gave them their wives, becoming their fathers-in-law as they took wives. And there were THREE OF THEM who said, as they were about to go away: 'We are GOING TO THE EAST, WHERE OUR FATHERS CAME FROM,' they said, then they followed their road...There were only THREE [who went across the sea], but they had skill and knowledge....They advised all their brothers, elder and younger, who were left behind. They were glad to go: 'We're not dying. We're coming back,' they said when they went, yet it was these same three who WENT CLEAR ACROSS THE SEA. And then they ARRIVED IN THE EAST; THEY WENT THERE TO RECEIVE LORDSHIP" (Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, translated by Dennis Tedlock. A Touchstone Book, published by Simon & Schuster. N.Y. 1986. P. 203).

"SONS [descendants] OF THE PRIEST-KINGS RETURNED TO THE EAST, where they received from the KING OF THE EAST the insignia and symbols of ROYALTY, including the canopy and throne. They then RETURNED TO RULE THE TRIBES" (ibid.,).

Where did these Quiche Maya journey to? From what line of great kings in the EAST did they receive their royal authority? From a descendant of the GREAT TOLTEC RULER who conducted their ancestors to TULA IN MEXICO shortly after the Exodus! And WHO was this descendant of the "great ruler"?

In The Two Babylons, compiled by Alexander Hislop, the author tells us that "from the researches of Humboldt we find that THE MEXICANS CELEBRATED WODAN AS THE FOUNDER OF THEIR RACE, just as our own ancestors did. The WODAN or ODIN OF SCANDINAVIA can be proved to be the [same as]...the WODAN OF MEXICO..." Continues Hislop: "...the fact that that name had been borne by some illustrious hero among the supposed ANCESTORS OF THE MEXICAN RACE, is put BEYOND ALL DOUBT by the singular circumstance that THE MEXICANS HAD ONE OF THEIR DAYS CALLED WODANSDAY, exactly as we ourselves have" (Loizeaux Brothers, N.J. 1959. Pp. 133-134).

Is it mere coincidence that the MAYAS claim that their kingdom was founded by a great EASTERN RULER NAMED ODEN OR VOTAN OR DAN by some of their tribes? According to legend he was a WHITE MAN who CAME BY SEA FROM THE EAST, bringing an infusion of new people to their land. When did this occur? TEN CENTURIES BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST, notes the historian Ordonez!

Comments Herman L. Hoeh --

This VOTAN -- who was also worshipped as a god -- was famous for having himself journeyed to a land where a great TEMPLE was being built.

Do we have a king in Europe, living at the time SOLOMON'S TEMPLE was being built (around 1000 B.C.), who had dominion OVER THE SEAS, who was worshipped as a God, and whose name sounded like Votan? Indeed -- WODEN or ODIN, KING OF DENMARK from 1040-999 [B.C.]. He was worshipped later as a great god. Scandinavian literature is replete with accounts of his DISTANT JOURNEYS which took him away from his homeland for many months, sometimes years. -- Compendium of World History, Vol. II. P. 91.

In the Native Races of the Pacific States, by Hubert H. Bancroft, we find that ODIN gave his name to the "FOREST OF DAN" in the land of the QUICHE INDIANS -- just as KING ODIN or DANUS gave his name to DENMARK (DANMARK) (Pp. 163 & 549 -- Vol. V). Also, "DAN...founded a monarchy on the GUATEMALAN PLATEAU" (Vol. I, p. 789). Odin's capital in Mesoamerica -- built for the Canaanites he brought from the east -- was called AMAG-DAN.

The book Fingerprints of the Gods mentions that "there were other gods, among the Maya..., whose identities seemed to merge closely with those of Quetzalcoatl. One was VOTAN, a great civilizer, who was described as pale-skinned, bearded and wearing a long robe. Scholars could offer no translation for his name but his principal symbol, like that of Quetzalcoatl, was a serpent." (By Graham Hancock. Crown Trade Paperbacks, N.Y. 1995. P. 103.)

This Votan was also known as Itzamana; and the Mayan religious texts known as the Books of Chilam Balaam, reported that "the first inhabitants of Yucatan were the 'People of the Serpent.' They came from the EAST in boats across the water with their leader Itzamana, 'Serpent of the East,' a healer who could cure by laying on hands, and who revived the dead."

It is more than interesting to note that the foremost symbol of the Israelite tribe of DAN was the SERPENT; and McClintock and Strong, in their encyclopedia of religious knowledge, tell us that the standard of three Israelite tribes -- DAN, NAPHTALI and ASHER -- was a serpent or basilisk, with the motto: "Return, O Jehovah, unto the many thousands of Israel." Yair Davidy, in his work The Tribes, states that "the Tribe of Dan was represented by a SNAKE...[and] the symbol of a snake was once worshipped in Ireland" (p. 211).

In the late 16th century, several Spaniards noted the Yucatec Maya legend of Quetzalcoatl -- also named Kukulcan. On May 29, 1577, the King of Spain dispatched a questionnaire (called the real cedula) to the Spanish officials of the area, commanding them to fill it out. The Spanish officials in Yucatan complied. These reports, originally filed in the Archivo General de Indias in Sevelle, are collectively known as the Relaciones de Yucatan and are in Volumes 11 and 13 of the Coleccion de documentos ineditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organizacion de las antiguas posesiones espanolas de ultramar, second series, published in 1898 and 1900 by the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid. Most of these relaciones bear dates in the early months of 1581.

"Two of the report writers were Francisco de Bracamonte and Martin de Palomar. Bracamonte was encomendero [a person who had the right to collect tributes from the Indians within a designated territory, with the concomitant duty to propagate the Catholic faith] and Palomar was rigidor [minor official] of the settlements of Motul and Tecax that were within Bracamonte's encomienda. Palomar wrote the relacion on behalf of Bracamonte, and his Yucatec Maya informants were Juan Peche, governor of Motul, Juan Qui, Domingo Xul, and Francisco Evan [Euan], principals [chiefs] of Motul, and Juan Cumci de Landa, citizen of Motul, who might have been a protege of Diego de Landa" (A Search for Quetzalcoatl, by John Spencer Carroll. Stonehenge Viewpoint, Santa Barbara, CA. 1994. P. 20).

Referring to the people of Motul, Palomar wrote --

...they had knowledge of only one God who created heaven and earth and everything, and [they knew] that his seat [of government] was in heaven. They were [at] one time with knowledge of this only God, to whom they had erected [a] TEMPLE with priests, to which [priests] they brought presents and alms so that they had this manner of worship until A GREAT LORD, called Rurulcan [Kukulcan], came from OUTSIDE THIS LAND with people, for he and his people worshipped idols; and from here those of the land commenced to worship idols...

Pedro de Sautillana, encomendero of Moxopipe, filled out his relacion with the help of Gaspar Antomio Xiu (also known as Gaspar Antonio Chi de Herrera). A member of the Xiu family, Gaspar Antonio Xiu (1531-1610) was an interpreter for the Spanish government of Yucatan. In the Relacion de Quinacama o Moxpipe, Sautillana and Xiu narrated:

The ancient ones of this province say that anciently...they did not worship idols in this land. After the Mexicans entered it and possessed it, a captain who was called Quetzalquat [Quetzalcoatl] in the Mexican language (that is to say in our [language], plumage of a snake, and among themselves they give this name to the serpent because they say that it has plumage) INTRODUCED IDOLATRY and the use of idols as gods in this land, which [idols] he made them make from wood, clay, and stone. He made [them] worship them, and they offered them many things of the hunt and merchandise and above all BLOOD from their noses and ears and THE HEARTS OF SOME WHOM THEY SACRIFICED in their service. They perfumed them with smokes of copal, which is the incense of this land; and this custom remained until the conquistadores conquered them.

Four other encomenderos reported almost the same scenario.

Mayan and Aztec texts state that this man, claiming descent from the sun, arrived from the Gulf of Mexico with a complement of astronomers, architects and priests. The Aztecs called the man/god Quetzalcoatl, and the Mayans called him Kukulcan. These men wore sandals and robes and taught the natives to write, build, weave and worship the sun. The texts also reveal that they built schools primarily for teaching history.

This "Kukulcan" or "Quetzalcoatl" was, of course, Odin or Votan of Scandinavia who introduced idolatry and human sacrifice into Mesoamerica. He was the third Quetzalcoatl.

So here we have the records of a DANISH KING sailing across the ocean to Mesoamerica and planting COLONIES OF RED MEN FROM EUROPE and Thrace in the YUCATAN and GUATEMALAN HIGHLANDS -- as early as 1000 years before Christ! After vesting the visiting descendants of the priest-kings who founded Tula with the symbols of royalty and rulership, Odin traveled back to Mesoamerica with them, planting new colonies of Canaanites in the Yucatan and Guatemalan highlands. The newly vested priest-kings were placed in rulership over them. It is a FACT that Mesoamerican traditions universally assign WHITE LEADERS to every major recorded historic migration of the AMERICAN INDIAN from northwestern Europe.

With the fall of the Persian Empire in 331 B.C., the last remaining CANAANITES in Asia Minor disappeared from the area. Many other nations who had been held in virtual slavery gained their freedom at this time -- including the House of Israel. In the year 331-330 the Israelites, along with the remnant of Canaanites and some other races, journeyed out of this area to the northwest, eventually arriving in Scotland.

Archaeological proof of the Canaanites' later movements can be found in the skeletons unearthed in Asia minor:

Measuring techniques have become so ACCURATE that RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS are now distinguishable with a FAIR DEGREE OF CERTAINTY. The HITTITES, too, can be studied from this aspect. In 1958 the Deutche Orientgesellschaft devoted its 71st scientific publication to some HITTITE GRAVES discovered six years earlier in the immediate vicinity of the capital, HATTUSA, below a spur of rock named Osmankayasi after the owner of the neighbouring field. Excavation of this burial-ground yielded 50 cremation burials and 22 skeletons.

Continues the author --

Taken in conjunction with other finds made in ANATOLIA, these human remains enabled experts to distinguish THE HITTITES FROM OTHER RACES. To quote the publication mentioned above: 'If we temporarily disregard the human types portrayed in Hittite art and focus our attention on SHAPE OF SKULL ALONE, THE HITTITES can be typologically classified....During Anatolia's PRE-HITTITE PERIOD [prior to approximately 1447 B.C.], or in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages, NARROW-SKULLED TYPES are found. In the MIDDLE BRONZE AGE [after about 1447 B.C.]... BRACHYCEPHALIC TYPES occur in the CENTRAL ANATOLIAN REGION. After...the COLLAPSE OF THE CENTRAL HITTITE EMPIRE [331 B.C.]these gave way to DOLICHOCEPHALICS who were later (in Greek and, more particularly, Roman times) succeeded by the BRACHYCEPHALICS who still predominate in our own day. The likely inference is that HITTITE SETTLERS [from Canaan] INTRODUCED THESE BRACHYCEPHALIC SKULLS INTO CENTRAL ANATOLIA [in the Middle Bronze Age].' -- The Hittites: People of a Thousand Gods, pp. 83-84.

Wherever the Canaanites went as they traveled across Europe, they left BRACHYCEPHALIC skulls of their dead as markers of the route they took.

"The native monuments, together with the Egyptian reliefs representing Hittites, showed the physical characteristics of the Hittite race; in particular, the GREAT CURVED NOSE and BACKWARD SLOPING FOREHEAD, which proved beyond any dispute that the Hittites were not Semites or Indo-Europeans. The hieroglyphic writing of the Hittites has nothing to do with the Egyptian hieroglyphic script. It is a PICTOGRAPHIC SCRIPT; but the original meaning of many of the signs is still obscure" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943 edition. Vol. 11, p. 599).

The Britannica goes on to say: "Not only the mixed character of the Hittite language, but also the physical characters of the "Hittite" race, its HYPERBRACHYCEPHALOUS SKULL, the LARGE HOOKED NOSE and SLOPING FOREHEAD, suggested the hypothesis that here an Indo-European nation is mingled with a NON-Indo-European race" (ibid., p. 602). If you study pictures of the ancient Maya you will see these SAME physical features present -- indicating, with other similarities, a COMMON ancestry.

These later movements of the Canaanites were recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus (55? - after 117 A.D.) in his book Germania. He mentions that "some tribes... appeared BETWEEN THE RHINE AND WESER during the centuries IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING OUR ERA. Called the CHATTI [a variation of HATTI, or HITTITE], they were a TOUGH AND WARLIKE PEOPLE who excelled their neighbours in the martial arts (Germania, XXIX et seq.)" (Ibid., p. 80).

Their movements in Europe are also recorded under the name or title of PICT. Joseph Ritson says "that a people of AQUITAIN GAUL, upon the seacoast (now POITOU), is called by Caesar, Strabo, Pliny, and others, PICTONES. PICTAVI (now POITIERS) was their city; whence they are afterward, in the Notitia Gallica, by Gregory of Tours and others, called also PICTAVI or PICTAVIENSES..." (Annals of the Caledonians, Picts, and Scots. P. 84).

Ritson goes on to mention:

The PICTONES were a considerable nation of the Celtae [actually, they were NOT Celts at all but fellow-travelers] (to whom Caesar allots A THIRD PART OF GAUL [FRANCE]), and inhabited A LARGE DISTRICT TO THE SOUTH OF THE LIGER OR LOIRE, bordering upon the northern ocean, now THE BAY OF BISCAY. Between this people and the PICTS, if not absolutely the same, there is at least this resemblance, that BOTH appear, as is already said, to have been called PICTONES. Flaccus Alcovinus, who flourished in 780, and wrote a Latin poem, "De pontificibus et santis ecclesiae Eboracensis," (apud Historiae Britannicae scriptores, xx. a Gale, I. 705,) and makes frequent mention of the PICTS, has in one instance this line (v. 68):

"Donec PICTO FEROX timido simul agmine fugit."
(Till the FIERCE PICT fled, with a fearful herd.)

This, therefore, is an ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE, that PICTO, a PICT, PICTONES, the PICTS, was a common name as well of the GALLIC, as of the CALEDONIAN [SCOTLAND] PICTS. -- Ibid., pp. 85-86.

From the Continent the Canaanites or PICTS set sail for Britain. Their route is uncovered by Ritson:

The PICTS, before their arrival and settlement in the NORTH OF BRITAIN [SCOTLAND], seem to have established themselves in the ORCADES, or ORKNEY ISLANDS. We have this FACT on the authority of Nennius. "After an interval," he says, "of many years, (from the time, that is, of HELI THE HIGH PRIEST, when BRITO [BRUTUS] reigned in Britain, and Posthumus, his brother, over the Latins,) not less than 900 [aprox. 249 B.C.], the PICTS came and OCCUPIED THE ISLANDS WHICH ARE CALLED ORCADES; and afterwards, from the neighbouring isles, wasted many and not small regions, and OCCUPIED them in the left (i.e. north) part of BRITAIN, and remain to this day. THERE THE THIRD PART OF BRITAIN THEY HELD, and hold till now." An additional proof of their being settled IN THESE ISLANDS, is afforded by an epistle, or certificate, in legal form, of Thomas de Tulloch, bishop of Orkney and Zetland, to Eric, king of Denmark and Norway, in 1403; wherein he informs him, that in the time of Harold Harfager, first king of Norway, An. 900, the land or country of the ISLANDS OF ORKNEY was inhabited and cultivated by two nations; that is to say, the PETS and the PAPES (PETI et PAPAE); which two nations had been radically and entirely destroyed by the Norwegians of the race or tribe of the most strenuous prince Ronald, as well as by the name of "PICTS, or PIGHTS HOUSES," which appears to be still given to certain ancient buildings in those parts. -- Annals of the Caledonians, Picts, and Scots. Pp. 99-100.

From the Orkneys the Picts moved on into Scotland. The 19th-century author Pinkerton "maintains the ancient Caledonians to be PICTS, or PIKS...but...at the same time, that SCOTLAND was held by the Cumri, or Cimbri, or Cimmerii, two different people; and that the CIMBRI, 'who held all Germany,' were CELTS (I. 13, 15), and 'HELD SCOTLAND TILL THE PIKS CAME AND EXPELLED THEM' (I. 16, 39); asserting, moreover, that 'THE PIKS CAME FROM NORWAY TO SCOTLAND [by way of the Orkneys]' (I. 15)."

Pinkerton goes on to say "the PIKS were really the VIK VERIAR OF NORWAY...and were...settled in that part of BRITAIN which lies NORTH OF THE CLYDE AND FORTH, LONG BEFORE THE TIME OF JULIUS [CAESAR]" (Annals of the Caledonians, Picts, and Scots. Pp. 74-75).

Further, he notes, "the CIMBRI held Scotland TILL THE PIKS ["FROM NORWAY"] CAME AND EXPELLED THEM; an event which happened about 200 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST. These Cimbri were driven by the PIKS down below Loch Fyn, and the Tay, and, after, beyond the firths of Forth and Clyde...."

These same PIKS (or PICTS) who took control of Scotland from the Cimri were, according to Pinkerton, "the PEUKINI...the PIKI OF ANCIENT COLCHIS [country on the east shore of the Black Sea], who inhabited the ISLE OF PEUKE, AT THE MOUTH OF THE DANUBE." Thus the Picts of Scotland are connected with Asia Minor and the Canaanites who dwelt there under the Hittite Empire.

When the Roman legions of Julius Caesar arrived in the land, they found the British Isles already inhabited by a race of savages that painted their bodies. For this reason, they gave them the name PICTS. When the Romans returned sometime later, the Picts had disappeared to the north and their place had been taken by the British.

As the Romans pushed northwards in Britain, they inevitably came to what is very roughly speaking the present national boundary from the Tweed to Solway, along the southern face of the Cheviots. Here they came across "ANOTHER RACE, EXTREMELY WARLIKE AND FIERCE." Notes Charles MacKinnon: "They were formidable enough to halt the Roman advance for a time, and the Romans called them CALEDONIANS, but from the start they seem to have been nicknamed PICTS" (Scottish Highlanders. Barnes & Noble Books, N.Y. 1984. P. 24). This was the same race Julius Caesar encountered when he invaded Britain in 55 B.C.

Explains Dr. Benjamin Rea:

Pictland was, and continues to this day to be, a geographical region. The name of this area was given by the Romans. It was done with the primary purpose of referring to a particular people. But this region was also inhabited by a people who were not the descendants of the Picts, who we are interested in. This name, as we have mentioned, is of Roman origin and means painted people. There is no doubt that when the Romans came for the first time and saw men who wore pictures on their skin -- a practice that, to the eyes of the Latins was as strange as other European customs -- they named the entire area inhabited by these people PICTLANDIA, which means the area of the painted men. -- The Roots of the American Indian, p. 41.

According to Thomas Rice Edward Holmes, this race of men, with figures painted on their skin, preferred to eat the meat of dogs and practiced totemism and exogamy amongst other customs (Early Man in Great Britain, p. 88). They were definitely not Celts -- and had no affinity with this race. Their customs were completely different from the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons and other so-called Indo-Europeans.

One custom that is completely foreign to all European nations -- and existed without a doubt among the Picts -- was the custom of MATRIARCHY: The mother, not the father, was the head of the clan or tribe. She was the one who governed or ruled, in general. This fact is of vital importance and proves that the Picts were quite different from all Indo-Europeans. This fact also links them to the Lykians and Karians of Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea, and links them to various peoples in the New World! In The Problem of the Picts, by Frederick L. Wainwright, we read:

The most outstanding point for us to see, if the system of succession (through the female) can be defined as a characteristic of non-European and non-Celtic cultures. Zimmer was convinced that the succession by the mother was not practiced by the Indo-European races. Frazier thought that the succession was not by the mother and that it was no different among the Hiberian and the Celtic races, but his arguments were not convincing on this point. Other investigators have accepted the Picts as being a matriarchal society, but they would not admit that this system of succession was foreign to the Celtic tribes. If the practice is definitely not found among the Celts and the Indo-Europeans, then it would be most difficult to prove that the Picts are of the same racial family. -- Pp. 27-28.

In his book, Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar, there is another quotation from Zimmer (Holmes, p. 415):

Zimmer, referring to the work by Schrader entitled Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryans, made these observations, "Among all the people who speak the Aryan language and among the ancestors of this race, the custom of succession has always been from father to son. This practice was the basis of this society and culture."

These excerps clearly show that the custom of matriarchy was foreign to all European races and, therefore, is a key that shows who the Picts were and where they originated from before arriving in the British Isles. "The practice of matriarchy is so different from the usual western practice that it stands out and serves as a KEY to open the door and reveal the mystery that has obscured the identity of those who practiced it. Among the Picts it was a religious custom!" (The Roots of the American Indian, p. 42).

V. Gordon Childe, in his authoritative book Scotland Before the Scots, provides us with some amazing information on the enigmatic Picts --

The succession to the throne or to the royal power was evidently not transmitted from king to the son; rather, the queen usually selected her mate from a different community, tribe, or clan. This system of transmission of power through the woman is known by ethnographers as matriarchy, and at times it is combined with exogamy, marriage outside the community, and totemism, a custom of a society which supports a belief that in some mysterious manner they are descended from a plant or animal and they therefore take their tribal name from this plant or animal. These three practices -- matriarchy, totemism, and exogamy -- are not practices of Indo-European societies. -- Pp. 260-61.

Tattooing was a common practice among the Picts, and they practiced it as part of their religion. This custom did not exist among the Celts and other Indo-European races.

The use of the TOTEM POLE was exercised only among the Picts of Scotland. No other ancient European tribe used it. However, the totem pole is used among the Indians of North America and among the Mayas of Mesoamerica. This alone supports the belief in a common relationship between the Picts and the American Indians.

Although most of the Picts disappeared from Scotland at a later date, a small number of them survived down to the eighteenth century. The characteristics of this remnant are recorded by Herman L. Hoeh in his Compendium of World History --

In the eighteenth century, Martin, in his volume Western Islands of Scotland, remarked that the COMPLEXION of the natives of the isle of Skye was "for the most part BLACK;" and the nations of Jura were "generally BLACK OF COMPLEXION," and of Arran, "generally BROWN, and some of a BLACK COMPLEXION." The inhabitants of the Isle Gigay were "fair or BROWN in complexion." The AMERICAN INDIAN -- commonly called the RED MAN-- varies from COPPER-BROWN to almost BLACK, and, of course, almost white in some tribes.

And the famous literary companions Johnson and Boswell several times took notice of the SWARTHY COLOR of some of the natives in THE NORTH AND WEST OF SCOTLAND (Croker's Boswell, 1848, pp. 309-310, 316, 352). "There was great diversity in the faces of the circle around us," wrote Boswell; "some were AS BLACK AND WILD in their appearance AS ANY AMERICAN SAVAGES whatever." "Our boatmen were rude singers, and seemed SO LIKE INDIANS, THAT A VERY LITTLE IMAGINATION WAS NECESSARY TO GIVE ONE AN IMPRESSION OF BEING UPON AN AMERICAN RIVER."

A writer at the beginning of the nineteenth century characterized the people of Harris: "In general the natives are of SMALL STATUE....THE CHEEK BONES ARE RATHER PROMINENT. THE COMPLEXION IS OF ALL TINTS. Many individuals are as DARK as mulattoes, while others are as nearly as fair as Danes" (Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, No. VII, pp. 142, 143).

In Pennant's Second Tour, 1772, is a line drawing of the WIGWAMS of the half-breed natives of the SCOTTISH ISLAND OF JURA. Here are natives, LIKE AMERICAN INDIANS, living in THE REMOTE ISLANDS OF EUROPE [as well as LAPLAND and SIBERIA], whose last remnants [in Scotland] died out as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. -- Vol. II. Pp. 86-88.

S. Gusten Olson also admits that "in Britain, the PICTS were a STRIKING PARALLEL TO AMERICAN INDIANS" (The Incredible Nordic Origins. P. 13).

"The first race to DISAPPEAR [from Scotland] were," writes Charles MacKinnon, "the PICTS, and 'DISAPPEAR' THEY DID." He goes on to say that "according to the latest information today [as of 1984], however, nobody yet knows...what happened to them. Nor do we know what language they spoke, except that it was NOT the Gaelic of the Scoto-Irish invaders from Antrim who brought Irish civilization to Scotland...."

"The mystery lies in the fact that thereafter [the time of Kenneth McAlpin -- circa 843 A.D.] THE PICTS DISAPPEARED ENTIRELY. There are theories about great battles and about treachery during which Kenneth killed all the Pictish royal family and their nobles, BUT NOBODY KNOWS EXACTLY WHY THE LANGUAGE, ORAL TRADITIONS ABOUT THEIR ORIGIN, THEIR CUSTOMS AND EVEN THEIR REAL NAME (for PICTS was a Latin nickname) VANISHED. They DID VANISH, however, and the smaller kingdom of DALRIADA gave Scotland its name, its language (Gaelic), its customs and its rulers" (Scottish Highlanders. Pp. 24, 26-27).

What happened to the wild Picts? Where did they go -- or were they indeed exterminated by the invading Scots? Herman L. Hoeh poses the same question -- but also gives us a clue! "The WILD, UNSETTLED PICTS later DISAPPEARED from Scotland. Where? Historians do not know. But SCOTTISH HISTORY tells!"

The KEY to the history of Mesoamerica has been lost; and not a single historian or archaeologist seems to know the TRUE ORIGIN of American Indian civilization. Why? Because they have THROWN OUT the KEYS to that history. One of the keys, as we have seen, was found in Danish history in the person of ODIN who took the first great migration of Canaanites to Mesoamerica. The second KEY -- and probably the most important -- is to be found in the tumultuous history of rugged SCOTLAND.

The nation of the Scots was completely DRIVEN OUT OF SCOTLAND by the ROMANS in the year 376 A.D. The PICTS, and other groups, who remained in the land as allies of Rome were soon turned upon and miserably oppressed. Rebellion broke out and the Roman Legions dealt severely with the fleeing rebels. In desperation the PICTS sought, and obtained, Scottish help to drive out the Roman forces and their British allies.

Herman Hoeh tells the story --

The Romans soon turned on the Cruithne -- who were still dwelling in Pictland along with the WILD PICTS. The Cruithne were miserably oppressed. After three decades they came to an agreement with the SCOTS and promised to restore the Scots to the throne if they would deliver them from [Roman] oppression. The son of Erc or Erp returned in 408 at the head of a Scottish army, delivered the Cruithne and restored the throne...(Compendium of World History. Vol. II, P. 80).

Hoeh then asks the question: "But what befell those WILD, TRIBAL PICTS who gave their name to the Cruithne -- and who PAINTED THEMSELVES? Remnants of them continued to be referred to AS LATE AS THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Most of the population, however, DISAPPEARED IN 503 upon the coming of the Milesian Scots out of Ireland under the leadership of Fearghus mac Erc" (Ibid., p. 83).

What indeed befell the WILD PICTS -- the people who left the many strange and fascinating monuments and artifacts in the NORTHERN ISLES OF BRITAIN?

Not only was there a MAJOR MIGRATION in 503 A.D., but there was an EARLIER one in 376 A.D. Notice --

No continuous history of the QUICHE-MAYA civilization is extant. We have to turn to the VALLEY OF MEXICO for a DIRECT and surprising CONNECTION with the movement of events IN SCOTLAND where dwelt the PICTS and the MAIATAI (Greek for MAIA fold [this is where the word "MAYA" comes from]).

From SCOTTISH HISTORY...it [is] established that MAJOR MIGRATIONS OCCURRED IN THE YEARS 376 -- when the Scots and allies were driven out and the PICTS miserably oppressed -- and IN 503 -- when the Scots from Ireland drove out most of the remaining WILD PICTS or PAINTED MEN. Where did these folk flee to? Can we establish a direct connection between these events in PICTLAND with the history of MIGRATION TO THE VALLEY OF MEXICO OF THE TOLTECS and others in the New World?
Indeed we can. -- Compendium of World History, Vol. II, pp. 94-97.

Herman Hoeh continues --

Now compare this with the MIGRATION OF THE TOLTECS and their WHITE chieftains to Mexico. The historian of the TOLTECS was Ixtlilxochitl. He reports several MIGRATIONS over the centuries. But the one he takes special note of -- for its chronological import -- COMMENCED IN 387 (See Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States, Vol. 5, pp. 209, 214.) The events were these -- a REBELLION broke out that led to a protracted struggle for eight years. The rebels were finally forced to FLEE IN 384 for protection. After remaining 3 years (to 387) they continued their LENGTHY MIGRATION. It was now 11 years after the initial rebellion. Eleven years before 387 is 376 -- THE VERY YEAR THE ROMANS DROVE OUT THE SCOTS AND SUPPRESSED THE PAINTED RED MEN OF PICTLAND! Is this mere coincidence? THEIR MIGRATION TOOK THEM OVER WATER AND LAND TILL THEY REACHED JALISCO IN MEXICO. To do so they must have landed in the traditional area of the USUMACINTA RIVER, crossed the isthmus, and coasted to JALISCO on the southern extremity of the Gulf of California. After wandering many years they settled in TULANCINGO. "The third year of their stay in Tulancingo completed...one hundred and four years since the departure from the country," records Bancroft from Ixtlilxochitl (vol. V, p. 213). (The 104 years compose two Indian calendar cycles of 52 years each). It was now 488.

At TULANCINGO they remained another 15 years -- to 503. In 503 THEY MIGRATED TO THE VALLEY OF MEXICO TO THE REGION OF LAKE TEXCOCO. What caused them to migrate in 503? Is this a significant date in SCOTTISH HISTORY? Indeed. THAT WAS THE YEAR THE SCOTS FROM IRELAND FINALLY SETTLED IN SCOTLAND AND DROVE THE WILD PICTISH TRIBES OUT OF THE COUNTRY.

Strengthened by a NEW INFLUX of migrants, the TOLTECS journeyed (IN 503) to the already settled shores of the lake on which MEXICO CITY now stands. There, at TULLAN, for six years the Toltecs lived under a theocratic republic, each chief directing the movement of his band in war and directing their needs in times of peace....(Ibid.).

Modern historians have often carelessly discounted the value of these Indian records. But archaeology is now forcing a renewed respect for the history and traditions of Mesoamerica as preserved by the native writers during the earliest periods of the Spanish colonial period.

From Mesoamerica the Canaanites spread throughout the New World. Where the Canaanite HITTITES migrated to from Central America should surprise no one. Reports Herman L. Hoeh: "The ONLY people of this description -- BEARING THE NAME CHATTI, that is, HITTITES -- warlike and rude, were found scattered throughout much of NEW ENGLAND AND THE PLAINS OF NORTH AMERICA after the voyage of Columbus to the New World....The name CHATTI was the COMMON intertribal name of the great CIVILIZED INDIAN NATIONS of New England and the great plains of North America" (Compendium of World History, Vol I. P. 360).

In the great westward European expansion of the 19th century these tribes were uprooted and, in a lot of cases, exterminated.

The various tribes that formed the Maya race (the most prominient being the Mayaquiches, the Lacandones, and the Xius, or Tutul-xius) had developed a magnificent culture by the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century. In a letter written to Phillip the Second of Spain we find a vivid description of this amazing civilization --

About the place previously mentioned, on the way to the city of Pedro, at the first stop in the province of Honduras, called Copan, are some ruins and remains of a great city and its magnificent buildings. It does not seem reasonable to expect that such artistic and sumptuous structures could have been erected by people of such a barbaric nature, such as that possessed by the current inhabitant...(Written by Diego Garcia de Palacio, dated the 8th of March, 1576).

Continues this eye witness of the Maya civilization:

As we arrived at the ruins, we observed another stone figure in the shape of a GIANT...Entering inside we found a cross of stone some two feet in height...

Further on...is a HUGE STATUE of more than eleven feet tall, wrought in the form of a bishop dressed in his priestly robes, with his miter clearly in evidence and even rings on his fingers. Next to the statue was a square very well preserved, with an adjoining stairway, like those of the Roman Coliseum, and in another location there were eighty tiled steps worked in place with pieces of very fine stone of great beauty...And in the middle of the plaza there was another large basin and two other figures giving the appearance of women, elegantly dressed in long robes in the Roman manner. Another was of a bishop who appeared to have in his hands an object that looked like a small chest. (Ibid.)

The mention of statues depicting giants is very significant -- in our article Unraveling the Origins of the Mysterious Olmec we show that the Anakim giants of Cannan found their way to Mesoamerica in very early times. Also, de Palacio's mention of a statue that reminded him of a Roman Catholic bishop has considerable import. This we will cover later.

Tattooing was one of the unusual customs of the Maya Indians. "It was so extensively practiced that if the Romans had arrived here instead of the Spanish, they would have named them 'the Picts'" (The Roots of the American Indian, p. 83).

In the New Encyclopedia we find that --

Both men and women were tattooed with many bizarre designs, giving most of them a very unusual appearance. Women were tattooed as the men, except that they employed it from the waist up, excluding the breasts ("Maya," p. 1145).

Alfonso Toro tells us in his work that --

Frequently the men and the women would dye their bodies red, then decorate them with designs and other colors and tattoos; they annointed themselves with fragrant resins; they were also very fond of perfumes.

The Universal Encyclopedia Illustrated, confirming the other authors about the practice of tattooing, adds the following,

They annoint their bodies with balsam, "iztahte," and they then proceed to tattoo the upper part of their bodies.

This practice among the Maya parallels that of the Iroquois Indians in the United States and Canada -- who also had the habit of tattooing themselves. The Iroquois can easily be traced back to the Picts of the British Isles and had the added Pictish customs of totemism and the matriarchal system. Did the Maya have similar customs?

In the already mentioned work of Alfonso Toro we read:

Since the Mayas observed certain TOTEMIC beliefs, they were in the habit of putting their clans or families under the protection of some particular animal, one they considered sacred, and so some they called Balam, or jaguar; and others Pech, or dog; others Baz, or monkeys; others Chan, or serpents; etc.

The Universal Encyclopedia Ilustrada ("Maya," Vol. XXXIII, p. 1282) corroborates Toro by saying --

The Lacandones (one of the most important Mayan tribes) are divided into clans, or totems, each one of which worships an animal or object.

While they did not practice matriarchy in the same manner as the Iroquois or the Picts, the Mayan woman occupied a position of honor in the society of the Mayas which was the most exalted among the ancient Mesoamericans The Mayan woman inherited property and participated in the religious and political affairs of the Maya nation and, records Dr. Benjamin Rea, "the explorers removed from the land a stela, or monolith, with the following inscription: 'The Maya Queen' from Quiraqua, Nicaragua. This stela belonged to the ancient empire. This monolith tells us that the woman did not lack power in Maya society. On the contrary, it might very well indicate that at one time a Queen ruled over them." (The Roots of the American Indian, p. 85).

This fact could also demonstrate something else -- a point of paramount importance! We have shown that the American Indians once lived on the islands of the Aegean Sea and surrounding areas. Is it, therefore, not reasonable to assume that they worshipped the Greek goddess MAYA (MAIA)? It cannot be a mere coincidence since she was one of the seven Pleiades whose name, according to Ovid, gave origin to the month of May. Since the Mayas were so dedicated to the art of astrology, it seems logical that they would have selected this name.

The later history of the Maya was connected with a very unusual man -- the fourth Quetzalcoatl! When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico and Central America, they were astonished to find the Maya Indians practising what appeared to be tenets of the Roman Catholic Church! The Catholic priests accompanying the conquistadors discovered that the Maya religion had many affinities with the stories and customs of the Bible.

They described a "baptism" in one of the temples of the Maya and Diego de Landa, in 1566, recorded it as follows --

Baptism is not found in any part of the Indias except in Yucatan, and (it exists) even with a word which means "to be born anew or again," which is the same as the Latin "to be reborn"; for in the language of Yucatan zihil means "to be born anew or again," and it is not used except in compound words, and thus caputzihil means "to be born again."

We have not been able to know its origin, except that it is a thing which they have always used and toward which they had so much devotion that nobody failed to receive it and (so much) reverence that those who had sins, if they are known to have been committed, had to reveal them to the priests; and such faith (they had) in it that they never repeated the sin in any manner...(Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan. Editorial Porrua, Mexico (1966), p. 44).

In the time of the first Spaniards a form of "confession" was still going on in the Indian temples. States de Landa --

The Yucatanenses naturally knew what evil they did; and because they believed that through evil and sin came death, illnesses, and torments to them, they had confession as a custom...when through illness or otherwise they were in danger of death...to the priest if he was there, and if not, to their fathers and mothers, wives to husbands, and husbands to wives...

The sins of which they commonly accused themselves were theft, homicide, of the flesh, and false witness and with this they believed themselves saved; and many times, if they escaped [death], there were quarrels between the husband and the wife...(Ibid.)

Landa also declared that the Maya did penances.

When the Spaniards eventually settled the land -- as priests, "civil servants," or judges -- they became more familiar with Mayan customs, and made some new and startling discoveries:

The Maya were still celebrating their age-old festivals in the same way they had done for centuries; these were strangely like the festivals of the Catholic world, and even fell on almost the same days. The 16th of May, for instance, was for the Maya the day when the waters were blessed; in Europe it was the day of St. John Nepomucen (patron saint of Bohemia), saint of the water. The 8th of September for the Maya was the birthday of the White God's mother -- in Catholic countries it is the day of the Blessed Virgin's birth; and the White God's birthday was celebrated on the 25th of December. On the 2nd of November, when Catholics even today visit the cemeteries to put flowers on the graves of their dear ones, the Maya used to go to the graves of their dead and decorate them with flowers. -- New Dawn, April/May 1994. Number 24. P. 35.

Diego Duran, though he himself sometimes suspected a PRE-SPANISH CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE in Mexico, often became angry when the Maya mentioned religious coincidences to him, and he put the blame on the devil --

...I heard an old Indian woman, whom they brought to me for her wisdom in the law, who might have been a priestess, say that also they had Easter and Christmas, like us and at the same time as we, and Corpus Christi, and she pointed out other important (Nahua) feasts which we (also) celebrate.

I responded to her: "Evil woman, (it is) the devil who so well knew how to plot and sow his weeds and mix them with the wheat so that you could not completely know the truth!" -- Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana e islas de la tierra firme, Editorial Porrua, Mexico (1967), vol. I, pp. 244-245.

So convinced were some that the devil, not Christian evangelism, was responsible for planting the Catholic faith in the New World, they penned entire books on the subject. One such commentator was the Jesuit Josef de Acosta. In the fifth book of his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1589) he wrote that the "arrogance of the devil is so great and so obstinate that always he craves and endeavors to be regarded and honored as God; and in all he can steal and appropriate to himself that which belongs alone to the highest God, he never ceases to do it in the blind nations of the world where the light and splendor of the holy evangelist has not shone." As an example of the devil's machinations in Catholic guise, Acosta cited the following facts:

1/. "It was the office of the priests and religious ones in Mexico...to inter the dead and to do their funerals..."

2/. "In Mexico there was this strange curiosity; and the demon imitating the usage of the Church of God, he placed his orders of minor, major, and supreme priests and some like acolytes and others like levites...it appears that the devil wanted to usurp the cult of Christ for himself, for the Mexicanos in the ancient language called the supreme priests...papas."

3/. "In Mexico the demon had also his...nuns and monks...and monasteries..."

4/. "...the priests and religious ones of Mexico arose at midnight; and the priests having fumigated the idol, they themselves as dignitaries of the temple went to a place of a wide room, where there were many seats, and there they sat, and each one taking a point of maguey, which is like an awl or a sharp punch, or with another type of lancet or knife, punctured the calves of their legs together with the shinbone (s), drawing from themselves much blood with which they smeared the temple (of their heads), bathing the points or lancets with the rest of the blood and afterwards they put them between the battlements of the courtyard so that all would see them and understand the penance that they did for the people."

5/. "...they had great fasts, these priests and religious ones..."

6/. "They kept their continence...strickly..."

7/. "...the demon endeavored in Mexico to imitate the feast of Corpus Christi and communion which the Holy Church uses...In the month of May, the Mexicans have their principal feast of their god Vitzilipaztli (Huitchilopochtli)..."

8/. "The Mexicans have also their baptisms..."

9/. "The Mexicans marry themselves by the hand of their priests..."

Acosta, placing the blame at the feet of the devil, argued that these were devilish coincidences and not the fruit of Christian evangelism. Was he right? Where did these "coincidences," which Duran suspected were a result of pre-Spanish influence in Mexico, come from? The answer to these questions will highlight one of the most astonishing episodes in the history of Mesoamerica!

The story of the fourth Quetzalcoatl began in Nonohualco -- the region of Tabasco and Yucatan, particularly Tabasco. This area was inhabited by Nahuas speaking the Nahuat dialect of Nahuatl, by Chontals speaking a Maya tongue called Putun, and by Zoques speaking their own Maya language. Part of Nonohualco, probably from the Laguna de Terminos to Champoton, was the riverine Acallan -- the "place of boats." These Nahuats and Chontals were bilingual; and the Mayas of Yucatan called them Ah Itzaob ("lord Itzas"). Later, as we shall see, they became the Cocoms, Canuls, and other groups of the Yucatan.

According to John Spencer Carroll --

Itza armies attacked the Mayas of Yucatan twice, once in the Small Descent, from the east, and again in the Great Descent from the west, both times transported by the boats of the Chontals, the Nahuats being the soliery. The Great Descent occurred in a katun 4-Ahau, and the Itza combatants seized Chichen Itza on the Maya date 2-Akbal 1-Yaxkin in a katun 4-Ahau, April 26, 970 A.D. The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin record the Small Descent and the Great Descent. "Comes the ancestor, comes the successor." Other allusions to these two invasions are throughout the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Yet a a third descent happened: "For the third time was established the day of the god of our enemies." "Thrice shall the justice of our lord descend to the world." "Three times it was, they say, that the foreigners arrived." The third descent was the coming of Kukulcan in a katun 4-Ahau, in 986 or 987 A.D., 16 or 17 years after the Great Descent. -- A search for Quetzalcoatl. Stonehenge Viewpoint, Santa Barbara, CA 1994. P. 88.

The Itza soldiers battled the forces of Coba and powerful Puuc Maya cities in the west part of the Yucatan. When they finally prevailed, Chichen Itza became the center of a great and cosmopolitan state that was reknown throughout the Mesoamerican world.

He arrived by ship in yucatan in 986 or 987 A.D. -- so say two Maya sources, dating this event in a katun 4-Ahau in the Maya calendar. "Twenty men disembarked at Champoton on the western coast of Yucatan. Their vessel was a sailing ship...The leader of this group was a man called Kukulcan. These men had a strange appearance; they 'wore long clothes' and 'sandals as footwear,' had 'large beards,' and had 'no hats on their heads.'" (Ibid., p. 15.)

Notes Benjamin Rea:

All of the traditions of the Aztecs and the Mayas describe him as a white man, with a beard, who wore clothing adorned with black and white crosses. And almost all the legends state that this particular person came from across the Atlantic, in a boat with white sails...(The Roots of the American Indian, p. 74).

Kukulcan, identified in a number of traditions as a "Mexican captain," had only 19 other men in his party. These 20 men evidently blended into the personified and deified 20 days of the Maya calendar.

From Yucatan these strangers traveled to Tula in the valley of Mexico where they gained the confidence of the ruling Toltecs. Eventually, according to the Indian traditions, Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs were driven from Tula by forces allied to the war god Tezcatli-poca. "This exodus presumably took place in the year 987, and according to various sources Quetzalcoatl and his subjects made their way back to Yucatan and established themselves at Chichen Itza" (Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, by Charles Gallenkamp).

Writing of Quetzalcoatl's arrival back in Yucatan with his band of 19 men and the loyal Toltecs, Landa reported --

It is belived among the Indians that with the Itzas who occupied Chichen Itza there reigned a great lord named Kukulcan, and that the principal building, which is called Kukulcan, shows this to be true [a reference to the Temple of Kukulcan or El Castillo]. They say that he arrived from the west....They say that he was favorably disposed, and had no wife or children, and that...he was regarded in Mexico as one of their gods and called Quetzalcoatl: and they also considered him a god in Yucatan on account of his being a just statesman; and this seen in the order which he imposed on Yucatan after the death of the lords [the overthrow of Maya rulers by the Itzas], in order to calm the dissensions which their deaths had caused in the country. -- Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan.

Stelae found at Chichen Itza depict the battles waged between the invading Itzas and the Maya residents, with the sacrifice of Maya captives at the hands of the victors.

Notes Joh Spencer Carroll: "The Itzas had caused many of the lords of the land to be killed, and Kukulcan calmed the dissension which their deaths had caused. He ordered confessions and fasting, and he himself was celibate." (A Search for Quetzalcoatl, p. 15.)

Continues carroll --

He abandoned Chichen Itza and founded a new capital named Mayapan. Chichen Itza means "well of the Itza" in the Yucatec Maya language, but Mayapan signifies "banner of the Maya," being derived from the Maya word Maya and the Nahuatl word pantli. The new settlement and its name symbolized a shift in Kukulcan's policy. Before the foundation of Mayapan, Kukulcan ruled only the Nahuatl-speaking Itza [and Toltec] intruders, but at Mayapan he became king of all the factions in Yucatan. By choosing the name Mayapan, he conciliated both the indigenous Mayas and the foreign Itzas. By negotiations he induced the surviving lords of the land to settle at Mayapan, and he divided the land among them, appotioning settlements "to each one according to the antiquity of his lineage and the worth of this person. He awarded 22 settlements to the Cocom family. So that he could keep the lords subjected to his surveillance, he built a wall around the center of Mayapan, leaving only two narrow gates, and required the lords to live within the wall. -- Ibid., pp. 15-16.

Kukulcan, or the fourth Quetzalcoatl, lived with the lords of the land at Mayapan for some years "in much peace and friendship." In 1002 A.D. he left Mayapan and returned to Champoton where he stayed briefly before returning to the valley of Mexico. The Cocoms then established themselves as the rulers of Mayapan and the outlying areas. "The League of Mayapan, created by Kukulcan and perpetuated by the Cocom family, endured almost five centuries and disintegrated finally in 1441 A.D. or 1446 A.D." (A Search for Quetzalcoatl. p. 16).

Who was this tall, white, bearded stranger who had such an impact on the people of Yucatan -- particularly the Maya? Where did he come from?

The only Europeans known to be crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 986 were Icelanders. One such Icelander who sailed westerly and southwesterly from Iceland in 986 was Bjorn Asbrandsson -- known as Bjorn the Breidavik champion. No one in Iceland heard about him again until 1031 when a lost Icelandic merchant-sailor came across him in a large land across the ocean.

Bjorn Asbrandsson, whose father maintained a farm at Kambr in Iceland, became involved in a love triangle with a woman named Thuridr -- who was the half-sister of Snorri Thorsgrimsson, a leading man and champion in Iceland. Although Thuridr was married, Bjorn continued the affair, eventually having a son by her -- named Kjartan. Confronting Bjorn, Snorri told him that he had better leave the area to prevent trouble with the woman's husband and with himself. The Icelandic Eyrbyggja Saga tells the story:

Snorri replied..."I want to ask of you, that you refrain henceforth from beguiling my sister Thuridr. For you and I can never be on peaceful terms if you go on doing what you have done in the past."

Bjorn answered, "I will promise only what I can keep, but I do not know how I can do that if Thuridr and I live in the same district."

Snorri replied, "There is really nothing to prevent you from moving away from this district."

Bjorn said, "What you say is true, and it shall be thus since you yourself have come to see me. The way our meeting has turned out, I will promise you that you and Thoroddr [the woman's husband] will not be provoked during the next years by me visiting Thuridr."

"That would be doing the right thing," said Snorri.

After that they parted. Snorri godi rode to the ship and then home to Helgafell. On the following day Bjorn rode south to the Hraunhofn and right away took passage on the ship there. They were late in getting started, and then they got a northeast wind which persisted for a long time during the summer. Nothing was heard of this ship for a long time afterward.

Thus Bjorn fled from the power of Snorri -- sailing southwest before a northeast wind.

The Eyrbyggja Saga mentions no date for Bjorn's flight, but some clues help establish the year. The ship that carried Bjorn departed with a wind blowing from the northeast and propelling the vessel southwest. According to John Spencer Carroll, "No ships in the 980s other than Eirikr Rauda's fleet of 982 and his fleet of 986 sailed westerly from Iceland until Eirikr had settled in Greenland in 986. Bjarni, who sighted the North American coast, sailed late in 986 after the departure of Eirikr. Since the captain of the ship that carried Bjorn voluntarily started a westerly voyage, he was sailing toward Greenland, and he would not have been sailing toward Greenland before 986. Probably this ship was not among Eirikr's 25 or 35 knorrir in 986, for [the] Eyrbyggja Saga narrates Eirikr's 982 and 986 voyages without linking Bjorn to them. Bjorn fled from Snorri in Iceland, therefore, in late 986 or afterwards." (A Search for Quetzalcoatl, pp. 95-96).

The similarities between Bjorn Asbrandsson and the fourth Quetzalcoatl are indeed remarkable:

1/. Bjorn was white-skinned; Quetzalcoatl was white-skinned.

2/. Bjorn was tall; Quetzalcoatl was tall.

3/. Bjorn was a walker; Quetzalcoatl was a walker -- called by Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc "the god of 1-Reed Walker."

4/. Bjorn was a ball player: "It was the custom of the people of Breidavik [Iceland] to hold ball games during the first days of winter"; "At another place he (Quetzalcoatl) built a ball court..."

5/. Bjorn was unmarried; Quetzalcoatl was unmarried.

6/. Bjorn was exceptionally strong..."the two brothers, Arnbjorn and Bjorn, because of their great strength, were not considered suited to take part in the games unless, indeed, they were matched against each other"; Quetzalcoatl was exceptionally strong. "...he set in place a large rock...(he) moved it with his little finger...when many pushed it, in no way could it move..."

7/. Bjorn lived for a time in Denmark, where Norsemen had ship cremations; Quetzalcoatl was cremated in a burning ship.

8/. Denmark had become Christian between 953 and 965. Iceland was evangelized from 981 or 982 to 986; Quetzalcoatl acted like a Christian missionary.

Further proof that Bjorn Asbrandsson found his way to Mesoamerica and became the fouth Quetzalcoatl is found in Chapter 64 of the Eyrbyggja Saga --

There was a man named Gudleifr, who was the son of Gunnlaug the Wealthy of Staumfirth....Gudleifr was a great merchant. He owned a large knorr vessel....In the latter days of King Olaf the Saint (who died in 1030 A.D.), Gudleifr made a merchant voyage westward to Dublin [Ireland]. And when he left there, he intended to return to Iceland.

Sailing west of Ireland, he got counterwinds from the east and northeast and was driven far west and southwest out of his course so that they did not know where they were.

By then the summer drew to a close, and they made many vows that they might reach land; and at last they caught sight of land. IT WAS A LARGE LAND, but no one knew which country it was. Gudleifr and his men decided to approach it because they thought it unwise to stay longer on the high seas. They found a good harbor there, but they had made land only a short while when some men came up to them....

Soon such a large crowd gathered that there must have been many hundreds. They attacked Gudleifr's men, made them all captive...and then they DROVE THEM INLAND. They were taken to some meeting where sentence was to to passed on them....

While this was being debated, they saw a band of men UNDER A BANNER approaching...and they supposed that there must be some chieftain among them. And when this band drew nearer, they saw A TALL MAN OF MARTIAL BEARING riding under the banner. He was quite advanced in years and HIS HAIR WAS WHITE. All those who were there bowed before him and greeted him as their lord. They soon discovered that all measures and decisions were referred to him.

Then this man had Gudleifr and his men brought up to him; and...he spoke to them in Norse and asked what country they were from. They told him that most of them were Icelanders....Thereupon Gudleifr steeped up and greeted him, and he returned the greeting and asked what part of Iceland they were from. Gudleifr said they were from the Borgarfirth district. Then he asked what part of Borgarfirth they were from, and Gudleifr told him. Thereupon he asked very carefully about every single one of the more important personages in the Borgarfirth and Breidafirth districts. In course of their conversation he asked about Snorri godi and his sister Thuridr of Froda; and he asked particularly about all matters at Froda and most of all about the youth Kjartan, who by then was the farmer at Froda.

The countrymen called out again, demanding that some decision be made about the ship's crew. Then this TALL MAN stepped aside and told off TWELVE OF HIS MEN to advise him, and they sat deliberating for a long time. Thereupon they returned to the place where the crowd was gathered.

The tall man addressed Gudleifr and his men as follows: "We people of this country have discussed your case, and the others have agreed to place your fate in my hands. I will grant you permission to sail wherever you want to. Even though you may think it is rather late in the summer for that, I advise you to leave this place because these people are not to be trusted and are hard to deal with. They consider that their laws have been broken."

Gudleifr asked, "Who shall we say procured us our freedom if fate grants us a return to our native country?" He replied, "That I shall not tell you, for I do not wish my KINSMEN and FOSTER BROTHERS the sort of reception here which you would have had if it had not been for me. But now I have grown so old that it is not unlikely that death may carry me off any moment. And even though I live for a little while longer, there are many men in this country more powerful than I am who will make short shrift of foreigners even though they may not come so close to us as you have."

Then this man had their ship made ready for them, and he remained there with them until a favorable wind came and they could put out from shore. But before he and Gudleifr parted, he took a GOLD RING from his arm and placed it and also a good SWORD in Gudleifr's hands.

He said to Gudleifr, "If fate permits you to reach the land of your birth, take this sword to Kjartan, the farmer at Froda, and this ring to Thuridr, his mother."

Gudleifr asked, "Who shall I say sent these precious things?"

He replied, "Say that he sent them who was a better friend to the mistress of the house at Froda than to her brother, the godi at Helgafell (Snorri godi). But if anyone thinks he knows from this who was the owner of these things, then tell them this: that I forbid any and every man to try to find me because that is an extremely hazardous undertaking unless they have the same good luck in landing as you did. For this is a LARGE COUNTRY, with FEW HARBORS, and people everywhere are hostile to foreigners unless they are as fortunate as you."

With that they parted.

Gudleifr and his companions put out to sea and landed in Ireland late in the fall. They spent the winter in Dublin. In the summer following they sailed to Iceland, and Gudleifr delivered the gifts.

And all were certain that this man was Bjorn the Breidavik Champion; but there is no other information available concerning that man what has been told here.

This moving and conclusive narrative brings out other similarities and fully proves that Bjorn was the fourth Quetzalcoatl:

1/. Bjorn was encountered in a "large land"; Quetzalcoatl was in Yucatan and Mexico.

2/. Bjorn had 12 advisors; Mayapan was founded by Kukulcan (Quetzalcoatl) and 12 advisors.

3/. Bjorn wore a hood and cassock; Quetzalcoatl wore a hood and cassock.

4/. Bjorn wore a gold armband; Nahua wore gold armbands in the early 16th century.

5/. Bjorn was in the "large land" c. 1030 A.D.; Quetzalcoatl was in Mexico from 1002 to 1053 A.D.

6/. "All those who were there bowed before him [Bjorn] and treated him as their lord...all measures and decisions were referred to him"; Quetzalcoatl became tlatoani of Tula in 1029 A.D.

7/. Bjorn "...was quite advanced in years and his hair was white"; Quetzalcoatl was aged in Mexico.

8/. Bjorn arrived in the "large land" by ship; Quetzalcoatl arrived at Champoton by ship.

9/. Bjorn rode in a