Volume 2 Chapter 7

COMPENDIUM OF WORLD HISTORY

VOLUME 2

A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Ambassador College Graduate
School of Education In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy

by Herman L. Hoeh

1963 1966, 1969 Edition

CHAPTER VII

THEY CROSSED THE ATLANTIC

The origin of the American Indian has puzzled Europeans from the day Columbus’
sailors set foot on the Caribbean isle. Yet, just four centuries earlier, the
New World was common knowledge to the educated in North Europe and the Iberian
Peninsula. Its natives were even embracing the faith of the Roman Church, which
had appointed an Icelander of noble birth as bishop over Iceland, Greenland
and the lands of the New World! How did these facts all become lost?

THE LITTLE ICE AGE

One is so accustomed to read of ‘Ice Ages’ as events of the remote past,
that it hardly occurs to the mind that thirteenth century Europeans witnessed
a veritable Little Ice Age that completely severed communications between Europe
and the New World. The Baltic froze over.

Vikings ceased to traverse the inhospitable Atlantic. In the New World the
Land of the White Man — Hvitramanna Land in Icelandic literature — lost contact
with Europe. Centuries later remnants of their population were found among the
natives which had early traversed the Atlantic with them.

This chapter unfolds what really happened in Western Europe, and especially
the British Isles and Denmark, from the days of Solomon to long after the fall
of the Roman Empire. It will explain the astounding chronological connection
between the rise of New World civilization and the sudden flight of tribes out
of Northwest Europe.

WHITES DID NOT BECOME INDIANS

First, let us immediately banish a myth. White Europeans did not become Indians
by merely settling in the New World and becoming lost!

The American Indians are not the ‘Lost Tribes of Israel,’ or Egyptians.

The American Indian looks as he does because his ancestors appeared that
way before they traversed the waters of the Atlantic.

It may come as a surprise to learn it, but Europe and the Mediterranean world
was early — and comparatively late — inhabited by ‘Red Men.’ Everyone has
heard of the famous Phoenician sailors of the ancient Mediterranean world. They
are known to have traveled far out into the Atlantic and to Northwestern Europe.
The Greeks called them Phoenicians because that is what they were — ‘Red Men.’
The word ‘Phoenician’ is derived from the Greek word for reddish dye. The ancient
Egyptians painted the Phoenicians on their walled tombs and on papyri. Their
skin color? Reddish. The Egyptians painted other peoples of Palestine white
and black. They recognized three races of men living in Palestine in early ages.

Julius Firmicus, an early writer, stated that ‘in Ethiopia all are born black;
in Germany, white; and in Thrace, red.’ Thrace was north of Greece and originally
populated by the children of Tiras, son of Japheth (Gen. 10:2). 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 tatooed 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: ‘When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said
they attacked the shepherd, rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected
the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, for their horrid
repast.’

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 natives 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 wild 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 stature …. the cheek bones
are rather prominent. The complexion is of all tints.

Many individuals are as dark as mulattoes, while others are 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, whose last remnants died out
as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century.

AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITION

The common idea that American Indians had no means of preserving their history
is a fiction based on the assumption that all Indians were on the same level
of culture. Wild, rude tribes there were. But civilized nations existed too.
They carefully preserved, among other things, the history of their journeys,
and the duration of their habitation in the New World. When the Spanish conquistadors
arrived in the New World they were amazed to find the Maya and Aztecs using
bark paper to preserve history and daily records. It was obtained from the FICUS,
a tree related to the mulberry. Bark was peeled off, beaten with a rubber mallet,
and folded into sheets to make books. In Moctezuma’s palace Bernal Diaz followed
an ‘accountant’ who showed him ‘all the revenue that was brought … (and recorded)
in his books which were made of paper which they call ‘amatl’, and he had a
great house full of these books’ (pages 184-185 of ‘The Ancient Sun Kingdoms
of the Americas’, by von Hagen). Only a few escaped the book burning of the
Spanish zealots, who sought to wipe out all vestiges of the previous culture
and the lineage of their royal houses.

Some rare codices have been preserved, however. One is the ‘Popol Vuh’, a
sacred book of the ancient Quiche Maya. In it are recorded the migrations and
wanderings of their ancestors. 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. (Later
migrations, once they had arrived from the east, could take any direction.)

The writer of the Popul Vuh declared: ‘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

The Maya record continues: ‘… they came from the East … they left there,
from that great distance …. they crossed the sea’ (pp. 181, 183). When they
sought to establish their kingdom ‘they decided to go to the East …. It had
been a long time since their fathers had died East, there whence came our fathers.’
Certainly they crossed the sea when they came there to the East, when they went
to receive the investiture of the kingdom’ (pp. 206-207).

To what line of great kings in the east were these Quiche Maya journeying?
To the successors of the great ruler who conducted them, about 1000 B.C., to
the Usumacinta River in Mexico.

ENTER VOTAN

The Mayas claim that their kingdom was founded by a great eastern ruler named
Votan or Oden or Dan by various tribes. He was a white man who came by sea from
the east and settled them in their new land. The time of their migration, according
to Ordonez, was ten centuries before the present era. 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. 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.

Just as king Odin or Danus gave his name to Denmark — Danmark — so Odin
gave his name to the ‘forest of Dan’ in the land of the Quiche Indians. (See
pages 549 and 163 of volume V, ‘Native Races of the Pacific States’, by Hubert
H. Bancroft.) ‘Dan … founded a monarchy on the Guatemalan plateau’ (Bancroft,
vol. I, p. 789). His capital, built for the Indians and their white suzerains,
was named Amag-Dan.

Here we have the records of Danish kings, as early as 1000 years before the
birth of Christ, sailing to the New World and planting colonies of Red Men from
Europe in the Yucatan and Guatemalan highlands. Is it any wonder that it was
the Danes, of all nations of Europe, who continued to communicate with the New
World in the days of Eric the Red? It was the king of Denmark who ruled over
Iceland in the days of Christopher Columbus. Before Columbus awakened the sleepy
Mediterranean world by his important journey across the Atlantic, he first sailed
to Iceland where he obtained information for his fateful voyage.

And is it not significant that it was an Icelandic nobleman, Eric Gnupson,
who was consecrated by Pope Pascal II as Bishop of Greenland and the neighboring
regions (‘regionumque finitimarum’) in 1112? (See ‘Conquest by Man’, Paul Herrmann,
p. 287.)

EARLY TIME OF MIGRATION

Tradition universally assigns white leadership to every major recorded historic
migration of the American Indian from far to the northeast. The later history
of Mexico commences with the establishment of a monarchy by the Toltecs of Mexico.
The Toltecs were of white descent. They led and ruled over the Indians and spoke
their languages.

Charnay wrote in the ‘North American Review’, October 1881, ‘Physically Veytia
describes the Toltec as a man of tall stature, white, and bearded.’ A carved
head of a ‘noble Aztec,’ on display in the National Museum, may be seen on plate
40 in George C. Vaillant’s ‘Aztecs of Mexico’. The noble Aztec was not an Indian
at all, but a Norseman!

Little wonder that wherever the Spanish journeyed they found the ruling classes
much lighter than the people over whom they ruled. On occasion the conquistadors
thought their women as fair or fairer than their Spanish women.

‘The Annals of the Cakchiquels — Lords of Totonicapan’ contains direct reference
to the racial descent of the nobles who led and governed the natives to the
New World.

‘These, then, were the three nations of the 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 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 the sons of Abraham and Jacob.
So it was that those three nations (the ‘mixed multitude’ of Exodus 12:38) passed
through, and with them thirteen others called Vukamag’ — meaning the 13 tribes.
Israel had altogether 13 tribes including Levi.

‘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 on Babylonia’
page 170. Page 169 says they ‘…. came from the other part of the ocean, from
where the sun rises.’ (Translated by Delia Goetz; published by University of
Oklahoma Press, 1953.)

Was the mysterious Civan-Tulan — meaning in Indian dialects a place of caves
or ravines — the region of Petra, where Moses led the Children of Israel? Petra
is famous for its caves. 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.

This settlement of Hivites was a region dominated by Midian. A high priest
who visited the land of Midian and Moab in Moses’ day was named Balaam — almost
the exact spelling in the Quiche-Maya title Balam used for priests!

The people led by Odin or Votan across the Atlantic to the New World were
not exclusively the sons of Tiras from Thrace; some tribes 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! So the Mexican Indians were a mixed people.

CHRONOLOGY OF MEXICO

No continuous history of the Quiche-Maya civilization is extant.

We have now to turn to the Valley of Mexico for direct and surprising connection
with the movement of events in Scotland where dwelt the Picts and the Maiatai
(Greek for Maia folk).

From Scottish history, covered in the previous chapter and in the first volume
of the Compendium, it can be 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.

The nation of the Scots was utterly driven out by the Romans in the year
376. The Cruithne and Picts, who remained in the land as Roman allies, were
soon miserably oppressed. Rebellion broke out. The Romans dealt severely with
the fleeing rebels. The Cruithne and Picts besought and obtained Scottish help
to drive out the Romans and their British allies.

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. ‘But in the seventh year,’ records Bancroft, ‘after their arrival
in Tollan, when the republic was yet in a state of peace and prosperity, undisturbed
by foreign foes, the chiefs convened an assembly of the heads of families and
the leading men. The object of the meeting was to effect a change in the form
of their government, and to establish a monarchy.’ It was agreed to accept,
as king, a son of a neighboring Chichimec king to be supreme ruler. ‘Immediately
after the accession of the young monarch’ in 510, ‘a law was established by
him and his counsellors to the effect that no king should reign more than fifty-two
years, but at the expiration of this term should abdicate in favor of his eldest
son, whom he might, however, still serve as adviser. Should the king die before
the allotted time had elapsed, it was provided that the state should be ruled
during the unexpired term by magistrates chosen by the people’ (pp. 244, 246).

This custom continued firmly established among the Toltecs at Tullan for
many years. Later the practice was discontinued, though the Mexican Indians
still continued to count time by 52 year cycles. The history of the American
Indian from 510 to the coming of the Spanish has been carefully preserved by
Ixtlilxochitl and in the Annals of Cuauhtitlan.

Modern writers in previous decades often carelessly discounted the value
of these Indian records. But archaeology is forcing a renewed respect for the
history of the New World as preserved by the native writers during the earliest
days of the Spanish colonial period. The most readily accessible — and one
of the best works — on early Mexico is — ‘Aztecs of Mexico’, by G. C. Valliant,
revised by Suzannah B. Valliant. Another useful source is Stokvis’ ‘Manuel’.

THE HISTORY OF TOLTECS AT TULLAN

The history of Tullan is the history of the Mayapan culture of Mexico. Earlier
cultures are commonly found, but no continuous history exists before 510. The
Toltecs were not the carriers of the culture of Teotihuacan, as is often stated
by archaeologists (see p. 6 of Penguin edition of ‘The Aztecs of Mexico’ by
Valliant).

The following is a summary of the history of Tullan (or Tula), restored in
accordance with the earliest extant Aztec and Toltec records. Bancroft’s ‘Native
Races of the Pacific States’ may be consulted for the full story of events.
It is a treasure-house of information.

(Note that the ‘x’ in Aztec names is pronounced as ‘sh.’) according to Ixtlilxochitl
a struggle with Chichimecs occurred during the reign of Topiltzin.

Topiltzin was forced to flee leaving authority in the hands of the royal
family of Ihuitimal. The confused conditions are reflected in the joint rulership
presented in the next short succeeding chart. The parallel reigns also indicate
that Toltec leadership was divided among powerful city-state princes in the
growing Toltec Empire which spread itself in the Valley of Mexico.

The above chart indicates Ihuitimal succeeded his father in 897, but, according
to the Annals of Cuauhtitlan, he replaced the fleeing Topiltzin in 887. Topiltzin
returned in 923. Ihuitimal ended his reign two years later. Though Topiltzin
continued on the throne to 959 (see first chart), he was succeeded in 947 as
follows.

Huemac is another name of Quetzalcoatl (Bancroft Vol. III, pp.267, 283-4).
He was a ramous white man who came from the east with a religion that banned
human sacrifice and used the symbol of the cross.

The name Quetzalcoatl, was originally that of an early Aztec god.

It was applied by Aztecs to any great priest who claimed to represent the
deity. Huemac Quetzalcoatl disappeared and returned on several occasions during
his 75 years, leaving the supreme government, in his absence, to contemporaries
of the royal house. This white priest became famous over much of the New World.
Who was he? And what religion was he bringing?

The answer is found by the date of his death 1121. Was there a famous white
priest, with jurisdiction over areas of the Western Hemisphere who died in 1121?

Yes! Icelandic Bishop Eric Gnupson, whose domain included the New World!
He died in 1121, the same year that Quetzalcoatl did. At his death in 1121 the
Icelandic Thing (Parliament) met to request the pope that a new bishop be appointed
(Conquest by Man, by Herrmann, pp. 286-287) . The religion of Quetzalcoatl was
Roman Catholicism. When the Spanish missionaries later came to the Indians they
were amazed to find so many parallels to the Catholic religion — holy water,
nuns, rosaries, the cross, penances and other traditions!

Contemporary with Huemac Quetzalcoatl were the following Tullan rulers:

Veytia gives 1116 as the date of the final overthrow of Tullan at the coming
of the Aztecs (Hist. Ant. Mej., bk. 1, pp. 287-304. ) See also Bancroft, vol.
5., p. 325.

THE CITY-STATE OF CULHUACAN

A major expansion of the Toltecs occurred at the close of the end of the
fourth 52 year cycle — in 718. In that year a branch of the royal lineage founded
Culhuacan. It suffered a major reverse in the year 1063 at the hands of the
Chichimecs who established a new dynasty in Texcoco. The following chart covers
the kings of Culhuacan until that defeat.

For five years (1063-1068) the local government of Culhuacan was in the hands
of a Toltec noble Xiuhtemoc, to whom the late king’s children were confided.
The year after the defeat, a young son of the king was placed on the throne
under the tutelage of Xiuhtemoc.

The central government in the Valley of Mexico now passed into the hands
of the Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan. Prior to the Aztec dominion, the Chichimecs
at Texcoco were a dominant Indian tribe. Their power commenced with the defeat
of Tullan in 1063.

THE CHICHIMECS AT TEXCOCO

Spanish land in Vera Cruz, native rulers to 1550 continued with limited authority.
During part of the reign of Istlilxochitl, two tyrants of Tepanec dominated
the country. They are below.

THE AZTECS

The Mexican Indians were, at the coming of the Spanish, under the Aztec sway.
Many tribes readily accepted Spanish assistance to aid them in the overthrow
of their oppressive rulers. They had yet to learn that new oppressors were coming
in the guise of deliverers. The following outline illustrates the gradual rise
to power of the Aztecs. The story of the final overthrow of the Aztec capital
Tenochtitlan is so generally narrated as to need no repetition here. The city
was established under Tezcuecuex in 1202 at the end of the reign of Huetzin
of Culhuacan.

The history of the Peruvian civilization must wait until Spanish history
is presented. Other cities of lesser import have left us a record but those
present here give the chronological outline from which a valid study of Mexican
history can begin.