Episode 24: Grandfathers of History, part 8

South of the Rio Grande was a land of empires, and perhaps some memories of the early history of the world.

All the quotes from the Bible for the main story were were taken from the English Standard Version(see ESV copyright here) or the New King James Version. For the other sources, including commentaries, websites, or articles, you can find links and references in the show notes below in the order they appeared. If you have any questions, there’s a link to contact me at the bottom of the page.

Show notes:

For details on Columbus’s sailors finding various debris and a branch with berries in the water that encouraged the sailors to believe land was near, see pg. 35 here.
For the record of Columbus seeing what seemed to be a candle and pointing it out to a few people, see pgs. 35-36 here that also notes another sailor seeing it and being frustrated at the claim he wasn’t the first. Columbus later received the reward for finding land according to footnote 1 on pg. 36. With the promised reward and the prestige of being the first to sight land causing a conflict of interest with honesty it is hard to know if the record of Columbus being the first to see land is true (a conclusion supported by a comment in the article here.
For the time and identity of the sailor who spotted land, see pgs. 35-36 here.
The record on pg. 36 here states that land was spotted “2 leagues” away. Earlier in the above source, on pg. 35, it stated that 90 miles was 22.5 leagues, thus giving 4 miles to a league (see also footnote at bottom of pg. 34). Using that conversion factor, land was probably 8 miles away when spotted, which fits within the range of possible conversions from leagues to statute miles given here of 2.4 to 4.6 statute miles per league, or about 4.8-9.2 miles away based on that range of values.
For lowering the sails after sighting land to wait for daytime, see pg. 36 here. Regarding that event, footnote 3 on pg. 63 here suggests that it was done with haste to quickly take the sails down.
For the date of Christopher Columbus’s first landing in the New World, see pg. 37 here and the article here, though this is probably the date on the Julian calendar since the current Gregorian calendar wasn’t introduced until 1582.
For Columbus’s first landfall in the New World, see discussion here.
For the date of Columbus’s first mention of heading to “Cipango” which the natives called “Cuba” see pgs. 54-55 here. For “Cipango” being the name of “Japan” see footnote 1 on pg. 53 here.
For the Spanish invasion of Cuba beginning in 1511, see pgs. 28-29 here.
For the Spanish battles with the natives on the American mainland in 1517, see the overview on pg. 21 here.
The distance from Cuba to Mexico was measured on Google maps from the nearest point of Cuba to the close part of Mexico.
The invasion in 1519 by Hernan Cortes, described in Townsend, Camilla. "Cortes, Hernan." The World Book Encyclopedia, 2020 ed. succeeded in toppling the Aztec empire by 1521. For further details, see pgs. 21-38 here including a reference to the presence of 500 troops, horses, and artillery on pg. 23 and the effect of the horses and artillery on local people on pg. 24 as well as a detailed account of the whole conquest on the pages that follow.
For an overview of people and names in Central America when the Spanish arrived, including the Toltec, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Aztec, see pgs. 16-19 here. On pg. 19 in that source it notes that the Aztec were a group of tribes whom the Mexica joined and that “Aztec” and “Mexica” are used as synonyms though they shouldn’t be. In this episode I only refer to the "Aztec” as I assume it is the more familiar name.
For the start of the Aztec empire, see here which notes the Aztecs became dominant between 1428 and 1440, though the earlier rise of the empire started about 100 years earlier.
As part of Cortes’s invasion force, Bernal Diaz del Castillo](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bernal-Diaz-del-Castillo) tells of seeing books in individual homes on pg. 263 here with the quote in the audio taken from that page, though it isn’t clear whether the individual homes were specifically Aztec or from any of a number of different people groups. From the same Spanish writer, on pg. 64 here it describes the emperor having a whole room of record books of revenue that had been collected. For the dates of authorship of that work, see pg. XXII here.
I can’t find out for certain how many Aztec books remain from before the Spanish arrived. We know many were destroyed with comments on pg. 1 here that notes that the Aztec first burned the earlier history books after their rise to power around 100 years before the Spanish arrived and then the Spanish burned the books again after they arrived to wipe out the Aztec religion and promote conversion to Christianity. That source references (from what I can tell) the Florentine Codex, book 10, chapter 29, for the tradition of the burning of books by the Aztecs themselves, which can be found in digital form on folio 142r here. For an overview of the sources we have of Aztec history, see pgs. 277-278 here that notes a few examples survived the Spanish invasion and the destruction that happened afterward and notes specifically one book that either was written before or soon after the invasion and another that was written a few years later but doesn’t seem to have been influenced by the Spanish. Both of those examples, though, don’t appear to be from a time clearly before the Spanish arrived. In another source, here it references that there are less than 20 books left from before Europeans arrived in the Americas and says five of them come from the Mixtec with the source here describing the Mixtecs in general and noting the names of seven examples of Mixtec works from before the Spanish invasion. Meanwhile, pg. 18 here describes the Mixtecs, but only references four books that survived the Spanish invasion. In my search, while some Mixtec books were mentioned, I couldn’t find if any of the books that survived the Spanish are examples of Aztec books. Instead, we have much literature collected and written by the Spanish in the years following their invasion as described in show notes below.
For an overview of Bernardino de Sahagún’s work with the initial version in 1579 and the revision in 1585, see pgs. 10 and 19 here.
Among the legends we have about the history of people in Central America prior to the arrival of the Spanish are some written by Ixtlilxochitl, a son of a Spanish settler whose mother was a descendant of Aztec rulers (see here). Writing in the first half of the 1600s (see here), Ixtlilxochitl’s history includes details of the early history of the world that involve a flood that submerged the mountains to a depth of 15 cubits and a tower where languages were confused (see pgs. 11-12 here which has the book in Spanish. For reference, I translated the text into English using Google Translate). Given the similarities between this record and the history in Genesis (see Genesis 7:18-20 and Genesis 11:1-9) it’s not surprising to see some references that suggest Ixtlilxochitl’s legends are affected by Christian influence (see pgs. 383-384 here). To me, this is a plausible conclusion to draw given that Ixtlilxochitl wrote around 100 years after the Spanish invasion and even though he used native sources (see reference here) he was a descendant of a Spanish man and showed some knowledge of the Bible given that he compared native people to Biblical figures (see pg. 8 here. Whether this means the history that is supposedly native is accurate or affected by that Christian background is up for debate, but what stands out to me as suspicious is his use of the word “cubit.” If it was a native memory of the depth of the water over the mountains I would expect a native depth (it could be the same depth, only different units). But given that the depth is the same and the units the same as Genesis, it would seem that detail likely came from Genesis (for the use of the world in Spanish, see the start of the page 12 here which uses the word “codos,” literally “elbows” according to dictionary here with “cubits” meaning the distance from finger to elbow according to this source). It’s possible Ixtlilxochitl translated the native unit into Spanish units (he did convert native dates into dates from the Gregorian calendar according to pg. 8 here, and the native unit was different, but if so I did not find reference to the original unit. Given this, I didn’t use Ixtlilxochitl’s history as a reliable independent memory of the early history of the world.
For the suggestion that missionary priests are where we get most of what we know of Native American beliefs for the early part of history, see pg. 16 here.
It notes on pg. 575 here that the Spaniards were only interested in local mythology when it showed connections to the Bible or an important figure.
As an overview of beliefs among people from Mexico, pg. 85 here suggests that the general pattern of their beliefs was in a distant creator followed by various lesser powers who made and changed the world to make it as it is today. They generally think of there being previous eras of world history, usually four of them, that were destroyed by fire or flood.
For Sahagun’s description of the Aztec goddess called the “woman of the snake” see book 1 chapter 6 (https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/1/folio/3r?spTexts=1&nhTexts=1) (text folio 2v and 3r) of the Florentine Codex finished around 1577 (see text on page here. The Florentine Codex is arranged with the first column in Spanish, the second in what Sahagun refers to as Mexican but called Nahuatl, and the third column a dictionary of the Mexican words according to the explanatory page on book 1 here) (folio viir). With that in mind, the Spanish-to-English translation of that first column on the snake goddess notes that her name means “woman of the snake” and she was also called another name meaning “our mother.” The Spanish text, presumably Sahagun’s then connects those titles both to a memory of Eve that he assumes the natives somehow knew. This extra information is not found in the second column Nahuatl-to-English translation so it appears to be Sahagun’s opinions being expressed as best I can tell. Further references to this same goddess come up in book 6 chapter 28 here (folio 138r) where this goddess is referred to as “the first to give birth” and connected to Eve once more, though, again, the Nahuatl translation only says the woman in labor was called to imitate that goddess. Furthermore, the same book and chapter (folio 152v) says that giving birth was like a battle and “tribute of death” that this goddess threw at women. A book written the 1800s that references this goddess of the Aztecs on on pgs. 381-382 here adds other details in the footnote on pg. 382 where the author expresses their opinion (as I understand it) that Sahagun’s record was honest but that Juan de Torquemada ( I assume referring to this person) added to it with details like the “Mexican Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel.” The footnote goes on referencing details from other authors that mention possible Aztec artwork or legends that sound like they could be memories of the first sin or the Garden of Eden that I didn’t search out or verify and which in any case would be subject to the same (reasonable) skepticism that the legends given that sound like the history in Genesis are due to Christian influence rather than genuine Aztec memories. As for modern scholarship, this goddess is mainly discussed as a goddess who created humans and on whom midwives relied for help (see pgs. 147-149 here).
For the pronunciation of “Quetzalcoatl,” see here.
For details about Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent god, see here that mentions him as a god of learning. It also mentions on pg. 67-68 here that the name “Quetzalcoatl” is made up of “quetzal” referring to the long green features of the “pharomacrus mocinno” (you can see a picture of the quetzal bird here) and “coatl” which means “serpent” with the author going on to reference the idea from Sahagun that it was a wind-god before the author speculates on various connections to weather. As for Sahagun’s work, the comment on book 6 chapter 33 of the Florentine Codex here (folio 153r) references Quetzalcoatl as the creator of people according to a speech from a midwife in both the Spanish and Nahuatl translations. For a modern overview which starts by emphasizing the variety and versions of legends about Quezalcoatl and noting him as both a god and a culture hero, a kind of legendary person, see pgs. 223-228 here with pg. 227 noting the “learning” characteristic, though it is unclear if this is in reference to the “god” or “person” version of Quetzalcoatl. At the end of some legends, Quetzalcoatl leaves promising to come back. When Cortes and the Spanish arrived, the Aztecs may have thought it was Quetzalcoatl returning, but that isn’t certain as pgs. 117-119 here argue that the legend of Quetzalcoatl wasn’t very important to the Aztecs prior to Cortes’s arrival and Cortes may have promoted the idea. With all the variety of legends, it is hard to know if there are any reliable facts about ancient Aztec belief in Quetzalcoatl that can truly be used to see if legends about him are plausibly memories of the history in Genesis.
A Mexican flood story is laid out by Frazer on pgs. 274-275 here. In Frazer’s telling of the story a god warned a man and woman not to make wine any more and hollow out a tree since there would be a flood. The couple got into the tree and the god shut the door. Later, when the people got out of the boat, they caught and roasted fish on a fire, making the gods angry, so one god turned the people into dogs. Frazer references as sources the Codex Chimalpopoca on pg. 274 and Brasseur de Bourbourg in the footnote on pg. 275. The Codex Chimalpopoca is defined on pg. 3 here and summarized on pgs. 1-10 in that source. According to pg. 13 in that book, the history of the Codex Chimalpopoca can only be traced back to 1746 (with an estimate getting possibly back to the early 1600s on pg. 12) though the last line of the book (pg. 162) describes the arrival of Cortes “42 years ago” (if the translation is right) which would claim that the original was written about four decades after the Spanish conquest (if I understand it correctly). As such, this could be a fairly old document, but it still comes after the Spanish conquest. All that said, the story in question of the man and woman who survived the flood in a hollowed log, but cooked fish and were turned to dogs is found in summary on pg. 8 in that source in the section of the Chimalpopoca called the “Legend of the Suns” which goes on to add that Quetzalcoatl went and made people again thereafter. Alternate details in a summary of the story from the “Legend of the Suns” are given on pg. 195 in Dundes, Alan. The Flood Myth. University of California Press, 1988 including that the people were told to stop working rather than being told to stop making wine (as Frazer has it) and the detail of the god shutting the people in the boat is not mentioned (which is a parallel to Genesis 7:15-16). That summary does, however make it clear that the sky collapsing and destroying came while people were in the log boat, something Frazer and the other summary referenced above don’t make obvious. This sources includes a summary of 63 different flood legends from Central America that the author breaks into five different categories on pgs. 183-219 here with this story coming in the third section of his list. That author concludes on pgs. 215-216 that the type of legend where people survive in a boat and are later turned to dogs is most likely to be from before the Spanish arrived with another version — where a man repopulates the world after a flood with a woman who had been a dog but transformed into a woman when her skin was burned (see summary for “Division D” on pg. 203) is another possible original native version that was there before the Spanish came, though we only appear to have a version written down in 1900 (see pg. 207). That author also notes, on pg. 193, that many of the versions that tell of people surviving on a boat (“Division A,” see pg. 191) would possibly include them being destroyed for lighting a fire after the flood if we knew more details of those stories, thus fitting them into the category he thinks was already present before the Spanish arrived. Among the stories that tell of people surviving in a boat, is the story of Coxcox which includes a couple surviving a flood, landing on a mountain, and their children being unable to speak until a dove gave them languages (see pg. 191, Division A, story number 4). This story is also mentioned in Frazer on pg. 274 here who references (in footnote 3 on that page) an “F. S. Clavigero” who lived in the 1700s (see here) and whose work was translated into English in 1807. That work can be found today here with the story on pg. 244 (That source refers the reader back to Gregorio Garcia, who published a book on theories about where the people in the Americas came from in 1607 according to pg. 60 here, but I couldn’t tell if Clavigero was referring to Garcia for the source of the story or simply for further research into the origins of the native people.) This story is also mentioned on another source on pgs. 176-178 in Vitaliano, Dorothy. Legends of the Earth. Indiana University Press, 1973 where the author undermines the claim that the legend of Coxcox comes from before the Spanish arrived by noting that Clavigero (referenced above) and others based their story on someone who interpreted a pictograph as the story of the Flood. In contrast, the there is a claim that the pictograph really shows the Aztec migration to find and start what is now Mexico city. The source goes on to note (pg. 177) that the person who interpreted the image only heard the story of Coxcox more than a century after Cortes conquered the people. Given the research, I think the Coxcox story isn’t reliable as a good flood legend. That said, in general the author who undermined that story dismisses the global nature of the flood and argues that the global flood idea was really from Christian missionaries traveling and mixing their stories with with legends local people had and because floods themselves are common (see pg. 178). While I disagree, and believe a global Flood as described in Genesis did occur, it is true that it is difficult to separate centuries of Christian interaction out of the legends to tell what original flood stories people might have had before outsiders arrived.
For an overview of the story of the giants and the Cholula pyramid, see pgs. 379-382 here which gives a couple of versions of the story. The second is from “Spanish historian Duran” (I assume Diego Duran) and dated to 1579. That story includes a reference to “bitumen” as mortar for the building and lends support to the belief in Christian influence on the legend since bitumen is used in the history of the tower of Babel in Genesis but there is no reference that they used bitumen in Central America. On pg. 8 here Duran says he heard the original story from a man who was around 100 years old with the footnote on pg. 9 in that source again suggesting that Duran was influenced by knowledge of the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis. The other version of Frazer’s story in the first reference above is attributed to Pedro de los Rios. That story is also mentioned on pg. 96 here which references endnote 8 (that can be found on pg. 358 in that source) which apparently refers to pgs. 195-196 of the book found here (though the description appears to start on pg. 192). That summary is part of a chapter on the “Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738” as defined on pg. 155 (the footnote at the start of that chapter). This manuscript is dated to 1566-1570 at the end of pg. 16 and start of pg. 17 in the Italian book on the codex found here (I used Google translate to convert the Italian to English). The details found on pgs. 192-196 (referenced earlier) point to “plates” but never show any images of the plate itself in that book. However being that the book is volume 6 in a series, it appears it references back to the images themselves in volume 2, with plate 16 found here for that codex as introduced on the page here. For the circumference of the tower, the source (on pg. 196 referenced above) gives 1800 feet, which is just over 1/3 of a mile. The footnote on pg. 196 in that source here says that the locals had “transferred the site of the tower of Babel…from the Old continent to the New.” With the information available, we can’t tell whether the local people heard the story of the tower of Babel from Christians or that they had the story already handed down to them from their forebears and at some point linked that legend with the tower nearby rather than the distant one at Babel. Beyond the above sources, you can also find references to Cholula and giants in the Florentine codex, book 10, folio 142v and thereafter here.
For people visiting the pyramid of Cholula, see pg. 139 here which references visitors coming to an annual festival.
For the largest size of the pyramid of Cholula as 400 meters on a side and 66 meters tall, see pg. 140 here. I converted those values to feet to yield 216 feet tall and 1312 feet on a side at the base which is just short of a quarter mile. See the same values for the height and width on Table 1 on pg. 4 here though the 66m height is given with a question mark and is evidently an estimate. In comparison, the article here gives the final size as only 25m tall and only just over 1000 feet on a side which seems significantly off while another article from the same source here gives 54 meters hight. For the episode I used the numbers from the book and scholarly article given above rather than from the encyclopedia entries.
For the Great Pyramid at Giza, a source from the early 1900s on pg. 149 here gives dimensions of about 763 to764 feet wide by 486 tall. Another source, on pg. 11 here gives 230.4 meters for average side length with an estimated height of 146.6 meters (based on the angle of the sides, since the height wasn’t measured) or about 756 feet on a side at the base and 481 feet tall taken in 1925 (see pg. 10 in the above source). The volume of the pyramid can be calculated as one third of the area of the base times the height as given by the formula on pg. 365 here. This gives between 91 and 95 million cubic feet for the volume of the Great Pyramid at Giza. In comparison, the dimensions of the pyramid of Cholula (given in show note above) has a volume of almost 124 million cubic feet, or about 1.3 times more material than the Great Pyramid of Giza.
For the Spanish thinking that the pyramid of Cholula was just a hill when they first found it, see on pg. 3 here with the bottom of the first column noting that the early drawings of it show grass on the pyramid.
The start of the building of the pyramid at Cholula is given as taking place during the “Classic” period on pg. 140 here which is defined as between 300-900 AD on pg. XV in the introduction of the book such that the end of the “Classic” period is still more than 500 years before the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492 by more than 500 years, and this appears to be a minimum value as the first version of the pyramid would date back even earlier as I understand it.
For the Spanish conquest against the Mayans, see pgs. 285-289 here. It notes that diseases like smallpox had already weakened native people before the full invasion of the Spanish came and likely made the invasion easier for the Spanish. According to pg. 286 the main conquering of the Mayans took place in the years between 1524 and 1546 which gave the Spanish control of some regions, though it mentions the last holdout kingdom existing until 1696 and rebellions continuing into the 1800s. Even then, according to pg. 14 in Coe, Michael D., America’s First Civilization. American Heritage Publishing Co. 1968, the Maya themselves didn’t disappear, but as of 1968 there were still 2 million Mayan speakers.
For a timeline of the Mayan civilization, see pgs. 14-17 in Demarest, Arthur. Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization. Cambridge University Press, 2004. This time line projects the history of the region back to before the Flood in Genesis. To align Mayan history with the timeline from Genesis, it is unclear to me whether the whole Mayan timeline should be compressed proportionally or if only the earlier portions need compression (i.e. 7000 - 1000 BC) while the later dates are more accurate. If the later dates are more accurate, it suggests the Mayan civilization was getting started in earnest more than 2,000 years ago and continued to some extent until the 1500s AD. For an overview of their location noting Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala, see map and discussion on pgs. 10-11 in the same source.
An excellent overview of existing Mayan writing is found in the introduction to the book here with details especially laid out on pgs. 7-10 which reference the oldest bits going back to 400 BC as well as writing on cups and carvings in stone on pg. 7. In that book pgs. 146-148 detail how artifacts of Mayan writing are found on a number of surfaces including, shells, bone, wood, pottery, and stone. The source also notes that they made paper manufactured from some of the bark of a certain type of tree and created books, but while evidence of older books has been found, only books from the 1200s AD and on have survived. Many of the local writings were destroyed by the Spanish as noted on pgs. 112-113 here though later Catholic writers also recorded and passed along their own version of native information as noted in that source as well as pg. 9 from the the earlier source above that says most books from the Yucatan region were destroyed after the Spanish invaded. That same page notes that Diego de Landa was both proud of burning books and was also the only Spanish source recording information about the Mayan way of writing. That page also notes that we know less about the destruction of Mayan books from Guatemala. For a discussion of how one Spanish writer gained his information, see pg. 77 here. For an example of some Spanish chronicles of the period of the invasion of Central America, see pgs. 164-165 here that give an overview. Today, there are only four known Mayan written documents (codices) according to pg. 123 here with pg. 76 here commenting that the Spanish destroyed the others. For details on Diego de Landa, see the article here that mentions his role both in the destruction of books and in passing along his own record of Mayan history. In addition, pg. v in the introduction here mentions de Landa’s arrival in 1549 and pg. iii notes the burning of things and estimates that 99% of what we know about the Mayans depends on de Landa’s work. That source is not new, and while we may have learned much more about the Mayans in the decades since that opinion was published, I would guess much of what we know today is still reliant on or influenced by de Landa’s material.
For the background and discussion of the “Popol Vuh” see pgs. 13-18 here and here to find Francisco Ximenez and the 1701-1702 date of the document (pg. 68), his location in Guatemala (pgs. 74-75), the origin of the Maya myth from the highlands of Guatemala (pg. 70), the pronunciation of “Popol Bu” (pg. 67), the history of how the book changed hands in the years since then (pgs. 70-71), and the general belief that it is among the best we have of what the people of that region believed before the Spanish arrived (pg. 69). The author describes the three sections of Ximenez’s work on pg. 78 and argues on pg. 77 in the above source that Ximenez included the Maya creation story as part of helping missionaries recognize when the natives were following non-Christian practices and ultimately get rid of those practices. In another paper by the same author, the emphasis on conversion is stated again on pg. 470 here after noting on pgs. 469-470 that the Popol Vuh was based on documents that Ximenez collected and not an original complete source. Accepting that Ximenez’s goal was to convert the natives to Christianity and get rid of their beliefs in native religions, there’s risk of bias, but I assume he was at least attempting to truthfully record their beliefs as that is the only way the book would be helpful to later missionaries. It is worth noting that even if Ximenez was writing honestly there is still room for errors to creep in given that we have to assume the material he wrote down was an accurate representation of Mayan beliefs, that those beliefs hadn’t been mixed together with Christian beliefs in the 180 years since Cortes arrived in Mexico, and that Ximenez didn’t let his Christian background influence the record by accident. For the meaning of the name “Popol Vuh” see footnote 33 on pgs. 64-65 here.
For a comparison of the quality of English translations of the Popol Vuh, see pgs. 20-28 here. That article references one translation on pgs. 22-23 from 1950 which can be found here that is in English but based off of a 1946 Spanish translation made by the same author, another written in 1971, and another from 1985. The article was written in 1992 and another version of the 1985 translation written in 1996 is available here. Finally, there is another later translation (advertised on the cover as coming from the Mayan writing) originally published in 2003 found here. Various translations are referenced in show notes below. Furthermore, pgs. 29-32 in the above article give examples of the translation of creation from three of the translations it discusses.
For the Popol Vuh description of the world at the start of creation, see pgs. 67-70 here. The description of the gods who then create the world, given in that source on pgs. 68-70, give a number of names, but I am unclear how many gods are involved since some of the gods appear to have multiple names. The idea of creation of land and trees by merely speaking is noted on pgs. 70-71 with the compliment noting the gods belief that their creation would go well on pg. 72 which can be seen as a parallel to the comment in Genesis 1 that God said the created world was “good,” though that is just my speculation. A fairly detailed summary is given on pgs. 159-162 here. The quoted section on creation has lots of parallels to the history in Genesis, but given that it was written by a Christian so long after the conquest, it is hard to know how genuine it is. Continuing on pgs. 163-166 in the same source, it describes the various attempts to make humans, including from “moist earth” that fell apart. Next from wood, but they were unintelligent. Those beings were destroyed except for some that can still be seen as little monkeys. There’s then a pause as the book tells another story, until the third part when the first four men are made out of two colors of corn and nine broths. These beings were too intelligent, though, so the gods limited their vision. Then they slept and the gods gave them wives. They state that there was only one language at the time and people lived together happily, but there was no sunshine yet. Later on in the same book, there are elements that sound to me like the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden on pgs. 171-172. In that passage, as part of a different story, it tells about the head of someone who had been sacrificed that was put on a tree and made to look like the fruit on that tree. People weren’t supposed to go near it, but a woman came anyway asking herself if she would die if she picked one of the fruits. The head-fruit spoke to her and warned her that the fruit was “death’s-heads.” The story goes on from there, but without clear parallels to the history of Genesis. On pgs. 180-181 here, discussing things that happened after Tulan, there is a story of water being divided with a staff and migrating people crossing over, but other than that there aren’t obvious parallels to the Exodus, so it is unclear if this is a story form Christian influence or something independent. Finally, on pgs. 185-186 in that source notes that there is some possible belief in a supreme god, but without clear detail. Also see pgs. 20-32 here that gives excerpts from three different translations of the story.
When comparing the translations of the Popol Vuh as discussed in earlier show notes to what is found in Genesis, pg. 22 of the article here suggests that the use of “word” when describing the gods meeting together in the dark before creation was a purposeful parallel to the Genesis by the author it is discussing. That said, all the translations I reviewed including the excerpts found in the appendix to that article (pgs. 29, 30, and 32) and pg. 70 here use a similar description of the scene. To me, there could be at least four reasons for the parallels between what is found in the Popol Vuh and Genesis. First, the translators of the Popol Vuh into English could’ve been influenced by Christianity. Second, the original recorder of the record, a Catholic friar, might’ve used language that paralleled Genesis. Third, the natives may have been influenced by Christian sources prior to recording the copy of the Popol Vuh we have in their language. Finally, the similarities could be because Genesis and the Popol Vuh are remembering the same history. I cannot prove which of these situations is most accurate, though there is certainly room for Christianity to have influenced the Popol Vuh prior to it being recorded in the early years of the 1700s and lacking an older copy, we cannot tell whether those parallels were present before the arrival of the Europeans. Even if we could we wouldn’t be able to prove that the people in Central America weren’t influenced by forgotten outsiders even earlier in their history. As with anything, there is room for skepticism.
For the creation of animals who couldn’t speak, followed by people from mud, then people from wood, see pgs. 74-79 here.
For the creation of wood people in the Popol Vuh, the flood that destroyed them, and the note that their surviving descendants are monkeys, see pgs. 89-93 here and pgs. 83-90 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh: The Sacred book of the Maya. O Books, 2003. A summary of the creation of different humans is also mentioned on pg. 276 here.
Before the story in the Popol Vuh of people being made from corn, there is an interlude that describes the adventures of twins who ultimately become the sun and moon. For a summary, see pgs. 468-469 here and the section of the story on pgs. 94-165 here.
For the first men finally being made from corn and the gods limiting their sight so they wouldn’t be equal to the gods, see pgs. 165-169 here. For women appearing during what seemed like sleep see pgs. 170-172 in the above source and pgs. 201-203 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh: The Sacred book of the Maya. O Books, 2003 that notes these four couples became the ancestors of the Quiche people of Guatemala (see also here where it is spelled K’idche’). The story goes on to tell of how the population increased and mentions other non-Quiche people on pgs. 204-205 with the footnotes giving explanations below, though I couldn’t tell how those people were created. Continuing on, the story describes how there was no sun, people went to Tulan to get gods, and either upon arriving or leaving Tulan (translations differ), their language changed, they couldn’t understand one another any more, and they split up (see pgs. 205-213). The confusion languages in this part of the story connects Tulan with what sounds to me like some memory of events at the Tower of Babel. That said the parallel isn’t perfect. First, there are references to more than one language in a group of people before going to Tulan as described on pgs. 205-206 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh: The Sacred book of the Maya. O Books, 2003 and the same passage in another translation on pg. 172 here. Both authors suggest in their footnotes (footnote 526 on pg. 206 and footnote 7 on pg. 172 respectively) that the various nations had different languages but the Quiche people still had only one language. In addition, before discussing the language confusion after going to Tulan, each translation notes (on pg. 213 and 176 depending on which you use) that other nations went to Tulan as well making it ambiguous whether the language confusion was within the Quiche or between the Quiche and everyone else. Finally, connecting Tulan with Babel isn’t perfect given that a later generation of leaders go back to Tulan on pg. 256-259 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh: The Sacred book of the Maya. O Books, 2003 with footnote 547 on pg. 209 in that source connecting Tulan to sites in Central America (though noting that the name simply means “palace, or manor-house” and in another language refers to a place where cattails grow). I can’t explain the inconsistencies, but if Tulan does include memories of Babel, perhaps the memories of Babel were mixed together with a local city somewhere in Central America and that city is where the descendants of the first people traveled to, though that is only my opinion. It is worth remembering that these inconsistencies could simply be part of a story that has been passed down for a long time, and the inconsistencies themselves are perhaps evidence that the story was preserved as it was passed down rather than being edited to make more sense. Put another way, there might be greater suspicion of outside influence if the legend paralleled the history in Genesis perfectly. Even with the confusion about who it is referring to, the Popol Vuh legend does note a time when the languages of people became confused. On, pg. 387 here Frazer mentions the Quiche story in connection with the Tower of Babel and suggests the legend could well be independent of outside influence, though rather than thinking the Popol Vuh might be a memory of some past event, he suggests it is an invention to explain how different languages came to be.
The Popol Vuh goes on to describe how the land was dark and very cold and mentions dark mists. Only the Quiche have fire from their god while other people don’t and this leads the other people to submit to the Quiche inadvertently agreeing to the human sacrifices demanded by their god (see pgs. 213-216 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh the Sacred Book of the Maya. O Books, 2003). It is my speculation, but I wonder if the darkness and mist and cold at the start of that section is a memory of the world after the Flood described in Genesis where the atmosphere might’ve been filled with ash and snow, the sun darkened, and the ice age getting underway during the same part of history in which the Quiche ancestors migrated. There is also the note on pg. 183 here that the people crossed a sea that parted. I can only guess at what sea they are referring to, either something far back in their ancestral memory like the Bering Strait or something more local. The passage is referenced on pgs. 1012-1013 in Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek publishing but that author draws a connection between this Mayan water crossing and a legend from some people in the middle east that has a mountain opening up and reference to Moses (see pg. 1001 in above source) to try to show cross-Pacific contact. For more, see later show note referencing Kearsley’s theory.
For the usefulness of the Popol Vuh to scholars, see pg. 69 here that references it as one of the best examples of what people in the area said prior to the arrival of the Spanish. In another source, on pg. 24 in Christenson, Allen J., Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya. O Books 2003 the author refers to it as the most important piece of writing to have survived the Spanish, but also notes on pg. 35 that what we have is not the original version and that the original wasn’t even available to the people who wrote what we have today, but that it was probably instead compiled from oral traditions as it has much more story, description, and dialog than the other records we have which give more condensed information. All that is to say, that while the Popol Vuh is considered valuable, there is no way to prove that it accurately represents what people believed in the region prior to the arrival of the Spanish.
I had trouble finding hard data on how old the Mayan pyramids are or how many there are, but one encyclopedia reference here noted that they were building the step-sided pyramids with flat tops for a temple around 400 BC with an earlier period having smaller structures.
For details about the El Mirador Mayan city, see pgs. 83-85 in Demarest, Arthur. Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization. Cambridge University Press, 2004 which mentions that the city was the largest ancient Mayan city, that it was built after 400 BC, and that the tower was around 70 meters tall. For reference to the El Mirador site standing above the surrounding jungle, see pg. 49 in Estrada-Belli, Francisco. The First Maya Civilization: Ritual and Power Before the Classic Period. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2010 which mentions pyramids of 73 meters and 53 meters. On pg. 253 here it suggests the pyramid was evidently finished around 180 AD as best I understand.
Before the Spanish arrived, the people of central and South America made mirrors out of either pyrite or obsidian as noted in the article here. We don’t know exactly how, but one of those mirrors eventually made it into the possession of John Dee, an adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England so you can see it here.
For the history of Veracruz, both a city and state in Mexico, see pg. 1015 here and here that mentions how it was founded in 1520 but moved twice with the article here noting that the second move was back to its original spot. The first two articles above outline how it was attacked by Sir Francis Drake and pirates and captured by the French and United States at different times. For the first invasion by the French, see here. For the second, when they tried to set up an empire, see here.
For the distance from Veracruz to San Andreas Tuxtla, I measured the point-to-point distance on the map here.
For the story of the discovery of what would later be known as an Olmec carved head “a few years before” 1862, as reported by J. M. Melgar in 1869 see pg. 39 in Coe, Michael D., *America’s First Civilization: Discovering the Olmec.” American Heritage Publishing Co,. Inc., 1968. For the Olmec believed to be the first civilization in the Americas, see pg. 50 in that source. For the distance between Veracruz and San Andreas Tuxtla, I measured the straightline distance on the map here.
Unlike the Native Americans from further north discussed in the last episode who are suggested to have only migrated from Asia since the 600s AD (see that episode) according to one theory, the Olmecs and Mayans at least were in the Americas more than 2000 years ago (see show notes in this episode).
I use a variety of sources for the stories in this episode, but among them, as in previous episodes, I’ve used many legends collected by James George Frazer from the early 1900s. Frazer was not a proponent of the reliability of the Bible, but he did helpfully collect many legends that can be reviewed to see what stories people around the world might have that sound like memories of the history in Genesis. For examples of Frazer disbelieving the accuracy of the Bible, see show note on Episode 22. As in previous episodes, I’ve also used material from the “Mythology of all Races” series, specifically volume 10 on North America and volume 11 on central and South America which were also published toward the beginning of the 1900s.
The Olmec were an early civilization from Central America, as noted here which dates them to 1100s to 300s BC. Today we call them “Olmec,” but we don’t know what they called themselves as mentioned on pgs. 83 - 85 in Coe, Michael D., Mexico. Praeger Publishers, 1962 which also notes notes that the Olmec are the oldest civilization of the region (though I suppose this depends on the definition of “civilization” as it is unclear when smaller tribes grow large enough to achieve that distinction and there were, I assume, smaller tribes that preceded the Olmec) dating them to 1200 - 400 BC. The same source also notes that the Olmec were known for carving stone, mentioning the large stone head statues with a list of other things. Another reference by the same author as earlier to the origin of the name “Olmec” can be found on pgs. 40-42 in Coe, Michael D., *America’s First Civilization: Discovering the Olmec.” American Heritage Publishing Co,. Inc., 1968 which gives “the rubber people” definition for “Olmec” as well as pg. 6 in Soustelle, Jacques. The Olmecs: The Oldest Civilization in Mexico. Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1984 by a different author who gives the same idea. Regarding the large stone heads, pg. 174 here gives the largest as over 11 feet tall, though small ones are a bit less than 5 feet tall (as of 1984, 16 of them had been found as mentioned on pg. 27 in Soustelle, Jacques. The Olmecs: The Oldest Civilization in Mexico. Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1984). As you can imagine, we can’t say for certain whether the Olmecs really are the oldest civilization in the Americas or if another precedes even them.
I also mentioned the Olmec in Episode 5 and their carving of a feathered rattlesnake or something like it when mentioning various memories people have of serpents in the ancient world that might be a memory of the serpent from Eden, though that is just my speculation. For specifics, see pg. 180 here.
It’s a bit challenging to decide what the La Venta mound originally was. In one source, on pg. 300 here it describes the mound as standing 100 feet tall and cone shaped, though noting that the inconsistent ridges and valleys in the sides could be caused by erosion. Meanwhile on pgs. 34-36 here it gives a map of the site and notes that the large mound is more like a flower with petals and 10 ridges and valleys though it goes on to say that one of the pyramids (separate from the large mound) was stepped, though this appears to be much smaller than the conical mound based on the diagram and lack of discussion surrounding it. In another source, on pg. 157 here it notes the height, the erosion, and the belief that it was once a stepped pyramid but had worn down. For the location of La Venta, see here.
For the age of the La Venta Olmec site, see pgs. 60 and 63 in Coe, Michael D., *America’s First Civilization: Discovering the Olmec.” American Heritage Publishing Co,. Inc., 1968 which gives a range of 400 to 800 BC and pg. 158 here that gives 400 to 1000 BC.
This idea of the pyramid being a representation of a mountain is mentioned on pg. 157 here and also comes up with respect to the pyramid of Cholula discussed earlier with the comment on pg. 12 here mentioning the theory that it was a model of a volcano. In addition, pgs. 202-205 in Demarest, Arthur. Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization. Cambridge University Press, 2004 suggest that the pyramids built by the Mayans were representations of mountains and were situated over caves in the land underneath them which is suggested to be a link to the underworld. Considering these pyramids and temples as models of mountains doesn’t preclude a parallel to Biblical history, though. If the Tower of Babel was a ziggurat, it too looks a bit like a mountain, and you’d want that design, with a broad base, in order to make a tall tower stable. As for the caves underneath and the connection to the underworld, it wouldn’t be hard to see how people would associate memories of the Flood in connection with the death of the people and civilization that came before it, but that is speculation.
For other discussions of the similar appearance and speculation about the possible links between the ziggurats of Iraq and pyramids and step-pyramids found elsewhere see Episode 17 for Egypt, Episode 21 for China, and Episode 22 for examples from Polynesia. That said, the connections are speculation and it is pointed out in Zondervan,. NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook (Kindle Locations 8007-8033). Zondervan. Kindle Edition that ziggurats looked like pyramids but didn’t serve the same purpose to the society. As with the rest of the stepped pyramids around the world, I don’t know if these are linked back to memories of the tower of Babel. We don’t know even know if the Tower of Babel was a ziggurat or had some other shape or whether these other pyramids found around the world are connected in any way. That said, if there isn’t any connection, it is curious that so many societies dedicated such time and effort into building large structures that have such similarities.
Regarding connections between towers in America and elsewhere, a comment on pg. 642 in Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek publishing points out that the Mayans put sacred trees at the top of their pyramids. The author connects that to trees on top of mountains in Jain paintings (referring to the religion described here if I understand correctly) as he works to establish evidence of a link between India and the Americas. Whether or not that link holds up, I wonder if the trees atop the tower might be some memory of the two trees in the Garden of Eden, though that is just my speculation.
For the story found among the Tarascans, see pgs. 85-86 here, though note that the author of that work suggests that the parallels to Genesis might mean it was influenced by outsiders.
For the Mixtec legend, see pgs. 86-87 here.
For the story from Nicaragua, see pg. 169 here. In addition, see discussion on pgs. 79-81 here which shows the similarity between stories from the southeastern United States and from Nicaragua.
For a brief reference of the story from Panama of a flood and the world being repopulated by the people who survived in a canoe, see pgs. 273-274 here.
For the story from the Antilles islands in the Caribbean, see pg. 281 here.
For the background of Francisco Pizarro, his participation in the group that was first to see the Pacific ocean and an overview of the conquest of the Incan empire by the Spanish, see the articles here and here. See also pgs. 28-31 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. For locals informing about the land to the south rich in gold, see the article here.
In earlier episodes I’ve talked about how the warm oceans and ash-filled skies after the Flood caused water to evaporate easily and then condense into snow on land causing the Ice Age and lowering sea level (see explanation in Episode 19). One interesting effect of the oceans on the Ice Age is that the Ice Age came at a different time in the southern hemisphere than the northern hemisphere because of how much more water relative to land there is in the south as mentioned here and in a discussion of the ice age from a creation perspective here.
For the length of the Inca empire given as 4000 kilometers (which I converted to miles), see pg. 3 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. In the same source, pgs. 115-119 discuss the road system and note that the messengers were spaced about 1.4 kilometers apart which is a bit less than 0.9 miles. The speed of the system has been estimated at 240 km/day or about 149 miles per day.
For the Inca dealing with both an epidemic of disease and a civil war right before the Spanish invaded, see pg. 30 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. For the Inca civil war occurring at the same time as the Spanish invasion, see here in the World Encyclopedia entry. See also pg. 277 here that suggests smallpox as the disease that killed the Inca emperor and many of his relatives and people which gives the year as 1524 or 1525.
For the timeline of Pizarro conquering the Inca, note here that they invaded in 1532 and conquered them in 1537.
For the timeline of the Incan empire including their traditional start date and the arrival of the Spanish, see pgs. 203-204 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
The encyclopedia article here on the Inca empire notes that what we know of their “society” comes from archeology, oral tradition, and the writings of Spanish. For the legends below, it is unclear what their original sources are, though they are written in English, so they’ve gone through at least some minimum of outside influence. Elsewhere, on pg. 28 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc it notes that the Spanish are largely the source of information on Inca history. For the timeline of the Inca empire, see pgs. 203-204 in that source.
For comments about the Inca rulers essentially recording propaganda instead of history, making themselves out to be the most important person in Inca history, and taking credit for as much as they could get away with, see pgs. 56-57 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. That same source notes on pgs. 60-61 that Pachacuti, the past emperor changed culture and history and that scholars really only trust the history that came after Pachacuti since they had good sources. For the dates of Pachacuti’s reign compared to the arrival of the Spanish, see pgs. 203-204 in that source.
In some of their writings the Inca doubt the sun was the main god and think there was a higher god for various reasons including that the sun always followed the same course and that the sun served Viracocha, according to pgs. 246-248 here. For the meaning of Viracocha, see pgs. 236-237 in that source that also adds the belief that Viracocha was the creator and gave life to men and women.
For three different stories of a global or nearly global flood from Peru, see pgs. 270-272 here. In the first instance, given that only one man survived the flood, it is unclear how the world was repopulated by him. This story is also found on pgs. 51-52 here with that manuscript making a reference to “we Christians” think it refers back to the Flood of Noah’s time in the Bible, so the rehearsal of the tale comes through a Christian source, at least in that manuscript, but as usual it isn’t clear how much older the story is than the arrival of outside Christian influence. The second version of a flood story has seven survivors including six children (the same as the number of sons of Noah and their wives in Genesis) but it doesn’t say whether there were both boys and girls. The last mentions a man and woman surviving, but then people around the world aren’t their descendants, but are created out of clay by a god after the flood ends. The story of the man with the llama is also mentioned on pg. 230 here and notes that after the flood other things occurred including darkness and stones and animals rebelling against humans until a wind blew and some brothers hatched from five eggs, so it is hard to figure out a timeline of the origins of the characters in question.
For the story from Warau people of a woman disobeying and then giving birth to a half-serpent as her second child, see pgs. 271-272 here. For their location in Venezuela and Suriname, see here. For the Caribbean sea being named after the “Carib” see here.
For the story from Venezuela of a man and woman surviving a flood on a mountain and repopulating the world by throwing fruit over their heads, see pgs. 270-271 here. In that passage, from a chapter titled, “The Orinoco and Guiana” it refers to this legend in relation to the “Carib” the “Caribee nations” and the “Antilles.” According to the article here the Antilles would refer to islands of the Caribbean, and the other references to “Carib” and “Caribee nations” would appear to place the story as coming from those islands rather than Venezuela though the article here notes that the South American coast is also included and “Cariban” refers to a language family, at least at this point. The original source, connects the story of the flood with “Amalivaca, father of the Tamanac.” With “Tamanac” being linked to natives of Orinoco on footnote 28 on pg. 528 here (the Orinoco being the river of South America, see pg. 275 here). Regarding how the world was repopulated, pg. 145 here notes that the fruit the man threw became men and the fruit the woman threw became women while the first source above said the seeds became men and women.
For the Arawak story, see pg. 273 here. Given that it is in a chapter on “The Orinoco and Guiana” it appears this story refers to the Arawaks of South America, though the same people also live on islands of the Caribbean according to the article here.
For the story from Columbia and notes about how Bogota used to be covered by a high lake that drained away through the mountains, see pgs. 267-268 here. See also another discussion of the story on pg. 203 here.
For the location of the Purus river, see here. For the Flood legend from people who lived along it, see either pg. 125-126 here or the original source on pgs. 739 here (in German, but translatable via Google translate).
For stories from the Jivaro people of Ecuador, see pgs. 260-262 here. The author speculates the similarity of one part of the story to the history in Genesis might be due to missionaries, but only as speculation.
For the story of a flood from Argentina, see pgs. 142-143 in Bierhorst, John. The Mythology of South America. William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York, 1988.
It is suggested on pg. 311 here that stories of creation don’t show up much in “South American wild tribes” but stories of something like the flood in Genesis are common. I’m unclear on what is meant by “wild tribes.” My best guess is that it must refer to more remote people groups who have had less contact with the outside world, though that is just my guess at the author’s meaning. As it stands, there do appear to be some stories that could be linked to the history in Genesis, including the tale from the Warau people (referenced earlier in this episode, see show note there) or even the stories on pgs. 309-310 in the above source right before the statement about a lack of creation stories. In that section the author mentions a people that tell of a time when the world was all darkness before telling a second tale where of people who say the world was only light. That second story goes on with details that include a Great Serpent and servants disobeying an order and releasing night into the world from a sealed nut. It doesn’t seem hard to draw parallels between that story and the history in Genesis of the events in the Garden of Eden. I cannot tell, therefore, if the reference to a lack of “creation” stories among the wild tribes of South America is dismissing these examples or referring to different tribes.
The authors quote another source on pg. 259 here who claims that most South American stories of a flood involve water coming out of something rather than being caused by rain, which makes me think of the fountains bursting from the ground in Genesis, but that is just my speculation.
For the location of the Nazca lines, see here. The Nazca lines were probably made by carefully moving rocks out of sections of the desert to make lines as described here. That source also gives several theories about why the lines were made, but we still don’t have an accepted answer. Even today, new images are being found on the desert floor with the use of artificial intelligence searching through images as outlined in the article here.
For a paper outlining images of rock art from Columbia showing the red pigment images on the rocks and discussions of why the authors of the paper think the images present long extinct animals, see here.
For the details about many people living on the Amazon recorded by the first Spanish expedition down the river in the 1500s, see pgs. 10 and 15 in Carvajal, Gaspar de.The Discovery of the Amazon. AMS Press, Inc. 1934 that reference the expedition taking place in 1541-1542, pgs. 169-170 for the building of the boat, and pgs. 200-204 for examples of records of roads going back from the river, including one that was explored for a short distance and became wider and was compared to “royal highways” (see pg. 202). For the villages, one is mentioned on pg. 202 that “must have been more than two leagues long” and another on 203 is noted as, “this village extended for more than two and a half leagues.” Using a footnote on pg. 47 in that volume, it states that the length of a league varied, but in the time in question it was thought to be about 3.66 miles, which if accurate, would make the longer of these villages stretch just over 9 miles along the river.
One possible evidence that many people lived in South America before the Spanish and other Europeans arrived might be the dark fertile soil found in parts of the Amazon basin called “Terra Preta.” Looking into it, there is debate over whether it comes from humans making it or just harnessing things that they found. For a discussion, see pgs. 2-19 in the book here where pg. 14 notes evidence of pigs and cows in the soil while pgs. 11 and 14 note that those animals only arrived with Europeans, which makes it harder to see how the soil was developed before the Europeans arrived. In addition, the paper here argues that people didn’t make the land that way but it formed more naturally and they just used it. Another paper found here argues in section 3 that the dark soil is due to human presence in the past and also gives examples of changes to the landscape (canals, roads, raised farm fields) that show evidence that people used to live in the region. See also starting on pg. 104 in the book here.
For an overview of the use of LiDAR scanners on airplanes hunting for archeological sites see pgs. 28-30 here which includes mention of the time frame of development, how the system works, and the flight elevation. For the use of the system to find previously unknown ruins in the jungles of Honduras see pgs. 32-33 in the same source.
For papers detailing LiDAR scans of portions of South America where they found various earthworks, see the paper here that suggests there are thousands of earthwork sites yet to be found and notes they are most likely found in the southwest region. That paper also mentions the prevalence of certain trees around the earthwork sites suggesting that people cultivated the trees there (as I understand the meaning of “domesticated” when it comes to plants). Another paper found here suggests at least the southern area had high population density. Those surveys show most remnants of settlements appeared in the southwestern part, away from the path of the Amazon, but evidence of a population there supports the possibility that the story of de Orellana’s expedition may be more true than not, though that is only my opinion.
For the LiDAR scans from Ecuador showing plazas and terraces see the paper here and note that they give the age such that it appears to be from a thousand years or more before the Spanish arrived.
For the 2020 paper about the recently discovered plateau discovered by LiDAR, see here with pgs. 530 and 531 in that source giving the estimated dates for Olmec sites versus this new discovery showing the plateau is close to as old as the Olmec ruins and suggesting that the origin of materials found there support the idea that this site wasn’t closely related to the Olmec. If that observation and the dates are correct, it would suggest that the Olmec weren’t the only civilization of note 3000 years ago.
The “local flood” claim made by Frazer about some stories can be found on pgs 343-344 here.
In researching this episode, I came across the ruins found at Caral, a UNESCO world heritage site about 85 miles north of Lima, Peru and about 10 miles from the shores of the Pacific ocean (see here which gives coordinates for the location. The 85 mile distance from Caral to Lima and the distance in from the coast was measured on Google maps). The age of Caral as well as several other sites is given on pg. 749 here listing 2660 BC for Caral with other sites ranging into the 3000s BC and even one over 9000 BC. According to a Biblical timeline, the Flood only happened around 2400 BC (see Ussher’s date in Pierce, L., Pierce, M. (2012) The Annals of the World. (pg. 21)). As such, Caral can’t be older than that date or it would have been destroyed in the Flood. Even so, if the age of Caral and the other sites are anywhere close to 2000 BC, people might’ve migrated and established their civilization in South America very soon after leaving Babel. You can read the application for Caral here which gives details about the site. In that document, pg. 2 (pg. 10 of the PDF) mentions that there are 6 “large pyramidal structures” and describes the largest as “in the form of a pyramid” later noting that it has a “stepped profile” before recording the dimensions in meters which, when converted to feet, gives a base of 490 feet by 560 feet and a height ranging from over 60 to just under 100 feet. While that document describes these ruins as “pyramidal” if you look at pictures, the buildings look less like a step-pyramid than a series of walls that get taller toward the middle. There is reference to stones inside grass bags filling up old rooms in another pyramid described on pgs. 3 and 4 (PDF pgs. 11 and 12) in that document, and also references “successive periods of occupation” on pg. 2 (pg. 10 in the PDF) so it appears the pyramids grew over time rather than being built all at once. From the material I could find, I couldn’t tell whether only single terraces built, and then later people added another terrace on top eventually make a step-sided pyramid structure or if a multi-level pyramid was built at the outset and later generations just came back and made it bigger. The first paragraph on pg. 7 (pg. 15 in the PDF) refers to the upper rooms originally being made of “organic” materials before they later came and replaced them with stone, though it is unclear if this just means a room on top of a single level terrace or a room on top of multiple terrace levels. From all this, it isn’t clear to me what the original buildings were and whether or not they were originally intended to become step-sided buildings or just turned into that over time as layers were added on top of older structures. If they were originally step-sided, then the question remains: where did that idea come from? Did the original settlers who built these ruins bring the concept with them when they left Babel? On the other hand, if they were just platforms that accumulated one on top of the next over time, then is that the origin of the pyramids of the Americas? Are the later Olmec and Mayan and other pyramids just copied the pattern found at Caral? Are the pyramids of the Americas really independent inventions and unrelated to what you see across the ocean? From the data about Caral, I can’t tell. Regardless of the origins of Caral, the similarity between pyramids and ziggurats and step-sided pyramids found around the world isn’t proof of a common origin or even a connection between the people who built those structures. It could be coincidence. Perhaps it is natural for people to build structures that way because they are stable. Repeating a comment from earlier, we don’t know if the Tower of Babel was even the shape of these pyramid structures that we find, but the prevalence of the same general shape in these ruins found around the world makes me wonder if what we see is a smaller version of the type of building Babel might’ve been and people took that general plan with them when they spread out around the world, though this is, once again, only my speculation.
For a note on the difficulty of telling fact from fiction among stories from 1843, see pgs. 375-418 with the conclusion on pg. 418 here that the people in North America were probably influenced from east Asia, but that it was in the distant past. In that source, on pg. 381, the author states in the footnote discussing the connection that has been suggested between the history of the Tower of Babel and the pyramid of Cholula and notes that, “It is impossible to get a firm footing in the quicksands of tradition. The further we are removed from the Conquest, the more difficult it becomes to decide what belongs to the primitive Aztec, and what to the Christian convert” as his way of noting that it is hard to determine, even nearly 200 years ago, what stories were genuine and what had been affected by outside sources.
For the Inca legend of “giants” who came to the Americas 2000 years ago and of more people who came later and built an empire in the Americas before the Inca, see pgs. 204-207 here
For carvings in both India and the Americas that have a motif that looks similar with a 3-leaf clover shape near a crocodile (even though the crocodile carvings themselves are stylized differently) see pg. 82 for images P12-1 and P12-2 and pg. 84 for the caption for those images in Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek publishing.
Lice on a mummy in Peru who predates the Spanish invasion are the same as lice from the rest of the world, showing that lice were already in the Americas before Columbus came, according to the paper here. This doesn’t either support or deny the idea that cross-ocean travel happened prior to Columbus. As far as I can tell, the lice could be from hypothetical travelers bringing it to the locals as the Europeans did with so many things later on (see later show notes) or the original settlers in the Americas may simply have carried the lice with them when they migrated however far in the past that happened.
For a discussion of early beliefs that some “apostle” had come as an evangelist to the people of South America before the Spanish arrived, see pg. 202 here. Looking into this idea in researching the history and legends of the Aztecs and Mayans, I came across the observations from Spanish sources that noted lots of similarities between Christian practices and native traditions. For instance, Diego Durán notes stories that sound like events from the life of Moses and the tower of Babel, claiming to have heard the latter from a man nearly 100 years old (see pgs. 7-10 here) and draws the conclusion that the natives of the New World were descendants of the Israelites. In a summary of Durán, on pgs. 208-210 here the author notes the Israelite belief along with Durán’s suggestion of Christian contact in the past and a list of things that the natives did that reminded him of Christian traditions (like water in connection with confession and baptism) — though it is unclear how many of these parallels were truly in evidence versus only in Durán’s opinion.

In another summary, on pgs. 142-144 here there are examples of native traditions that included the use of the cross as a symbol, and then refers to “Bishop Landa” (I assume Diego de Landa whom I referenced in an earlier show note) and his record of baptism (including that it was supposedly called “Descent of God” and that it was believed to help people behave in a good way and gain a better afterlife. See discussion later in this show note), as well as things like confession of sins, penance, and other activities. That source goes on to mention legends like the story of a flood and a time when languages were confused and people dispersed. Referring to another source on pg. 143, there’s mention of a series of things that sound Christian including a supposed belief in a God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Son born from a virgin (with the virgin mother also in heaven), including such details as a crown of thorns, a death, and resurrection on the third day. That author references a Bartolome de las Casas who was in the Americas early-on after the Spanish arrived, and started writing early, too, but according to that article the writing in question wasn’t published until 1575, 9 years after his death. From what I can tell, the story of those beliefs come from what another Catholic clergyman had heard from a local person (see starting pg. 328 here). I used a digital translation application to translate it into English, but assuming it is correct, the story claims that the information was “new” and the source said it had been handed down since 20 people who came at some point in the past (possibly a long time, though I can’t tell based on how it is written), which, if true, would suggest that at least some outsiders had been there at some point, but it’s unclear who. The author of the original source here does note that the similarities could be due both to the native source being confused and the bias of the person who wrote things down. Given how close the beliefs are to Catholic traditions, I would tend to guess they are from Spanish influence somewhere along the line. De Landa wrote in the 1560s (see notes here that says de Landa wrote after 1564) four decades after the Spanish first arrived (assuming you start counting with Cortes’s invasion referenced earlier). Las Casas might’ve written earlier but been published later after Las Casas’ death, but I can’t tell when the story was recorded. Couple that with the fact that the people might’ve been confused or telling the Spanish things they wanted to hear (my speculation), or that the Spanish writer was writing down what they expected to hear (also my speculation) and it’s hard to know what details are true of these stories. In addition, according to the article here de Landa’s original work is lost, we only have a later shortened copy of it, so we can only assume that copy is accurate and nothing changed. This was a problem on another work from this part of history as noted on pg. xxii here which had parts added or removed by someone between 1575 and when it was published in 1632. That modified version was used and translated into the 1800s. The correct version only came into use after 1900 and was translated into English thereafter, making it important which version of the work is used for research.

Beyond de Landa, an even earlier source named Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who took part in the conquest of the Aztecs, says that natives used flint knives to circumcise themselves (see pg. 262 here, though given that the passage in question, starting with a summary at the top of pg. 262, is intending to give a list of “vices” it doesn’t appear to be something Castillo approved of. Since circumcision was a known tradition in the Middle East (see discussion below), if it was already happening in Central America when the Spanish arrived it sounds like evidence of some contact the locals had already had with others from across the ocean.

From Duran to de Landa to Las Casas to Castillo, there’s some suspicion that people in the New World had previous contact with outsiders such that they had already developed traditions that mirrored those from across the ocean, and if so, that would raise the suspicion that any legends that sound like the history in Genesis are from Genesis and might be examples of contact between these local populations and people from Africa, Europe, or Asia who knew the history found in Genesis. That is possible, but let’s first look at Spanish beliefs and how that might’ve influenced the traditions they recorded before looking at the traditions themselves to see if they are really from before the Spanish arrived.

Diego Duran, mentioned earlier, suggests that the people in the Americas must have had contact with a Christian missionary and then goes on to suggest that the Christian in question was Thomas the Apostle, whom he also identifies as being the same as the legendary Quetzalcoatl (see discussion of Duran’s opinions on pgs. 208-210 here). This same idea is noted on pg. 67 here that also references the legend of Thomas the Apostle being in the Americas. Investigating that idea, the article here suggests the idea that Thomas the Apostle had come to the Americas stems from Columbus’s initial belief that his voyage had discovered a way across the ocean to India, a place Thomas was believed to have traveled, rather than an entirely new set of continents. The idea that someone must have come to evangelize the people in the Americas could be taken from Colossians 1:23 but it is pointed out on pg. 195 in Francis D. Nichol, ed., The Seventh-Day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7 (Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1980) that Paul had not preached in Spain when he wrote the text in question, so the phrase he used doesn’t mean literally everywhere. We can’t prove that Thomas the apostle never came to the Americas, and the Spanish perhaps thought that he did, and this could influence their observations as they might be looking for evidence of Thomas’ teaching among the people they encountered, though that is just speculation.

If Thomas the apostle wasn’t ever an evangelist in the New World, why does it look like there are similarities between religious practices in the Americas and what Christians do? If the parallels were only to events or beliefs that happened or started prior to the dispersion of people from Babel (such as stories of creation, the first sin, the Flood, or the Tower of Babel), those could be passed down through history from one generation to the next as memories as people migrated away from Babel. The real question comes with similarities in the New World to things that happened after Babel like circumcision or later Christian practices such as the use of the symbol of the cross, baptism, or confession of sins to another person.

Starting with circumcision, in the Bible its origins go back to Abraham as defined in Genesis 17:9-14, who lived just a few centuries after Babel (see Genesis 11:10-31). A source that doesn’t accept the Biblical origins of the practice notes that scholars don’t agree where it started but mentions that the practice shows up in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia and notes that people Columbus found in the Americas were circumcised with the practice also done in ancient Egypt according to the article here (though the timeline they use for ancient Egypt is not accurate to the Bible). Given the age of the practice of circumcision and how geographically broad spread it was, it could have come from a number of sources. It might’ve started on its own. It may have been a tradition people were already doing when they migrated from Asia or other places and settled in the Americas, or it could’ve been introduced by an outside source, either Christian or otherwise, prior to Columbus’s arrival. This tradition alone doesn’t make it clear that there was Christian or Jewish influence on the local population before the Spanish got there, though it is curious (at least to me).

The next challenge is the use of the cross as a symbol. Some Mayan cross images are similar in shape to the Christian symbol, with the bottom longer than the top and arms. You can see a diagram of one on pg. 335 here, and while that article points out (on pg. 337) that it was compared to a Christian cross, it is referred to as a “world tree” with the shape linking the underworld, the earth, and the heavens (see pg. 333). If the Mayan cross does symbolize a world tree, I wonder if it could be a memory of the Tree of Life and recollections of the Garden of Eden, though whether that is the case in this instance is only my speculation. There’s a list of other places the cross symbol is found on pgs. 61-63 here and connects it to the rain god, though it references the claim that none of the images look like a “Latin” cross. Whether or not the Mayan carvings of crosses symbolize a “world tree,” it is perhaps worth noting that the symbol of a cross itself isn’t originally Christian and it predates Christianity according to the article here with a version of that article from more than 100 years ago (see pg. 506 here) noting that the cross symbol is much older than Christianity and shows up in varying forms among a number of ancient places in Europe, Asia, and Africa (which I assume is the extent of the “old world” the article refers to) though it doesn’t mention the age of crosses found in the Americas. In addition the article here notes that execution by crucifixion dates back to at least the Persian period under Darius I. From this history, there’s an open question about the Mayan cross symbol and whether it is native to the area or passed down through history from an outside, perhaps Christian, source in some otherwise unrecorded way. The crosses at Palenque date to several hundred years before the Spanish arrived (see dating given on pg. 335 here), so any claim of Christian contact would need to come from before that date if those crosses are evidence of such contact. See also pgs. 238-242 here which suggests that the person the Spanish thought of as a missionary apostle is just a symbolic interpretation of the sun, coming from the east and going over the sea to the west. In that passage it references that character as having a “cruciform symbol” and explains him putting a cross on top of a hill but interprets the symbol as referring to the four directions of the world, though I don’t know whether that information or interpretation is correct or not.

Third, from what I could find, the descriptions of confession and baptism come from Diego de Landa and Bernardino de Sahagun (both referenced in earlier show notes). Diego de Landa’s story is found on pgs. 43-45 here. There’s also the record of baptism given by both Sahagun about the Aztecs and De Landa about the Mayans on pgs. 63-69 here. These records of baptism have some similarities to what Christians do. This could be for a few reasons. First, it might be a coincidence. The native ceremony might’ve been invented to clean someone of sin just as water cleans people of dirt. The concept of sin goes back to the garden of Eden, after all. If not a coincidence, the similarities could come from outside influence on the local people before the Spanish got there. Finally, it could be from how the Spanish themselves affected the natives. On pg. 69 the author here references Sahagun’s checking that the information was accurate otherwise it would sound like the local ceremony came from Christians. The problem with linking this ceremony back to early Christian practice, is that it doesn’t mention the baptism found in the early Christian church. There is water involved, and there is the concept of sin and being reborn or cleaned, this might follow reasonably with John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance (see Acts 19:4) but there’s no element of faith like in the baptism given by Philip to the Ethiopian in Acts 8:26-40 in which the Ethiopian declared his belief in Jesus before being baptized. In neither the Aztec nor Mayan baptisms did there appear to be such a profession of faith in Jesus. Instead, the ceremonies more closely parallel Catholic practices of infant baptism and giving a baby a name. To me, that suggests that the native traditions came from either exposure to Spanish ceremonies, or from some earlier interaction with some unknown Christians before the Spanish arrived (though it would have to be late enough in time that it followed Catholic rather than early Christian traditions, unless the faith part was just forgotten over the years). This conclusion is, perhaps, supported by noting that de Landa and Sahagun’s works were published 40-60 years after the Spanish arrived in the Americas, giving time for the local people to mix Spanish customs with their own traditions, though that is just my speculation.

After discussing baptism there are also details about the local practice of confession on pgs. 45-46 here and pgs. 69-71 here with details that include people confessing sin to a priest when they were sick or to family members if the priest wasn’t there and having to do penance to be forgiven. This does sound somewhat like the Catholic practice of confession, but given that knowledge of sin and wrong-doing go back to the Garden of Eden, I’m not sure confessing a crime is evidence of Christian influence. People knew about the concept of sin since the Garden of Eden. Beyond that, in my opinion, some element of the idea of confession or admission of sin to God could be found in a memory of the sacrifice offered by Abel and the unacceptable sacrifice offered by Cain (see Genesis 4:1-15 which happened before the Flood and people spreading out from Babel. The similarities between what the local people practiced and Catholic tradition makes it hard not to wonder if these ceremonies, too, are more likely to be something the native people adopted from the Spanish rather than something genuine.

Finally, there’s a reference to something that people claim sounds like communion on pgs. 71-73 here as it involves eating the body of a god, though it is also accompanied by eating human sacrifices and is a bit of a weaker link in my opinion. From there, the same source goes on to mention feast days and fasting.

Given all the above data, it’s an open question whether the ceremonies the local people practiced that parallel some Christian traditions are independent, influenced by the Spanish, or come from some other outside source before the Spanish arrived. If, indeed, someone did visit before the Spanish got there and told of the history in Genesis and gave Christian traditions, then any tale or legend collected from the population by the Spanish that sounds like the history in Genesis might not really be a memory the natives passed down through history but just a story brought by some outsider. That said, there are still the problems of why the people in the Americas didn’t have plants and other things from across the ocean before Columbus arrived (see later show notes for details) and, unless Las Casas’ record is accurate, an absence of clear references to Jesus, the core of Christian belief.
The idea that there was a lot of contact in the ancient world between people in Asia, the Americas, and the islands in between is offered by Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek publishing. I’ve used that book as one of my sources in prior episodes as it includes some legends that parallel the history in Genesis. Though I’m not in agreement with some claims that source makes (arguing, for instance, on pgs. 999 and 1010 that history in Genesis was based on legends from other people), it does collect a lot of details from around the Pacific as part of supporting the theory that people used to travel back and forth across the Pacific and to the various islands found in it from around the 200s BC until perhaps when the Spanish showed up in Central America (see pgs. 105, 1040-1041). For possible transportation, the rafts that existed when the Spanish arrived are mentioned in a few places. Pizarro and his men found a raft prior to their invasion of the Inca empire given on pg. 30 in McEwan, Gordon F. The Incas. 2006. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.) where the author mentions that the raft was on a trip to Ecuador and carried Inca goods (thus appearing to be traveling between two places in South America). Kearsley notes on pg. 105 in Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek that the Spanish found “rafts” suggesting more than one event and that the rafts were far enough out in the ocean that the mainland of South America couldn’t be seen. Another description, on pgs. 206-207 here mention records of the Spanish seeing large balsa wood rafts that could hold 40-50 men. The idea that cross-Pacific travel was happening before Columbus crossed the Atlantic was also offered in a book from the 1880s (see pgs. 466-468 here that notes flood stories and Hindu tales of the four ages of the world and wonders if someone from Asia had visited Mexico at some point. Regardless of the specifics and whether or not such theories hold up to scrutiny, I think the general conclusion is at least plausible. Between the evidence presented showing various similarities between people living on both sides of the Pacific and my belief that people in the past were more than capable of figuring out how to navigate and sail long distances, I think it is possible there was some contact between people living on opposite sides of the Pacific. That said, I don’t subscribe to the final part of Kearsley’s theory where he argues that the source of so many similar legends was a specific people group in the middle east. Instead, I would generalize and suggest that just as stories from the middle east, including the history recorded in Genesis, could have diffused across Asia over time with travelers, traders, and missionaries, if people were venturing across the Pacific, the history from Genesis and elsewhere could have traveled across the Pacific with those people as well. In short, all this conclusion does is argue that information and legends found in Oceania and the Americas are not independent of the history of Asia. As such, when a legend is found that sounds like the history in Genesis, it’s not clear if it is an independent memory of that history handed down since people left Babel or a story adopted from some outsider who had brought the story with them (see pg. 747 in Kearsley, G. R., Mayan Genesis (2001) Yelsraek publishing). There is at least one problem with this theory: if so many people were crossing the Pacific, one would expect the plants, animals, and diseases found in Asia to be present in the Americas rather than only appearing after Columbus arrived as discussed in more detail in another show note below.
For examples of things that were new to Europe after Columbus found the Americas, see a list on pg. 163 here with further details starting on pg. 167 and going on thereafter. That source also notes by showing in italics on Table 1 on pg. 168 that oranges and bananas aren’t native to the Americas but are heavily grown in the Americas now, and at the end of that page notes that wheat was also a crop not native to the Americas. There is a helpful summary list here that notes before 1492 the Americas didn’t have wheat, apples, olives, bananas, or oranges among a list of foods that are now common. In that list it also notes grapes and rice, but gives the specific scientific name in parentheses afterward suggesting to me that the Americas lacked a specific variety of those plants, but perhaps not all forms of it. That source also notes animals that weren’t in the Americas before the Europeans came noting horses and cattle among others. In addition, pg. 179 here confirms a lack of horses, and pgs. 11 and 14 here note pigs and cows were also brought to South America by the Europeans.
For examples of diseases that were shared across the ocean after Columbus found the Americas, see pg. 164-165 here with the end of pg. 165 giving the percentage fatality rate among the native Americans from these new diseases. In addition to the illnesses the Europeans brought, that paper suggests on pg. 164 that syphilis was brought from the Americas back to Europe with further discussion on pgs. 166-167.
The closest link I found to the history in the Bible that comes after Babel but before the time of Jesus among the legends in Central and South America were similarities to the stories of the Israelites. In the first there is a reference to a people who were wandering in the interior for forty years that later had an alliance with the Mayapan, see pgs. 126-127 here, but the only similarity is that the people were migrating and the timespan was 40 years. In the second case, the Mayan story includes people miraculously crossing water, including dividing it with a tree or staff as noted in an earlier show note. Those stories could either be Christian influence or coincidental. Either way it’s unclear where they come from. For a similar span of time, see a show note from Episode 23 about the Cheyenne and the suggestion that a similar migration story might be evidence of contact with Christians in that case. As for history from the Christian era, the closest I can find to stories of Jesus appear to be references to the symbol of the cross and the ceremonies and traditions that seem like parallels to Christian practices like baptism or confession (see earlier show note for details and discussion). In those examples, though even if they are genuine and not due to Christian influence after the Spanish arrived, I didn’t find them talking about Jesus or tell of His perfect life, sacrifice, resurrection, or promise of a future (aside from the anecdote story from Las Casas, see earlier show note), all things that I would think a Christian group would emphasize as they passed the stories on to their children if indeed they had heard those stories from some outside source before Columbus arrived on their shores. The only scenario I can come up with is that the outsiders who came were non-Christian and therefore emphasized things like the Flood and confusion of languages but not other parts of Biblical history. Though, if that did happen, it emphasizes that the outsiders, whomever they were, still agreed with the early history given in Genesis and still fails to explain how such outsiders could visit without bringing plants, animals, or diseases as mentioned earlier
Once again, it is only my speculation that the pyramids around the world show a similar pattern because they were inspired by the design of the Tower or Babel.
The distance from Brazil to Africa and Africa to Iraq was measured on Google maps.
The cover art for this episode has a page from the Florentine codex written by Bernardino de Sahagun superimposed on the map of Central and South America. That page has material about the goddess that Sahagun linked to Eve. For more on the Florentine codex and the goddess in question, see earlier show notes.

Grandfathers of History, part 7

PodcastAdamJuly 31, 2026