Continuing
from the previous post regarding the legends found in the Amerias, and that
those in South America are as legitimate as those found in Mesoamerica and
North America.
Most of the Guaraní legends were compiled by the
Univeridad Nacional de Misiones, and published as Myths and Legends: A
journey around the Guarani lands, Anthology in 1870 (translated into the
English language in 1906. Guarani myth and legend can roughly be divided into
broad categories, with one of their origination legends stating:
“at one time in the distant past our ancestors crossed a
great and spacious ocean from a far land to settle in the Americas. They found
the land both wonderful yet full of dangers; through diligence and effort they
subdued the land and inaugurated a new civilization.” There were two brothers
that vied for leadership of the people: Tupi and Guaraní. Eventually they feuded and divided the people into two
separate nations. Each nation, or tribe, adopted the name of the brother who
was its leader.” In this division, the Tupi tribes adopted a more fierce,
nomadic lifestyle, rejecting the agricultural traditions of their fathers. They
engaged in the practice of drinking large quantities of “mate,” a drink
prepared from the guarana tree.
The Guaraní tribes became a
stable, God-fearing people, believing in ñamandu, “the true father, the first
one” who worked the land and became excellent craftsmen. These
hospitable people were well-built, vigorous, and healthy, and seemed gifted
with good character and abounding joy, and looked
forward to the coming of a tall, fair-skinned, blue eyed, bearded God (Pa'i
Shume) who, according to legend, descended from the skies and expressed
his pleasure with the Guaraní, and imparted
religious instruction. He unlocked the secrets of health and medicine
and revealed the healing qualities of native plants.
Today, the descendants of these
people live mostly in Paraguay, which at the time the Spanish arrived, was a
territory much larger than today, and still speak the Guaraní language. Over
the last few centuries their population has made a comeback and now stands
around 270,000.
The bearded Creator God, Bochica, also alluded to as Nemquetaha, Nemqueteba, and Sadigua, is a figure in the religion of the muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense during the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia. He was the founding hero of their civilization, who according to legend brought morals and laws to the people and taught them agriculture and other crafts. In the Andes, he is much like the Peruvian Viracocha
In Colombia the ancient natives had
a legend of a creator and civilizer God, like Viracocha named Bochica, a
bearded man who came from the east. He was a gentle hero, a teaching of all thing good, including laws and morals, wandering far and wide teaching the natives right from wrong, and considerined the founding hero of their civilization, who the people ethical and moral normals and a model of by which they could organize their states with both a spiritual leader and a secular leader. He also taught the agricultgure, how to build, and many other crafts. He is remembered as having a startling appearance, tall and imposing-looking, weathered and dressed in a tunic. In his strong broned hand he carried a large gold scepter. He wanted the people to learn how to care for themselves, so he began to teach them. He taught them how to sow their fields, how to plant and harvest, how to build houses and how to weave cottyon and other fibers that they learned to grow in abundance upon their land.
Over time, it would appear, lthat this legend became mixed with the legend of a mortal, one easily paralleling Nephi, who taught his people how to do so many things (2 Nephi 5:15). He was the founding hero of their
civilization, who the people ethical and moral norms and a model by which they
could organize their states with both a spiritual leader and a secular leader.
He also taught them agriculture and other crafts.
In Peru is the legend of two races,
or two peoples, both came to the land by sea, one to the north and the other
settled in the south, with the one in the north advanced, busy, active builders
and developers, while to the south is a less capable people with totally
different customs, speaking different languages though at one time they were
the same, who continually attack, kill and rob the people to the north. Another legend considers these two
peoples the Quichua and the other the Aymara, with two separate languages that
today are recognized as a common grammatical structure, with a great number of
words being common to both.
There is another legend of four
peoples settling the greater Cuzco region, which they divided into four
sections, that of the Colla-suyu, with the valley of Titicaca as its center,
and stretching from the Bolivian highlands to Cuzco; the Conti-suyu, between
the Colla-suyu and the ocean; the Quichua Chinchay-suyu, of the north-west; and
the Anti-suyu, of the montaña region. Much later in time, when the Inca people,
coming suddenly into these lands, annexed them with surprising rapidity, and,
making the aboriginal tribes dependent upon their rule, spread themselves over
the face of the country. Thus wrote the Spanish historians and chroniclers, but
now it is that such rapid conquest was a practical impossibility, and it is now
understood that the Inca power was consolidated only some hundred years before
the coming of Pizarro.
The legend of Manco Capac, the hero
of Peruvian antiquity, and his sister-wife Mama Oullo Huaca, who was involved
in laying the foundations of a city, called today Cuzco. This heavenly pair in
the land of Peru abounded in every desirable thing, like the Eden of Genesis.
This is sometimes mixed with the legend of the four brothers, with Manco being
the youngest of the four who rose to lead the others, and their wives were all
sisters, and thus having had the beginning of their lineage in them, they made
huacas [sacred things] and places of worship of them, in memory of the origin
of their lineage (this certain sounds once again like Nephi and his brothers
and their wives, the daughters of Ishmael, who founded the land after Lehi
landed).
The point of all of
this is to show that Lehi and Nephite legends abound in Andean Peru, including
evidences of baptism; Egyptian-style mummification of the dead; stone burial sepulchers
like those in the Middle East; the legend of Tupã, Viracocha, Pachacamac, all
the supreme God of all creation known by different cultures throughout South
America; flood legends among all ancient
cultures there; earliest dated metallurgy in the Americas; archaeological evidence
showing paleoamericans were first in South America, as well as white tribes in
South America.
Thus, we find evidence
of Lehi and Nephite legends and occurrences throughout the Western Hemisphere. We
also find that it began in the south (South America) and worked its way
northward (Meso/Central America) and finally into where Joseph mentions
Nephites/Lamanites in the land of the plains where Zelph was found (North
America). This verifies the many comments made by modern-day Prophets and
Church leaders that Zion and the Land of Promise if the Americas, both North
and South America.
This also verifies the
scriptural record that tells us that the Nephites were continually moving
northward with the Lamanites following them from the south. Thus, we see that
the Nephites began in the south where Mormon tells us Lehi landed (Alma 22:28).
From there they advanced northward, with many going further north in Hagoth’s
ships to “a land which was northward” and disappearing from the Nephite Nation
and the story-line of the scriptural record, but not lost to history as Joseph
Smith informed us with his vision of Zelph and understading of the Nephite
Plains.
There is simply too
much evidence of the Nephites and Lamanites in all three general areas to deny
the fact any longer. Lehi landed in South America, and the entire Book of
Mormon incidents took place in Andean South America, with Lehi’s descendants
traveling northward, beginning with Hagoth’s ships (Alma 63:5, 6-7), ending up
in the plains Joseph Smith wrote his wife, Emma, about.
Thus,
the inheritance of Lehi (Menasseh) will be in the south, and the New Jerusalem
and the government of the Church (Ephraim) will be in the north.
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Interesting series Del. Another logical and scripture based evidence for South America as the Book of Mormon lands. Thanks!
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