A Peruvian -Mesoamerican Legend: Leaving Tulan Bountiful – Part IX

Continuing from the previous post regarding the legend that ties in South America to Mesoamerica and shows that the Peruvian Andes were the Book of Mormon home of the Nephites and that those who went north in Hagoth’s ships traveled to Mesoamerica.

Nexzahualcoyotl (tlatoani of Texcoco), an ancestor of Ixtlilxochitl, but unlike other high-profile Mexican figures from the century preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Nezahualcoyotl was not Mexica, but a sister culture called the Acolhua, another Nahuan people settled in the eastern part of the Valley of Mexico, settling on the eastern side of Lake Texcoco—the Aztec Empire resulted in a triple alliance of three city-states with these two and the Tlacopan

Works of Ixtlilxochitl. Born about 1568 in Texcuco, Mexico, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, was the grandson of the last king of Texcuco, and the next-to-the-last Emperor of Mexico, Duitlahuac, who claimed their descent from the legendary Chichimex chieftains King Xoloti and Nopaltzin, thus he was a direct descendant of Ixtlilxochitl I and Ixtlilxochitl II, who had been tlatoque, or rulers, of Texcoco. Ixtlilxochitl was also of Spanish descent through his maternal grandfather who was Juan Grande.
    Ixtlilxochitl spent his entire life in Mexico, was a scholar and nobleman, and served as an interpreter for the court of Justice of the Indians, and was commissioned by the Spanish viceroy of New Spain to write histories of the indigenous peoples of Mexico
    As a descendant of Old Texcocan lineage, he had access to many of the ancient records of his people (Geroge C. Vaillant, Aztecs of Mexico: Origin, Rise and Fall of the Aztec Nation, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, N.Y., 1944, p 285; revised by Suzan- nah B. Vaillant in 1962). These included “the oldest known Texocan source dealing with tributaries and based on a pictorial text, which shoes fourteen towns with tlatoani, each of whom was married to a daughter of Nezahualcoyotl, and the Mapa Quinatzin, which was contemporary with Motolinia’s memorial” (Texcoco: Prehispanic and Colonial Perspectives, edited by Jongsoo Lee and Galen Brokaw, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2014, p78).
    As a result, Ixtlilxochitl wrote an ancient Mexican history, especially of the original colonizers known as “the people of Tulan,” and their extremely detailed history down through the Spanish Conquest of Mexico.
    In his 16^th- century writings, Ixtlilxochitl knew that such books had existed in Mesoamerica in very early times, and is considered by some to be an underestimated historian. It was Ixtlilochitl who wrote about Huematzin, an historian and compiler of ancient records, who lived some 400 years before him and compiled a divine book—it should be noted that the Aztecs began to build their capital city, Tenochtitlan in 1325 A.D. on the islands in Lake Texcoco.
    fiHuematzin’s Teo Amoxtli (teoamoxtli means “divine book”). Before dying around 1200 A.D., Huematzin (Hueman o Huematzin), the astrologer (philosopher), and Keeper of the Divine Book, was a  Tolteca of Bountiful-land, a great religious leader and prophet, who gathered together all the histories the Tultecas had, from the Creation of the world up to that time and had them pictured in a very large book.

His work pictured all their persecutions and hardships, prosperities and good happenings, kings and lords, laws and good government of their ancestors, old sayings and good examples, temples, idols, sacrifices, rites and ceremonies that they had, including astrology, philosophy, architecture, and the other arts, and a resume of all things of science, knowledge, prosperous and adverse battles, and many other things. He titled his work, Teoamoxtli, which means Various things of God and divine book. The natives came to call his work the Holy Scriptures (Ixtlilxochitl, writing about Hueman (Huemanzin), footnote 86 (LXXX- VI).
    All these and other codices all center on the ancient colonizers of Mesoamerica, crediting them with knowledge and records of the Creation and their travel to this land by boat. All show that these colonizers were religious people and most suggest they were unhappy about leaving their ancient homeland to come to this new land. As suggested above, specific examples show a relationship to the area of Peru/Ecuador in South America, the Nephite Bountiful, as that ancient homeland.
    The writings of Ixtlilxochitl, as earlier mentioned, was a compilation of other, older records he had at his disposal. Born and raised in Mexico, of a royal lineage, he had access to any record then extant. These older records, including those of Huematzin, were of events that took place many centuries before Ixtlilxochitl’s time and several hundred years before the time of Huemaztin, if indeed, he lived in the 1200s A.D. Obviously, most of this information was originally kept by word of mouth from generation to generation, long before information was actually placed into some written format.
    As an example, Ixtlilxochitl, who had all these early records at his disposal, plus the legends and myths told him verbally from his people, claimed that the Creation took place in 5229 B.C., and that the Deluge occurred 1716 years afterward, in 3513 B.C. Like all ancient histories recorded centuries, and millennia, after their occurrence, certain errors are bound to be incorporated, and even expected. Therefore, certain hesitation must be given to a literal interpretation of such ancient histories, and reasonable doubt used to ferret out the facts from the fiction. The important thing about Ixtlilxochitl’s Creation dates, is that he shows that the Creation was known among the early settlers of Mesoamerica and that they were religious people—the actual date he claims things occurred is immaterial, and in this, considerably wrong according to the revealed word of God on the subject matter.
Three Groups Came to the New World: Ixtlilxochitl also writes about the early settlers or colonizers, whom he calls Tultecas, as he did to all the highly cultured colonizers of ancient Middle America. These first Tultecas, which he also called the Ancient Ones, and Giants, migrated to the New World from “the very high tower” at the time of the confusion of tongues.

Obviously, this would have been the Jaredites. He also writes about a later group, which he also called Tultecas, but were referred to as Nahuas or Nahuales in ancient Guatemalan histories. These, it is claimed, were the Nephites. A third group he refers to as the Ulmecs—usually spelled by others as Olmecs. So according to Ixtlilxochitl, there were three groups of people who came to the New World which fit nicely into Book of Mormon records as Jaredites, Nephites, and Mulekites.
    These people were called collectively Tultecas by Ixtlilxochitl, and in his Nahuatl language, the word means “Master Builder,” and both the Jaredites and Nephites were obviously that, leaving their remains of fabulous structures rivaling or even surpassing the abilities of ancient Rome, as claimed by the Conquerors.
Mixing Legends and Myth with Historical Events: The question is, did the Jaredites and Nephites (and Mulekites) arrive first in Mesoamerica, and thus Ixtlilxochitl’s writings were of this event? Or did they arrive first elsewhere, then a large number of Nephites migrated to Mesoamerica, bringing with them their histories and that of the Jaredites, which became intermingled into the historical folklore, myths and legends of the Tultecas over the two thousand years following?
    As an example, we know that the Jaredites left from the Great Tower at the time of the confusion of tongues; and we know that they were described as “large and mighty men,” by Ether, and as “Giants” in ancient historical myth and legends in Ecuador and Peru. We also know they built vast cities and palaces, much like those of their original homeland. We also know that the Nephites were master builders, constructing vast cities, temple complexes, thousands of miles of roads, and numerous buildings. Stated differently, it appears that Ixtlilochitl has the people and events correct, but has the locale and location wrong.
    That is, the Jaredites could have landed in the Ecuadorian area as depicted in the author’s Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica, lived, fought and died there. The Nephites could have landed in the Chilean area and migrated to Peru and later Ecuador as also depicted in the author’s earlier work, then after the lengthy wars, some of the Nephites emigrated to Mesoamerica in Hagoth’s ships as earlier illustrated.

Once the emigrants landed and spread through the land, their stories of their heritage and ancestry would have been told and retold for centuries until over time the legends and myths took on a somewhat life of their own. It is obviously not difficult to see how specifics could have become altered until nearly unrecognizable, yet maintaining an overall semblance of the historical events.
    In addition, Ixtlilxochitl credits the original settlers with expertness in the workings of metal, copper, iron, gold and silver. But since no evidence of metallurgy has been found in Mesoamerica during pre-Christian times, scholars have tried various arguments to diminish this ancient trade. As Hunter and Ferguson state regarding this conflict with the Book of Mormon and Ixtlilxochitl’s writings:
    “To be consistent and in accord with truth, both accounts necessarily had to credit the Bountiful colonizers with knowledge of working those metals, since these people have migrated from the former home in the Near East” (J. W. Grossman, “An Ancient Gold Worker’s Tool Kit: The Earliest Metal Technology in Peru,” Archaeology 25, 1972, pp 270-275; A. C. Paulsen, “Prehistoric Trade Between South Coastal Ecuador and Other Parts of the Andes” (paper read at the 1972 annual meeting, Society for American Archaeology).
    The authors go on to draw a parallel between metallurgy in Palestine and Mesopotamia from 3000 B.C. to show that the early Nephites definitely had this knowledge. In the intervening nearly sixty years since Hunter and Ferguson’s work, enough metallurgy has been found in the New World in Peru and Ecuador as early as 1900 B.C. onward, to show that such scriptural evidence as contained in the Book of Mormon is factual and accurate.

The question, of course, is not whether the Nephites knew metallurgy, for the scriptures are quite clear on this point. The question is when did metallurgy exist in Mesoamerica. Like so many scholars who have their mind made up that Mesoamerica is the place of Lehi’s first landing, Hunter and Ferguson tried to show why no record of metallurgy was found in Central America in the B.C. era.
    Later scholars like Sorenson are still trying to explain away why nothing has ever been found to date metallurgy in Mesoamerica before the Christian era. While scholars generally claim metallurgy did not exist in Mesoamerica until 900 A.D., Sorenson claims items have been located to show a rst century B.C. existence, but can only speculate on metallurgy before that date.
(See the next post, “A Peruvian -Mesoamerican Legend: Leaving Tulan Bountiful –  Part X,” for more on this original legend and the tie-in to Peru)