Peruvian/Aztec Connections

While reading about Peru, or working with Maya glyphs, I often come across a word, phrase, or glyph that appeared to connect the Mesoamerican world with that of Peru. And Peruvian art reminds me, at times, of Maya codices or Aztec temple renderings, such as the Ollin glyph of Ehecatl, found in the skirt of the partially recovered monument.

Then there was the tale of a group of people in the Andes called the Quillacas [The Moon People?) who say they are the descendants of Lake Poopo, sacred to the moon.l. I immediately connected this to Lake Texcoco part of the volcanic area of Popocateptl in the Altiplano of Mexico. The staff is not so important with this carving. It is the stripe on the face that can be found in the Nuttall Codex. And the box or basket that the man is carrying. Although it covers his middle, it is not a loin cloth.

In the same breath almost, was a reference to the despised URUs, whose language was not Aymara, were said to have been born fro the slime of Lake Titicaca when it was first heated by the sun. Another tradition holds that the URUs were originally transplanted from the Pacific coast as slaves and settled near Titicaca under the guidance of their chieftan called Tacuilla [Ta Quilla = The Great Moon]. 2 The URUs, a despised tribe, could only be the URIs of Hawaii, whose name was altered to read ULI, sorcerers, and evil beings of the blue-black world of astronomy there.3

If I even tried to mention such a connection to any of my colleagues, I would get scolded roundedly because what I had read or seen had to be accidental. The dates were wrong, the area existed centuries before Mesoamerica or even Hawaii; the Carbon 14 was very accurate and could not be disputed. If one expects the art forms to be exactly alike from one country to the next, one must remember that a heavy duty job such as; carving stone is usually done by a contract to the natives, who attempted to combine the original suggested art form with their own concepts and ideals. The art forms change according to the culture, but the concept is still there.

Uhle and others say not only Mayan art but also Mayan tribes reached Peru by sea knowledge of pre-Conquest voyages from Yucatan to Isthmus and actual products of trade in Yucatan and late Old Empire cities. Not only that, the correlations are determined from Peruvian astronomical observations. The difference is 260 years.4 I have always wondered why the 260 years have been inserted into the calendar. It is a zodiac/horoscope calendar, as separate from the Maya calendar, as our own horoscope calculations are separate. It is not a year. It only adds a partial year to the total count of the calculations. The moon count is there also, but it is not added to the year, so why should the zodiac 260 count be added? It seems to confuse the calculations instead of clarify them.

A. Kroeber, I discovered later, also noted that there was a Mayoid strain in the art of Chavin and possible Mexican influence in terraced pyramids of the Chimu. He advocated a critical exam of Chavin art by specialists in Mayan field.5 There is the Monument of Chavín de Huántar, the great caiman who sits on its tail. But, yes, these are only unprovable items. The Mayistas decided that his suspicions were unfounded and to this day, refuse to consider any such connections. Their main reason is that the dates are extremely old in Peru and more recent in Mesoamerica and even younger in Hawaii.

Since cultures in these areas were wiped out, there are few manuscripts available there. Many buildings were destroyed, and monuments were broken. Sinced many of the dates were guesstimated before Carbon 14 and before later dating methods became available, they cannot be considered to be reliable. Even having been given updated carbon 14 web sites to check out, there was nothing that backtracked to those pre-set dates. I had also found such unsubtantiated elements using old, out-dated references when delving into Greek manuscripts. And the attitude there was the same. Those dates were also "proven" to be ancient. There was no recourse.

Then I opened an old book about Peruvian archaology and found the schemata of the temple in the Moxike area. I had had the book for years and had never even noticed this layout. But this time, I "saw" the great head of the Moon goddess, weeping tears of gold;(See top) and finally, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipochtli, as descibed in Vaillant's book The Aztec. 6 I was shocked. The truncated Peruvian pyramid shape also had an upper platform with two separate shrines on top. The Temple of Tenayuca was so huge that the priests quarters were also located on one of the platforms. One shrine was to the Great Sky God and the other to Huitzilopochtli. Even the name of the area reminded me of the Meshica, a medieval name for Mesoamericans.

These areas are all located near and about Chavín de Huántar, except for the lake Titicaca branch. It was as if, they were part of a colony from the Northern areas of the Americas. It was a colony that brought their religion with them. One that had to be destroyed, so that there would be no connection remembered with the northern residents.

1Osborne, Harold (1983)South American Mythology: The Library of the World's Myths and Legends p. 79.
2 Ibid.
3 Melville, L. (1969) Children of the Rainbow
4Hay, Linton, Lothrop, Shapiro and Vaillant, Chapter III, p. 428,
Ibid., p. 429, .
Lothrop S. K. (1936) "Zacualpa: A Study of Ancient Quiche Artifacts Carnegie Institute of Washington publication 472, Washington DC pp. 71 - 72.
Joyce, Thomas A. (1914) Mexican Archeology London,
Coclé (1937) "An Archeological Study of Central Panama" (part 1, Memoirs Peabody Museum of Harvard University Vol. 7 Cambridge) Figure 201; and
de Peralta, M. M. (1883) Costa Rica, Nicaragua y Panama en El Siglo XVI, Madrid, p. 117 5 Kroeber, A. L. (1930) "Cultural Relations Between North and South America" Proceedings XXIII International Congress of Americanists New York 1928, pp. 5 - 22, New York) 6 Vaillant, G. C. (1966) Aztecs of Mexico: origin, rise, and fall of the Aztec Nation. Penguin Books. pp. 101-102 & p. 165.