A previous posting on the subject:
Kuelap - The Machu Picchu Of Northern Peru (Chachapoyas - White, blonde haired people)
Legenday? Sequel to I Am Legend?
I invite each of you to speculate as to who are these people. I'll start:
* King Solomon's exiled miners. (They were forgotten there when ancient Israel fell into turmoil)
Have DNA analysis of their origins been able to be done?
In the 1500’s, the conquistador Pizarro described the Incan rulers as “corn blond” and “whiter than the people of spain”. Interesting indeed!
So...can Norway demand restitution from Mexico for the slaughter of her people?
Another translation: They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in the Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.
That puts a different complexion on the Chachapoyas. For Indians they were light-skinned, but they weren't necessarily so by European standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chachapoyas_culture#Origin_of_the_Chachapoyas
Contrary to erroneous assertions, no early Spanish accounts describe the Chachapoyas as “blond haired” or “blue eyed”. The oft-quoted Cieza de Leon merely records that they were the “whitest” in coloration he had seen. There is no indication of “racial” connotations in this description - another early Spanish source, Pedro Pizarro, describes all the Indians of Peru as “white”. Hair and eye color are not mentioned. Thus the supposedly “enduring mystery for scholars of the region as to their ultimate origin” is a modern slant based on a misunderstanding of the sources, and seems largely driven by a desire to find a trans-Atlantic origin for the Chachapoyas.
All that seems to be indicated by Cieza de Leon is that the Chachapoyas were among the lightest in skin color, of the Andean natives the Spanish contacted. Inge Schjellerup’s book Incas and Spaniards in the Conquest of the Chachapoyas (1997) refers to anthropological examinations of the physical remains of Chachapoyans. There is no reason from these to conclude that the Chachapoyas had any exotic origins different from other ancient Peruvians. For instance, the teeth show an almost complete absence of Carabelli’s cusp on the upper molars, while shovel-shaped upper incisors are universally present - in both of these the Chachapoyas resemble other Amerindians, and differ from “white” Europeans.
When did they start storing people on the cloud?
So I am tall, blonde hair and blue eyes. I was shopping in a craft store for some paint supplies and a child from Africa (saw me and froze in his tracks staring at me and then following me around the store. He was kind of afraid of me but still followed me around at a distance. I noticed him and talked to him but he looked afraid and then I thought maybe he is lost and told a clerk that I thought there was something wrong for him. His aunt arrived and explained that he thought I was “a god” because my “coloring was so strange.” That made no sense to me at the time and I assigned it to poor English skills. LOL
Actually, "warriors of the clouds" would apply better to the Incas themselves: scientists say that the short stature and proportions of the Andean peoples is well suited to the thin atmosphere at high altitudes.
But if you were an Inca and came across a people who were taller than others and possibly with a different skin tone from yours, you might make them part of your mythology -- and that would fit in well with European mythology.
We tend to assume that people from cold and snowy regions like mountains or polar areas are tall, blond, and blue-eyed, even though that's not the case for Incas, Sherpas, Eskimos, and other groups who actually inhabited those environments.
Could be some of George Zimmerman’s kin folks.
I bet they exploited the "indigenous" people-of-color. Probably forced them to be heterosexual as well.[/sarcasm]