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Very insightful, thanks.

Viracocha / Kukulkan / Quetzalcoatl

The feathered serpent god is one of the great mysteries of ancient American cultures. He was called Kukulkan by the Mayas, Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs, Viracocha by the Incas, Gucumatz in central America, Votan in Palenque and Zamna in Izamal.

He (and in some cases his ‘men’) was described as being a caucasian, bearded man in some writings, as someone with white skin, hair on the face and beautiful emerald eyes in others..

The supreme deity of the Incas: Viracocha

The Incas, which had a great technology when the Europeans are still barbaric nomads, said that their technology was taught to them by Viracocha who was described as a caucasian, bearded man.
Legends of the Aymara Indians say that the Creator God Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca during the time of darkness to bring forth light. Viracocha was a storm god and a sun god who was represented as wearing the sun for a crown, with thunderbolts in his hands, and tears descending from his eyes as rain. He wandered the earth disguised as a beggar and wept when he saw the plight of the creatures he had created, but knew that he must sustain them.

Viracocha made the earth, the stars, the sky and mankind, but his first creation displeased him, so he destroyed it with a flood and made a new, better one, taking to his wanderings as a beggar, teaching his new creations the rudiments of civilisation, as well as working numerous miracles. Viracocha eventually disappeared across the Pacific Ocean (by walking on the water), setting off near Manta Ecuador, and never returned. It was thought that Viracocha would re-appear in times of trouble.
References are also found of a group of men named the suncasapa or bearded ones - they were the mythic soldiers of Viracocha, aka the ‘angelic warriors of Viracocha’ Note: Later one of the Inca Kings (the eighth Inca ruler) took on the name of Viracocha.

Gateway of the Sun The famous carved figure on the decorated archway in the ancient (pre-Incan) city of Tiahuanaco, known as the "Gateway of the Sun," most likely represents Viracocha, flanked by 48 winged effigies, 32 with human faces and 16 with condor's heads. This huge monument is hewn from a single block of stone, and some believe that the strange symbols might represent a calendar, the oldest in the world.

A huge monolithic figure, facing east in the direction of sunrise, stands as silent witness to an unknown civilization established about 2200 years ago.

Mayas: Kukulkan

Kukulkan is both a real person and a myth. The king Kukulkan lived about twenty centuries ago and was the founder of all empires in ancient America.

He came from heaven to earth, and because of that he was represented as a feathered serpent in all the majestic and enigmatic ruins of Mexico's archaeological sites. Half man and half god in one same being. The quetzal bird representing heaven, the serpent representing earth.

White-skinned and bearded, Kukulkan was also the god of life and divine wisdom.
He brought love, penitence, and exemption from the usual rituals of sacrifice and blood offering. He used to say: "ytzeen caan, ytzeen muyal," which in ancient Mayan means: "I am the dew and substance from heaven."

He was a mystical man who received people from distant places, and had the power to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life. When he departed for the east, traveling the ocean on a raft of serpents, he promised his followers to return in the year Cortes' expedition disembarked on the shores of Veracruz.

Aztecs: Quetzalcoatl

The deity Quetzalcoatl was the Lord of Intelligence and the Winds in Aztec mythology. The myth says that Quetzalcoatl had been humiliated and set off to the east.

The year is 1519. Hernand Cortes has been named commander of a force setting out from Cuba to find an unknown kingdom.
Meanwhile, the Aztecs of Mexico are thriving as a culture, the centre of this rich culture at Tenochtitlan, which has been established for nearly 200 years.
They had as an apocalyptic myth the coming of the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, and his army. The Spanish conquistadors filled the requirements for these myths and made them self fulfilling prophecies - the Aztecs believed that their own god had come to destroy them.

Maybe Motecuhzoma thought that, since the Spanish had come from the direction that Quetzalcoatl had last been seen, this strange conqueror may logically be the returning god. The date of the coming of the Spanish was strongly associated with Quetzalcoatl.

Conclusion

Both the Aztecs and Incas had cultures that were thriving and quite advanced in many ways. The architecture, calendars, and art of these peoples were at least to European standards, if not superior in quality.

The deity known as Viracocha / Kukulkan / Quetzalcoatl was said to be responsible for giving these crafts to the Aztecs, Incas, Mayas... If this ‘deity’ was European (Could he have been a Viking? They seem to have travelled around a lot) how did he manage to impart his knowledge across such a vast area? Besides, let’s not forget the Incas and Aztecs were ahead of us at that time.

Viracocha / Kukulkan / Quetzalcoatl is one of the many enigmas of our Earth's history.

This mystery could be explained by the man being an alien (or a group of aliens, since he seems to have been all over the place). Which could also explain the various references to this ‘deity’ arriving from the sky - but Viracocha / Kukulkan / Quetzalcoatl could equally well be a mere legend. A bearded, Caucasian-type legend.

Select Bibliography
Brundage, Burr C. Lords of Cuzco. University of Oklahoma, Norman, 1967.
Townsend, Richard F. The Aztecs. Thames and Hudson, new York, 1992.

Both the Aztecs and Incas had cultures that were thriving and quite advanced in many ways. The architecture, calendars, and art of these peoples were at least to European standards, if not superior in quality.

Yeah, if it weren't for that little human sacrifice thing, just imagine what they might have accomplished. ;)

Interesting. What I've always found fascinating about Viracoacha is the way the legend changed over time and adapted itself to various cultures. It was essentially one common religion stretching from central Mexico to the southern part of South America, and it was believed by peoples who had never conquered or even really traded with each other. This indicates that the religion was incredibly old and that it probably dated back to the areas earliest settlers many thousands of years ago. The version found at Tiahuanaco seems to be the parent for the versions that the Europeans ran into, but we already know that the Tiahuanaco version itself came from another version at least a thousand years older. The versions the Spanish encountered were spin-offs, where the religion had been adapted so that every civilization had named THEMSELVES as the Gods chosen people, and they'd been adapted to local geography and technology (a few versions have him/them arriving by boat, some have him sailing into the Atlantic, and a few have him walking on water or flying over the ocean up into the sky).

People have been trying to pin "him" down since the 1500's, and I doubt anything will ever come of it. It's an interesting religion because Virocoacha preached peace when most religions back then, in that part of the world, were very warlike, so it's possible that there may be some tiny grain of truth buried in there somewhere, but that history was lost millenia ago. Graham Hancock guessed that Viracoacha and his companions were from Atlantis in his book Fingerprints of the Gods. Other people have linked the legends to the Nazca lines and claim that he was an alien. Christians like to look at his peaceful nature and claim that he was everything from an Irish monk to Christ Himself (since the legend predates Christianity, neither is likely). Even the one possibility that's remotely possible, that the norse actually followed the coast to central America, is extremely unlikely since their warlike ways would have been a polar opposite of Viracoacha's peaceful preaching.

The most likely exploration is that Viracoacha was some kind of peaceful ruler who existed when one of the earliest peoples was transitioning from a tribal to a city based culture. Since white was seen as a sign of purity, the later legends gave him white skin.

"...The Incas, which had a great technology when the Europeans are still barbaric nomads..."

What rubbish. The Romans predated the Incas by more than 1000 years. The Incas didn't even have the use of the wheel, except on toys.

I would like to point out that, with the exception of gold, silver and copper, the New World civilizations were essentially stone age. Their "advanced technology" extended to flaking obsidian knives for ritual sacrifices -- something the "barbaric" Europeans had considered obsolete for millennia. The club and the obsidian-edged sword were the height of New World military technology.

Even their architectural prowess was matched millennia earlier by the Egyptians and Romans and surpassed by Medieval Arabs.

let’s not forget the Incas and Aztecs were ahead of us at that time.
without the wheel?????