Page 85 - Brugger Karl The chronicle of Akakor

The Chronicle of Akakor
the next years, the European conquerors did everything to translate this intention into action. Within a few
decades they destroyed three great empires, murdered millions of people, and even destroyed all written
records of civilizations which, in many respects, were not only equal but even superior to their own. The
New World went up in smoke, devastated and looted by the sailors who had been received like Gods. "They
venerate us like divine beings," wrote the Jesuit padre Dom José to the Spanish king. "They give us
everything we may want. Yes, they even know the story of the Savior. I can only imagine that one of the
twelve apostles must have been on this continent before."

According to the oral and written traditions of the old American peoples, the Spanish and Portuguese
conquerors owed their friendly reception not to a widely traveled apostle but to the Gods. They had done
nothing but good for the people and promised to return one day. Since, according to the priests, "the time
had run its course and the strangers had arrived on mighty ships gliding soundlessly over the water, and
with masts reaching into the sky," the people saw that the prediction was being fulfilled. The race of the Sun
Father of the Incas, of the Ancient Fathers of the Ugha Mongulala, had returned.

Very soon, though, the natives learned that they had become the victims of a cruel deception. The supposed
Gods behaved like devils. "They were bone breakers, worse than animals," as the Chronicle of Akakor puts
it. The Aztec, Inca, and Maya empires were destroyed; with them the legend of the return of the divine
ancestors also died. Only the Indian tribes living in inaccessible jungle areas have preserved this belief to
the present day. "The natives came to meet us as if they had expected us," writes the Brazilian ethnologist
Orlando Vilas Boas in his report on establishing contact with a tribe of the Aruak in 1961. "They escorted
the expedition to the center of the village and presented gifts. The behavior of the Indians must be linked to
an ancient memory which has been passed on from generation to generation."

The White Cities, the Jungle Empire on the Amazonas
The subjugation of Peru and the destruction of the Indian tribes on the Brazilian coast changed the course of
the South American conquest. The character of the strangers was no longer a mystery to the natives; they
were now aware of their aims and the credibility of their words, and they offered strong resistance.

The first to experience this was Pizarro’s companion, the Spanish adventurer Francisco Orellana, who,
under great hardship, navigated the Amazon to its mouth. The first crossing of the South American
continent had succeeded, and was described and documented in the logbook of his companion Gaspar de
Carvajal. According to this report, Orellana found strongly structured communities on both banks of the
river.

Carvajal describes market buildings, fisheries, and generously laid out settlements built to keep the
Spaniards from landing, as well as numerous streets, fortifications, and public buildings. Villages were
packed together so closely that the region appeared to Carvajal like part of his native Spain: "We advanced
ever further into inhabited areas, and one morning at eight o’clock, after we had negotiated a bend in the
river, we saw a beautiful city which by its size must be the capital of an empire. Numerous white cities
followed later, barely two miles from the river bank."

Carvajal’s report is proof of an extensive developed empire in the interior of Amazonia in the seventeenth
century, with a high degree of civilization, for the fortifications and the white cities could not have been
constructed by jungle Indians. Only the Incas, the Maya, or the Aztecs would have been capable of such an
achievement. Since their empires have been proved to have been restricted to the western parts of the
continent, only one other people can be considered: according to the Chronicle of Akakor, the Ugha
Mongulala.

A hundred years later, the Jesuit Cristobal Acuna confirmed the reports of his predecessor. He also
describes the signs of urban life: dense population, defensive measures, and public buildings "in which there
were many garments made of multicolored feathers." In conclusion, Acuna summarizes the impression he
has gained of the country through which he passed for several months: "All the peoples along this river are

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