Cloud People of Peru

cloud-people“Archeologists have discovered a 12-acre lost city deep within the Amazon rain forest that may shed light on a long-lost tribe of white-skinned, blonde-haired people known as the Cloud People. The Cloud People, also known in legend as “the white warriors of the clouds” established expansive kingdom located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru during the ninth century. Other pre-hispanic groups referred to the Cloud People as “White Gods” due to their height, blonde hair and blue eyes. According to Inca legend, the Chachapoyas remembered that their ancestors came from the East. The Amazon river is on the East and far east is the Atlantic Ocean. Archeologists have discovered paintings and drawings of large ships on the buildings of the Chachapoyas, indicating that they possibly traveled from Europe to South America by sea, passing through the Amazon river flows until they reached a more tolerable climate, away from the unbearable tropical heat of the Amazon jungle.”

“Little is known about the hill tribes that in the tenth century began carving settlements out of the dense cloud forests in the mountains between the Marañón and Huallaga Rivers. Inca contemporaries called them Chachapoya, the Cloud People. Although they left no written language, they did leave scores of stone ruins in this vertical wilderness of orchids, butterflies, and jaguars, where thick brush and mists camouflage sheer drop-offs. For more than 500 years the Chachapoya cut farm terraces and villages into these steep slopes, raised llamas and guinea pigs—and fought each other. Around 1470 the Inca conquered the region. When Spaniards arrived in 1535, the surviving Chachapoya joined them to rout the Inca, impressing the Europeans with their battle prowess. By 1700 smallpox and other diseases had killed most of the Chachapoya. Even in its looted state the site has yielded tantalizing artifacts such as shell jewelry, which suggests contact with coastal people. ”

“The buildings found on the Pachallama peak are in remarkably good condition, estimated to be over 1,000 years old and comprised of the traditional round stone houses built by the Chachapoya, the ‘Cloud Forest People’. Initial studies have found similarities between the new discovery and the Cloud Peoples’ super fortress of Kulep, also in Utcubamba province, which is older and more extensive that the Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu, but has not been fully explored or restored. Little is known about the Chachapoya, except that they had been beaten into submission by the mighty Incas in 1475. Spanish texts from the era describe the Cloud People as ferocious fighters who mummified their dead. The women of the Chachapoya were much prized by the Incas as they were tall and fair skinned. The Chronicler Pedro Cieza de León offers wrote of the Chachapoyas. “They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in 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.”