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| 'Lost City' (Illustration by Virgil Finlay) |
There has been much talk lately of an extraordinary find deep within the Honduran jungle. This discovery is said to be the long-lost White City (“La Ciudad Blanca”) of the Monkey God.
The Honduran Monkey God and accompanying rituals were vividly described by explorer Theodore Morde back in 1940. He believed
the White City (so-called because of the color of its stones) to be the capital of the Chorotegan people.
Morde’s Paya guides explained what the Monkey God’s temple had once looked like. This knowledge had been orally passed down to them for generations.
According to these guides, the Monkey God’s temple had a “long staired approach” which was “lined with stone effigies of monkeys.”
The temple’s core
consisted of “a high stone dais on which there was a statue of the Monkey God… [and] before it was a place of sacrifice.” There
were also two other “colossal” images: one of a
frog, the other of a crocodile.
Stories also abound about a monkey who had “stolen three women with whom it bred.” The offspring of these unions were believed to be “half-man and half-spirit,” and were called Urus (“Sons of the Hairy Men”).
The Hindu god Hanuman is also a Monkey God. He has been
regarded as an avatar of Shiva, and is featured in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Hanuman’s great physical strength seems comparable to that of the Honduran Monkey God’s.
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ciudad_Blanca
Copyright March 4, 2015 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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