Native American Buddhists: Southwest women

Contributor Hendon Harris (Chinese Discover America, chinesediscoveramerica.com, Dec. 25, 2020) COMMENTARY; Xochitl, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Discovery of the Mississippi (William Henry Powell, 1823–1879) is a Romantic fantasy depiction of Spanish explorer de Soto's discovering the Mississippi River that hangs in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Were there ancient Native American Buddhists?

Hendon Harris III

The Puebloan cultures of the Southwestern United States are matriarchal societies. That is to say, women -- not men -- are the dominant sex/gender in charge of these cultures.

This is a longstanding historical fact, not a recent development. It has been this way for a very long time. A Buddhist missionary expedition that arrived from China and Afghanistan in the Four Corners [New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Arizona] for the first time in 458 CE encountered these Pueblo Indian cultures.

Space aliens? Hopi kachina dolls

Documented evidence of this exists in ancient Chinese imperial records from the 7th century CE. Among several attempts at written humor trying to make light of the culture these Buddhist missionaries found, they referred to the Southwest as "The Land of Women."

Those who documented the Pueblo Indians said that the cultures the imperial Chinese encountered in North America had little to no use for men for anything including having children.

Hopi woman in traditional dress (Wiki)

Women, who were dominant, became pregnant through the use of snakes. Mention of snakes is noteworthy because even today Hopi, a Pueblo tribe, have a great interest in snakes [reptilians, nagas] as evident in their Snake Dance Festival [like that of India], which is celebrated every two years.

President Theodore Roosevelt attended one of these festivals. In the 16th and 17th centuries imperial Spanish explorers came to this part of North America looking for El Dorado, "The Lost City of Gold."

They were never able to locate the gold mines that supplied the Americas, but they did describe a female-dominant culture living in the same region described by Chinese historians more than a thousand years earlier.

Spanish explorers in exaggerated communications with Spain described females from the Southwest as "Amazon women." These warrior princesses had no use for men, not even to get pregnant.

They were capable warriors, fierce and afraid of no one. These reports were turned into highly popular novels in Spain. The state name "California" is derived from the fictional Amazon Queen Cali [Kali?]

The "Island of California," circa 1650, depicted in popular European maps (wiki)

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Reports reaching Spain and the rest of Europe were quickly accepted as fact. Today Baja or Lower California is no longer thought of as an island but rather a peninsula in Mexico (Mesoamerica) connected to North America.

However, for a long time Baja California was shown on detailed European maps as an island even after it was shown to be a peninsula.

This is because the original reports by Spanish explorers said it was an island. This is mentioned because the same reports described Amazon women.

Embellished stories by male explorers from male-dominated European societies reveal something very important about the North American cultures through the centuries. They describe a matriarchal society, which they had neither seen, heard of, nor imagined.

The fact that both lacked any understanding of what a matriarchal culture is or how it functions does not mean they were making up these reports. It illustrates that they had little to no understanding of what they had encountered.

Native American Pueblo building looks strikingly like Tibetan Buddhist "Vatican" Potala Palace.

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Would it surprise anyone to find out that Native American Puebloans have continued to organize themselves as matriarchal societies to this day? They were this way when the first Buddhist expedition from Asia arrived in 458 CE.

They were when the Spanish arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries and they remain matriarchal to this day.

The Chinese called this the "Land of Women," the Spanish reported "Amazon women" as its rulers, and the Native American peoples of the Four Corners called it home, for the Puebloan tribes were the same people living in the same place as they had been for centuries [and millennia].

Cultural anthropology is the scientific field of study that examines matriarchal societies. And these facts demonstrate that two ancient sets of visitors described such a female-dominated culture existing here in peace.

These reports were from vastly different time periods, but they show that Chinese Buddhist clerics came to Fu Sang, arriving at what we now call North America.

• An Inglorious Columbus: or, Evidence that Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist [missionary] monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the 5th century A.D.
• chinesediscoveramerica.com