http://youtu.be/2kI-2g7VSJs

The Book of Mormon teaches derogatory stereotypes about American Indians - that they were bloodthirsty, evil, filthy, lazy, hunted beasts and dwelt in tents, wandering about the wilderness instead of being productive agriculturists. Mormons pray to convince themselves that the words in the Book of Mormon are true. Historical documents show the truth, that those racist LDS teachings are a lie.

Scriptures -

Enos 1:20-21

1 Nephi 13:14-15

2 Nephi 1:6-11, 5:24

Mormon 5:15

Ether 2:9-10, 13:2

Sources and Further Reading -

Explorations in the Dacota country, in the year 1855
https://archive.org/details/mobot31753003649420

Preliminary report of explorations in Nebraska and Dakota, in the years 1855-'56-'57
https://archive.org/details/preliminaryrepor03unit

Explorer on the Northern Plains
http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps106055/entire.pdf

United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 1980
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/448/371

Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851
https://archive.org/stream/compilationofall00unit#page/1048/mode/2up/

Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1868
https://archive.org/stream/compilationofall00unit#page/914/mode/2up/

Journal of the Expedition of the Chevalier de La Vérendrye and One of His Brothers to Reach the Western Sea, Addressed to M. the Marquis de Beauharnois, 1742-43
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/aj/id/7294

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791
http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/

Evolution, consequences and future of plant and animal domestication
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/pdf/nature01019.pdf

Understanding the Role that Humans Have Played in Shaping America's Forest and Grassland Landscapes: Is There a Landscape Archaeologist in the House?
http://fishwild.vt.edu/orth/pfwm/ereserve/understanding_the__role.pdf

American Indian Contributions to Science and Technology
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/mc-me/be-ai-sc.pdf

My favorite is the verse from Enos 1:20 (CAPS emphasis mine).

20 And I bear record that the people of Nephi did seek diligently to restore the Lamanites unto the true faith in God. But our labors were vain; their hatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them DID EAT NOTHING SAVE IT WAS RAW MEAT; and they were continually seeking to destroy us.


Raw meat? Really? Why would any semi-rational people WILLINGLY choose to eat NOTHING but raw meat. It is almost as if the Book of Mormon were written by a 12 year-old boy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 05:39PM by Facsimile 3.

A people with rampant scurvy and a bad case of laziness/hygiene was treated as a military threat? Really? These sound more like stereotypes and insults from the, um, author than an attempt at an accurate description of anything about the people in question. The Joseph Smith and the 19th century in this story are showing badly.

It wasn't original to Joseph Smith.

See "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton

"In America, in many places, their bread is roots, their meat palmitos, pinas, potatoes, &c. and such fruits. There be of them, too, that familiarly drink salt sea water, all their lives, eat raw meat, grass, and that with delight: with some, fish, serpents, spiders; and in divers places they eat mans flesh raw, and rosted, even the emperour Metazuma himself."
https://archive.org/stream/anatomyofmelanc01burt#page/110/mode/2up

The Book of Mormon contains ideas that were popular at the time of its writing.

Salt sea water? Amazing!


Excellent find, Tapirrider, and thanks for sharing.

At least it sounds like Burton wasn't insulting them...

Burton's book was first published in 1621 and was very popular with numerous reprints. He compiled his writings from many sources including early publications from the 16th century explorations of the Americas.

Many of those early writings about America were embellished and false like the drinking of sea water. It was quite common to fabricate stories for the travel writings of that time. Unfortunately, many people in the 19th century still believed those stories were true.

So here is another anachronism like the translation errors in King James passages that are duplicated in the Book of Mormon. The allegedly most correct book on earth makes claims that match up with false and embellished early writings about America.

The NW people; Haida and Tlingit, were a very well structured and cultured people.

With the abundance of food; Salmon,Crab,Deer,Seal,Birds,etc,they could easily lay up enough food for their long winters.

They were co-operative and built large 'lodges' to live in. They had Upper, Middle, and Lower class plus slaves to keep the fireplaces full of fuel and burning.

They had music, dancing, history, weaving, fine woodworking, and art. If they ever ate anything raw, it would have been Sushi, if they'd ever met the Japanese.

Their baskets and Chilkat blankets are sought after for their craftsmanship. The materials they use to weave them have to be smoke cured for a year to kill the microorganisms that can cause them to rot.

Gathering enough wool in the high mountains from the Mountain Goats and curing weaving fibers takes planning and organization.
Carving Totem poles and deciding which stories are going to be depicted on them takes planning.

Paint and dyes that last for decades are not a "primitive and wild people" product.

Erecting a Pole, or the hand tooled plank sided lodges, or making the dug out boats that can carry twenty men take a united community.

Joseph and his Mormons were not untypical of their times, they thought they were number one and could blissfully ignore all facts pointing to the opposite.

Maybe because they made them up.

A DNA study published just last year ties the peoples you mentioned to human remains dating back 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. They have lived continuously in the same region throughout the entire alleged periods of Adam, Noah, Jaradites, and Lehi.

http://phys.org/news/2013-07-mitochondrial-dna-ties-ancient-descendants.html

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0066948&representation=PDF

I was assigned to teach "Lamanites" on my mission. Though we told them the BoM was an ancient record of their people, we didn't mention they were the bad guys in the story -- evil, filthy, loathsome, lazy, etc.

Probably a Good Idea, Mutt ...

Depending upon How Cool they were, about it ...

They Might have Wound up The Bad Guys, in your Story, as Well!

Many indigenous peoples recognized that the term "Lamanite" is a pejorative. The church took notice and started calling them "children of Lehi". It is just another deception, an attempt to downplay the actual teachings in the Book of Mormon, that they are allegedly from the bad guys.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 07:44PM by Tapirrider.

I was the gospel doctrine teacher in a predominately Polynesian ward in Hawaii. One Sunday, a close Samoan friend of mine came up after class and asked me to explain what 2 Nephi 5:21 meant. Even as a TBM, I didn't give much credence to the racist cursing that TSCC spewed out, and as the gospel doctrine teacher, I always managed to conveniently leave out those verses in the lesson. Now, here was my friend, seemingly reading this for the first time, asking me what it meant. I prefaced my response with a very sincere explanation that I did not believe what I was about to tell her. I have no idea how missionaries to South America and the Pacific could look their converts in the eye and spew out this crap. I knew then and there that there was no way I could keep up the charade.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 10:55PM by braindead.

.....the LDS church may be forced by political correctness to disavow the "Lamanite curse" as they have the "curse of Cain." But that, of course, would destroy the basic premise of the BOM.

The church has considered Pacific Islanders more blessed than American Indians. Hagoth allegedly transported Nephites into the Pacific, so Polynesians are not the same as the evil Lamanites in the Americas. The First Presidency said this in 1911 -

“The Lord … directed their course away from this continent [America] to their [the Polynesian ancestors’] island homes, that they might not be left to be preyed upon and destroyed by the more wicked part of the House of Israel whose descendants still roam upon this continent in a fallen and degraded state."
https://www.lds.org/new-era/1981/06/maori-traditions-and-the-mormon-church?lang=eng